Tag: Urbanism
-
Finland’s Energy Efficiency Boom Good for the Climate, but Trouble for Cities
In recent years, energy efficiency has been probably the most discussed issue within the urban development sphere here in Finland. The topic generally crosses all levels of planning and is present to a greater or lesser extent in all planning initiatives. I’m guessing the situation is similar in most European countries with the 2010 passing…
-
Helsinki’s ‘Daughter of the Baltic Sea’ Brand Needs a Ljubljana-Style Reboot
“No nation can escape its geography” said Percy Spender, the Australian Minister for External Affairs back in 1950. He was talking about the need to reinvent Australia’s relationship towards Asia to make the most out of the nation’s factual geographical position and not see itself only as belonging to the circuits of the old British…
-
Ten Reasons why Helsinki Needs Do-It-Yourself Urban Planning
Practice what you preach, they say. As of late 2013 and early 2014 I’m excited to reveal that this is exactly what I’ve been doing. Helsinki’s City Planning Department is in the process of expanding the city into a 5.5 hectare piece of land on the northern edge of a neighborhood called Pikku Huopalahti that…
-
Design First or Last? A Fork in the Road for Helsinki’s New City Plan
In a couple of my previous posts, I’ve stressed my amazement with the quick change in attitude among Helsinki’s urban planners. The message from the planning authorities is that they have chosen to increasingly question the conventional modernist planning ideology and are now actively seeking to add elements of a more urbanist approach to Helsinki’s…
-
Help Cure Finland’s Mall Fever
A couple of months ago I attended a seminar for planning-oriented geographers and the event has kept on circulating in my thoughts because of one comment in particular. During the discussion section, one of the speakers, Marketta Kyttä, was asked what in her opinion will most likely stand out as the most bizarre legacy of…
-
Urban Helsinki Versus the Building and Construction Industry
Many urbanists here in Helsinki have recently needed to double-check whether they’re dreaming or really wide awake. This is because last month Helsinki’s City Planning Department published new documentation on what the city will look like in 2050 and what are the basic pillars of the new city plan. Amazingly, the grand visions that have…
-
Insights into Townhouse Development in Helsinki and Stockholm
Back in the winter of 2012 I wrote about Helsinki’s interests towards introducing townhouses as a new housing concept. The topic is interesting, because the townhouse building type doesn’t have a history in Helsinki like it does in Central and Western Europe. Despite grand visions, only a few developments labeled as townhouses have been built…
-
A Note on the Finnish Municipality Reform Project
One of my classes in Brussels dealt with looking into Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems approach. The message was to encourage into analyzing Europe and the world without our nation-state glasses on but instead holistically as one giant system. This path ultimately leads to discussions on issues that swirl around the word “globalization”. At the end of…
-
Finland Goes Back to the Future with Wooden Construction
In the past two months I’ve worked with organizing two big seminars on wooden construction in Finland with minister-level attendance. Speakers ranging from governmental institutions and city-planners to the lumber industry unanimously established that wood is the way of the future. Due to tightening carbon emission regulations, wooden construction is now being promoted as an…
-
Depaving the ‘Stroads’ to Hell
The way we typically arrange things in cities today is based on a culture of automobility. Over the yeas, the planning profession has little by little accommodated the needs of our motorized companion in the built environment and up to a point where it’s not clear anymore whether it’s people or cars who get the…