Clues to Open Helsinki

These 'postcards from the future' were written in 2010 as a first pass at developing ideas for World Design Capital 2012. Some of the themes here are now being developed by Sitra and others.
Hello from Helsinki 2012,

This site features a set of postcards that feature clues to an open and happier Helsinki. As a collaboration between Sitra and OK Do, Clues to Open Helsinki is a bundle of hints about what might make Helsinki the best World Design Capital to date, and in doing so redefines the role of design in the contemporary city.

Helsinki has shown the world what design means in 2012—and you had a starring role! To make our city the best design capital in the world required active involvement and commitment from many people, some of whom didn’t consider themselves designers at all. So who did make this happen? Designers, sure, but also farmers, industrialists, lawyers, bankers, restauranteurs, accountants, and politicians. Have you ever thought about the decisions you make as acts of design?

From the vantage of the future, WDC2012 has surely been an economic driver for the city, but it also gave Helsinki an opportunity to test out new ideas about how the city itself operates. This was essential in aligning economic activity with quality of life and real innovation in urban living. All were considered in concert to develop a harmonious municipal platform for transformation.

2012 was the year that structural tools such as laws, taxes, permits, leases, financing, and metrics became part of the global design discourse, following the successful example set by Helsinki. The high and ever-evolving quality of life in our capital will serve as a lasting testament to the fact that Helsinki gave birth to this strategic use of design.

Best wishes from the future,

Sitra & OK Do

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By: Bryan Boyer, Sitra and Anni Puolakka & Jenna Sutela, OK Do

Illustrations: Nene Tsuboi

Graphic design: Anna Mikkola

Photography (on cards): Hertta Kiiski

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Thank you: Simo Vassinen for starting the project with us. Adam Greenfield and Nurri Kim of Do Projects, Hella Hernberg, Sasha Huber, Kaarle Hurtig, Johanna Hyrkäs, Martti Kalliala,Tiina Latva, Sanna Mander, Tuula Pöyhönen, Petri Saarikko and Martti Tulenheimo for great ideas.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Tailor-Made Municipal Services

Helsinki is offering tailor-made municipal services in 2012, after looking back to programmes such as the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare popular in the 1930s. Equality is a strong and important value in Finland, but not everyone has the same needs. Focusing on equality of accessibility and outcomes rather than making sure everyone gets the exact same service helps each resident of Helsinki get just what they need.

How is the usefulness of city services measured? Using end-user surveys as a metric for the success of services is one key way to put the focus on successful outcomes. To make this a workable model, city officials must be empowered to adapt and adjust their protocols as needed, so long as they do it towards the goal of fulfilling their duties. Through a new design-exchange program, strategic designers now working within city departments are able to help identify and develop new ways to serve Helsinki.

2012 update: Sitra is now exploring a variation on this idea through the Design Exchange Programme.
Future Finns

Helsinki has been putting an extra effort into showing a welcoming attitude towards immigrants. Investing in newcomers helps a new generation of ‘Future Finns’ to settle down more easily in Helsinki. This brings a diversity of culture, international references, new ways of thinking and skills to our city – not to mention growth!

This is a question of not just “what,” but “what exactly?” Finland already has tons of information available for immigrants, but how easy is it to navigate this complex task when arriving to a new country? The Refugee Hospitality Club Punavuori (RHCP) shows one successful example of why focusing on “what exactly” really matters. By directly engaging with their audience to discover what their needs are, then providing information that is specific and targeted, the RHCP helps newcomers settle in more quickly, easily and happily.
Sharing Cultures by Sharing Meals

The number of international restaurants has increased by 14% between 2010 and 2012. At the moment, a new Vietnamese restaurant and Helsinki’s first Brazilian coffee shop are competing for the title of the most popular casual restaurant in the city. With the help of some good recipes from overseas, the new VEGE DAY at Helsinki schools has become one of the more popular lunch options. Food has become a safe first step towards increasing Helsinki’s multiculturalism: sharing meals with and from other cultures has opened news doors of understanding.

