Speaker
Description
Since the beginning of the 21st century the world has witnessed numerous global and local events that have led humanity back to hoping for more just and peaceful futures. Urban planning systems hold the potential to support such hope, with the anticipation of transforming lives, and the willingness to act towards realising such future visions. Particularly public spaces have a distinctive role within planning. They can be spaces at the intersection of human-nature relations, which are inclusive of other species within human habitats. Locally, they can mitigate unforeseen climate-related challenges. Public spaces are also spaces for wellbeing, and social integration (leBrasseur, 2022; Madanipour, 2020). However, experimentation for the transformative planning of public spaces is both limited and limiting our understanding of this process’s role in meeting our hope for just and peaceful spaces.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, experimentation with public spaces has led some cities to transform their spaces, while others reverted to the previous state (Deas et al., 2021; Law et al., 2021). Either way, one lesson learned was that these experiments have the potential to succeed when collaboration among various stakeholders is supported. This paper examines the case of one summer park in Helsinki, Finland with the purpose of learning from this process, which has led to transforming a vacant, brownfield site to a lively, inclusive space in the middle of the city.
The paper proposes a framework that combines concepts of urban experimentation, wellbeing, climate actions, and social inclusion in exploring public spaces. Specifically, Finland is a country that has promoted experimentation in relation to urban planning, thus enabling the investigation of opportunities and challenges of this process within the spectrum of temporary public spaces, DIY and placemaking (Lino & Åkerman, 2022; Mokkila, 2022). Furthermore, the role of green spaces in promoting health and wellbeing and the importance of exposure to nature in cities posit possibility for further investigation (Ojala et al., 2019). Moreover, the role of public green spaces in terms of responding to climate change challenges, like extreme weather conditions, like temperature or rainfall, requires immediate attention (Vukmirovic et al., 2020).
The case of Töölö park in Helsinki provides insights into ways of engaging residents and other stakeholders for long-term decisions in public space planning. This case started in 2015, with plans for the revitalisation of the polluted Töölö bay area. The park process started in 2023 with a resident survey, workshops with several stakeholders, phased implementation of experimental spaces, and anticipated completion by the end of 2025. The design implementation considered the definition of different areas within the park, amenities, and vegetation to provide activities for all ages and interest profiles. The research is based on analysing available academic and grey literature. Also, participant observation since early 2024 focused on experiencing the spatio-temporal uses in the park, level of crowding, and favourite spots.
The passage of time or transition from short to long-term becomes a method in the planning and design processes, which supports human and nature integration in the city, while considering seasonal and climatic variations. It also emphasises the importance of monitoring and adjustment, in which people programme spaces based on preferences, while leaving other open to unexplored uses. This research serves to identify factors and obstacles to successful implementation of this approach, and its transferability to other contexts for upgrading areas, increasing the connection to nature, and rethinking possibilities for defining what urban parks could be. It provides a basis for exploring similar initiatives in other climatic regions towards realising the hope for resilient public spaces.
References
Deas, I., Martin, M. and Hincks, S., 2021. Temporary urban uses in response to COVID-19: bolstering resilience via short-term experimental solutions. Town Planning Review, 92(1), pp.81-88.
Law, L., Azzali, S. and Conejos, S., 2021. Planning for the temporary: temporary urbanism and public space in a time of COVID-19. Town Planning Review, 92(1), pp.65-73.
leBrasseur, R., 2022. Linking human wellbeing and urban greenspaces: Applying the SoftGIS tool for analyzing human wellbeing interaction in Helsinki, Finland. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10, p.950894.
Lino, H. and Åkerman, M., 2022. The politics of making Finland an experimenting nation. Critical Policy Studies, 16(4), pp.441-459.
Madanipour, A., 2020. Can the public space be a counterweight to social segregation?. In Handbook of Urban Segregation (pp. 170-184). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Mokkila, S., 2022. Low carbon with a splash of justice: Role of experimentation in the Finnish built environment.
Ojala, A., et al., 2019. Restorative effects of urban green environments and the role of urban-nature orientedness and noise sensitivity: A field experiment. Health & place, 55, pp.59-70.
Vukmirovic, M., Gavrilovic, S. and Stojanovic, D., 2019. The improvement of the comfort of public spaces as a local initiative in coping with climate change. Sustainability, 11(23), p.6546.
| Keywords | Helsinki, public space, hope, summer garden, transformation |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
