Stories

Phenomena

Phenomena — 1.1.2025

The Views Are What Really Matters

If the plans materialise, the new business district on Makasiiniranta will become part of Helsinki’s national landscape during the 2030s. Architect Mikko Summanen considers its design a “once in a lifetime” project.

Phenomena — 1.1.2025

Ode to a Work in Progress

Instead of clearly defined development projects, urban design should entail more continuous processes without predetermined end results. Ecosystem thinking offers guidelines for changing the focus.

Phenomena — 1.5.2024

Destination USA? – In Discussion with Ala Architects

Ala Architects has designed buildings throughout Europe, but so far none of their designs have made it to the United States. Why is that?

Phenomena — 1.5.2024

Finnish (Post)modernism?

The prominent names in Finnish architecture of the 1980s, Simo and Käpy Paavilainen, Jyrki Tasa, and Reijo Jallinoja, talk about what postmodernism meant to them at the time, and what it means today.

Phenomena — 1.3.2024

Arenas of Urban Development

Helsinki, Turku and Oulu are planning to build event arenas in central locations. In Tampere, an arena built above the railway has been in use for a good two years. What kind of cityscape is being constructed along these megaprojects?

Phenomena — 1.3.2024

Artwashing Demolition

Utilising to-be-demolished buildings for temporary art shows is becoming a formalized urban development practice. However, it disregards the potential of existing urban spaces and ignores the temporary use and artistic agency as vehicles for place-shaping.

Phenomena — 1.2.2024

A Pioneer of the Circular Economy

The warehouse of a former brewery in Berlin’s Neukölln district is now being used for work and living. The project named CRCLR House has been designed following the principles of circular economy.

Phenomena — 1.2.2024

Material Upheaval

If one must build new or repair, what are the best material choices in terms of natural resources and the carbon footprint?

Phenomena — 1.1.2024

From Industrial Romanticism to Office Romanticism

Could emptying office buildings be saved by an upward trend similar to that which industrial buildings saw during the last century?

Phenomena — 1.1.2024

Threat to Protected Buildings

Protected buildings should always be renovated preserving their distinctive features. Nowadays, more and more often, the proposed solution is demolition to make way for larger and more efficient spaces.

Phenomena — 1.5.2023

Tuned to Destruction?

Everyday tuning can help maintain and improve buildings, but in the worst cases it can even lead to the building having to be torn down.

Phenomena — 1.3.2023

Learning from Swedish Suburban Redevelopment

Immigrant entrepreneurs are often disregarded in the redevelopment of Finnish suburban neighbourhoods. Renewal projects in Sweden offer an example of a different approach.

Phenomena — 1.3.2023

Experts in Urbanism – Rap Music Echoes with the Experiences of Young Members of Minorities

Rap music echoes with the experiences of young members of minorities regarding their lives and living environments. Music linked to neighbourhoods may open up a local perspective on urban planning – provided that the planners recognize the potential to be found within the rap scene.

Phenomena — 1.3.2023

Forgotten Vision of Helsinki City

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Helsinki city centre became a utopian, American-inspired downtown. Now the buildings from that era are under threat of demolition.

Phenomena — 1.2.2023

Architecture of Care in a Welfare State

A child receives a triple vaccine in a health care clinic in Kuusamo in 1961. Photo: Finnish Heritage Agency Finns have alternately built and dismantled the welfare state, depending on political power relations.