A special tax credit is created for ethnic restaurants that are the first of their kind in Helsinki. The menus of the central kitchens for schools, hospitals and senior houses are encouraged to become increasingly based on local and seasonal ingredients.
A City of All Shapes and Sizes

In 2012, the city is built from the bottom up. There is more variation in the urban pattern: townhouses, bigger complexes, new and old buildings next to each other. Helsinki is more dense and interesting because of it. Communal housing is becoming popular and people increasingly combine living and working under the same roof.

Re-thinking urban planning, management and land use policy has given more freedom for individual builders, opening up the city plan to both commercial and social interests. The valuable original characters of places are preserved while people create new layers to the city, mixing new and old.

Instead of planning too much before things get built, the city demonstrates flexibility and tests ideas before carrying out big plans. A lotting system could be introduced to distribute the urban spaces for businesses and other organisations. Communality in ownership and bottom-up approaches to planning encourage a richer city.
Katu Mayors

There are already 10-20 neighbourhood trusts around Helsinki, each of which was created with the help of a small seed fund from the city. Katu Mayors live in the neighbourhood and are elected by their peers. The Katu Mayors participate in city-level planning decisions relevant to the neighbourhood and ensure that the voices of the residents and local businesses are well represented, breathing diversity into the city. By assigning a mayor for streets and areas, they can be developed and densified over time and through experience. Streets now have more distinct personalities.

The champions and local trustees are supported by grants and permits which allow them to manage the environment, services and facilities in the area in co-operation with the residents and business owners.
Winter Holidays

In 2012, the unique seasonal circumstances of Helsinki are cherished through moving part of the holiday from summer to winter. Today, people stay in the city for most of the summer, making it more active, enjoyable as well as attractive for tourists. The value in cold and short Helsinki days will be discovered through encouraging interaction between people in the winter, too.

The winter sports facilities, saunas and seasonal events in the metropolitan area will be enhanced and promoted for both the locals and the tourists. Could there be more public fireplaces in Helsinki?
The 80cm City

Nowadays, Helsinki is more fun because it’s designed from many different perspectives. Children and free-spirited seniors are taken into better consideration by encouraging the creation of ‘living rooms’ in the city, places that are comfortable to spend time in without necessarily doling out much money. Even in the winter, when parks are not in use, people have free places to hang out.

Wouldn’t a winter garden be a nice place to while – and play – away the days? Developing programmes for these living rooms makes it more natural for different age groups to interact. A combination of games, seating, plants, and nearby cafés make these spaces truly livable. Advocacy for many different kinds of citizens within the planning process enables the creation of more robust design briefs.
Village People

Just because cities are busier and bigger than villages doesn’t mean we have to lose the personal relationships that make us nostalgic for a slower life. Building on work that began in 2010, the city of Helsinki is now recognised for the feeling of unity in its neighbourhoods and streets. It is easy to hang out with people of different ages and backgrounds.

People exchange favours, developing ways to communicate and match each others interests and skills; shopkeepers call the relatives if elderly regulars don’t show up for many days, neighbours take turns in babysitting, language lessons are given over dinners and bicycles are fixed in exchange for hand made woolen socks. Government resources are saved when individuals take more care of each other.

The city could campaign for ‘neighbourhood projects’ and encourage co-operation between, for example, shopkeepers and elderly people. Businesses that are elderly or child friendly could be awarded with annual prizes.
Urbane Industry

Few places have a craft legacy as strong as Finland. In 2012 the local talents have been saved from the brink of extinction through city programmes to encourage and foster small scale industry right in the heart of the city. Multicultural skills and methods merge in the new collaborations accomplished between designers and manufacturers working closely together. New ideas and job opportunities are born – having this growth in the center of the city adds a new spirit of creation to Helsinki.

How could zoning exceptions allow small scale manufacturing to move into the city center? Ground floor spaces on courtyards make logistics especially easy and add a new dimension to these underutilised spaces. Special incentives are offered for shops which manufacture and sell their goods in the same space.
Helseanki

There’s a lot of seashore – let’s put it to use! In the summer of 2012, people in Helsinki gather for picnics on the many carpet washing docks in the city, live in floating houses and enjoy the breeze on the decks of restaurant boats. Connected with the sea, people are increasingly motivated to care for it. The shore is a great place to experiment with new activities and businesses, which is why it was designed as a micro ‘special economic zone’ in 2012.

