The end of November is approaching in Helsinki and our urban garden is still green – at least partly. It looks like the poor fava beans are mistaken there’ll be another summer ahead, as they have just started blossoming again. Last year at this time a thick layer of snow was already covering our city. (more…)
Category Archives: Sustainability
THE EXTENDED SUMMER
Also posted in Community, DIY, Helsinki Beyond Dreams, Participation, Slow, Unfinished City Tagged Helsinki Leave a comment
JUGAAD – PRACTICE OF MAKING DO
Jugaad canopy by Sanjeev Shankar. Photograph by Sundeep Bali
Recently, I have been collecting information about low-resource innovations in developing countries. During my stay in New York, I ran across a very insightful exhibition at the AIA center for architecture: “Jugaad Urbanism”. The show presents creative strategies of making do - solutions to survival with a lack of resources by people living in the big cities of India. (more…)
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ARCHITECTURAL SURGERY
Haus 6 in Leinefelde - after the transformation
Haus 6 - before the transformation
The latest issue of Mark magazine features a very interesting article about ingenious transformation of social housing blocks, many of them in the town of Leinefelde in former East Germany. Architect Stefan Forster has dedicated about ten years to developing creative ideas on how to totally rebuild the architecture of poorly performing pre-fab concrete housing blocks – which are an increasingly greater problem in many countries throughout Europe. Having just a week ago read in Helsingin Sanomat about the plans to demolish two housing blocks in the northern Helsinki suburb of Jakomäki, makes one curious about the other potential alternatives to demolition. (more…)
WINTER AT THE HIGH LINE
During the early 2011, Urban Dream Management has been busy exploring and writing less. In February, I had the chance to spend a month flâneuring the streets of New York, where spring was making its first attempts to beat the cold weather.
Among the first things on my list in New York, was a long-anticipated visit to the High Line, a public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards in Manhattan. I saw the park in its quiet, snow-covered winter mood and returned there on a sunny afternoon at the end of the month, when it was packed with people spending their weekend. The park design features an integrated landscape, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Field Operations. It combines meandering concrete pathways with naturalistic plantings that draws its inspiration from the beauty of the original biodiversity that took over after the railroad fell into a ruin. (more…)
Also posted in Brief Notes from New York, Community, Rethinking Design, Slow, Unfinished City Tagged Helsinki, New York Leave a comment
WE WANT TO RIDE OUR BICYCLES
From the 'Open Helsinki Bicycles' workshop by Pelago and Urban Dream Management
There has recently been a lot of talk about cycling in Helsinki. On the last weekend of September, at the Megapolis event organised by the NGO Dodo, we had the chance to listen to inspiring examples from Copenhagen. At the same time, Dodo published an initiative claiming that Helsinki should promote its citizens’ well being with a bicycling program. Definitely a good target for our coming year as World Design Capital 2012. In Helsinki, only 6% ride bikes, whereas in Oulu the number is 20, and in central Copenhagen over half of the people cycle daily. It is clear that there is a lot of untapped potential that cycling could offer for Helsinki, both from the perspective of inhabitants, business and visitors.
Before the Megapolis event, a friend of mine happened to introduce me to one of the keynote speakers, Danish bicycle ambassador Mikael Colville-Andersen, who had just been on a bicycle ride around the Kalasatama harbour. We had a cup of coffee and an interesting discussion about urban cultures and bicycles. (more…)