The city encouraged seaside business owners to form the fully-independent Seaside Business Development Alliance. As a sign of good will, the city offered to match-fund an open bid for new businesses in two categories: food-related and non-food services. Winners were given immediate permitting (having been already vetted by the competition). In the future, the city planning office has agreed to involve the Seaside Business Development Alliance in oceanfront planning decisions.
Special Activities for a Special City

Helsinki now accommodates a broader range of public activities. Instead of focusing on the best art museum or amusement park in the world, Helsinki invested in smaller scale public initiatives such as mushroom outings in Central Park or night markets. The city put emphasis on special things that can only happen in Finland and encouraged them everywhere – not only in Narinkkatori! These events and activities help fold international visitors and immigrants into the Finnish culture, but they also offer an opportunity for residents of different neighbourhoods to experience their city anew.

Offering event organisers the possibility of negotiating additional public transit would allow events to occur in unlikely places and still be busy. And what about a forum for suggesting completely new kinds of public events?
Working Together

Helsinki’s freelancers are flourishing in 2012 thanks to a new variety of “third place” venues, mostly cafés that support working. These are neither home nor traditional office, but offer a more casual environment which can flow easily from socialising to working. With that kind of flexibility these spaces don’t become dead zones after hours and on weekends. In the summer they spill outside onto terraces or into the park thanks to WiFi.

By making it easier for freelancers to meet up, cross-fertilisation and collaboration have increased in 2012, not only between residents of Helsinki but also those who stop by for a visit. For that reason, it’s important to concentrate these spaces in the heart of the city.
Tunnels Are Places Too

Tunnels and interior passage ways are important elements of daily life in a cold climate, but that doesn’t mean they have to be non-places. These days our tunnels are brought to life by encouraging people to use them for recreational activities, especially in winter.

Providing free space for different grassroots initiatives in the heart of Helsinki contributes to the development of the city, making it thrive through shared efforts and responsibility – and the courage to experiment with the use of public space. These spontaneous gatherings not only support the discovery and utilisation of unused spaces and areas but also increase the sense of safety in the city.

Let’s find out what can happen in these small places!
1. An inventory of city-owned spaces and disused corners smaller than 30 sqm is published.
2. Suggestions for the usages of these spaces are collected in an open competition.
3. Small grants are provided to support the most interesting initiatives. Enablers such as lighting, sound systems and heating are offered by the city.
How Big Is Your Footprint?

The Helsinki of 2012 provides citizens with easy and interesting-to-use tools to understand and control their carbon footprint. Working together with designers, artists and engineers to create ways to see and understand this aspect of daily life, Helsinki helped build carbon awareness to position itself as a leading city in the global race towards carbon neutrality.

What would happen if Helsinki’s many digital displays – on the street and in busses – were turned into a massive sensing network which offers realtime, visually compelling statistics depicting Helsinki’s carbon output? Or what if Helsinki becomes the first city in the world to require products to be clearly labelled with their carbon footprint?
From a Green City to a City of Many Greens

By the year 2012 Helsinki’s gorgeous, vast parks have been complemented by small scale areas of respite throughout the city. Some are so small that they’re just a bench and a single tree. These gardens and parks offer a resting point for people with lowered mobility, increase the variety of the streetscape, and provide space for communal vegetable gardens right in the city center.

How to get there: A crowd-sourced survey of the city’s parks, including their size and location within the city, allows the drafting of urban planning policy that mandates new green areas of a variety of sizes. Meanwhile, the city offers free park furniture to any group of at least four neighbours who sign an agreement to take care of their courtyard park for at least twelve months.
A Taste for Waste

Helsinki has had a recycling programme for many years, but we’re not doing very well compared to other capitals. Starting in 2011 the city decided to stop hiding its waste. Instead, composting and recycling were brought into public discourse by creating links between consumption and disposal. Helsinki moved the conversation from tiny monetary incentives to a meaningful discussion about civic duty.

Could a little friendly competitive spirit between neighbourhoods help inspire higher recycling participation rates? What would happen if the Public Works Department spent one year using only domestic compost to fertilise the city parks and plantings? Student competitions centered around waste disposal vessels, waste collection and waste processing would offer a source of new ideas while also building early awareness in the minds of Helsinki’s future.