Preparing for our first competition seminar

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Sara Ikävalko in City of Lahti - Building Personable Places, Posts in English with no comments just yet

The May Day week has passed by really quickly.

On Wednesday there was an open house day at Rauhankatu. We had on display images and scale models produced during our workshops, as well as coffee and good company. But not too many people showed up.

Well, the reason for this is clear. Marketing for the day was almost non-existent. Now I’ve learned that it really is not enough that we advertise at our own website and on the office windows. I never quite got to know whether the advert made it to the city’s web pages. Anyway, it was very quiet. A Couple of families with children came and one Turkish man, who was lost.

From this I will definitely learn something for the next time!

On 28^th May we have the first seminar of the Radanvarsi competition so I have been preparing for that. The programme is shaping up to look like this:

8:30 am Morning coffee

9:15 am WDC 2012 greeting

9:30 am Participatory city planning and citizens thoughts about the region (I and hopefully some of the citizens would say a few words)

10:00 am Radanvarsi-Idea Contest introduction

10:15 am Question time. Open discussion and questions

12:00 Lunch (at one’s own expence)

13:00 pm Coach tours at the Radanvarsi-area

What do think about this?

Next week we’ll begin advertising the seminar very actively. Information is going to SAFA, universities, architecture offices and to the public via radio and press.

Thursday morning at 4.00 am (!!) I took off towards Helsinki. I visited channel YLE 5 to be on the Min Morgon broadcast where I talked about the WDC year in Lahti and our Radanvarsi project. It was very exciting experience but I do not know how it really went. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous!

They had asked me to bring a model made by children, which you can see in the still frame above. It was a challenge to remember my Swedish language skills, but I think it came off OK. Also to my surprise the questions asked were totally different from those we were told beforehand, but no matter it was still a good discussion. Let’s sail against the wind!

After the broadcast I drove off back to Lahti to participate in a meeting at the department of land use. To my astonishment I was given the last hour of the two-hour meeting. I gave a short presentation about participatory town planning and about what and how I have been working with during these last few months. Although it came as a surprise, I was lucky to have a presentation that I had prepared earlier. It was once again very useful to tell about co-design and about the great effects it can have within the community.

After the presentation there was a great deal of discussion which is always nice. I really got the impression that people had been listening to what I had to say and were beginning to appreciate the participatory approach. Today also some people have approached me to discuss about the subject of the presentation. Nice!

Today on Friday we went through the things I have done with Anne. I have also been working on new blog texts to the website. Now even a first visitor has written a story of what has been going on at the nursery during the year of WDC and there are already six pages of comments.

Seeing as it’s spring in Finland now, I’ll be spending my weekend doing some boat maintenance. Have a good one!

Workshops with Diamonds and Kids

Posted on Apr 30, 2012 by Sara Ikävalko in City of Lahti - Building Personable Places, Posts in English with no comments just yet

This week I have been working on two workshops. The pictures can speak for themselves.

Idea team kick-off at our Rauhankatu working space

On Tuesday the so called “diamond team” gathered together. It takes always a surprising amount of time to prepare for a workshop, even after doing itso many times before.

The discussion was alive and versatile. This team will meet several times during the year. By June they will build a scale model with compiled with expectations from citizens regarding the area.

The idea team is made of citizens of Lahti having different personalities and backgrounds. The development of Radanvarsi is considered important and participants have very deep ideas about the area.

Discussion was triggered by a travel center planned in connection to railway station. The idea of a travel center was good, but the proposed location planned by city of Lahti was considered weak. Instead of at the railway station, the travel center could be located in where the post office is, enabling better connections between different neighborhoods. One idea was a tunnel below radio hill so that traffic could be directed away from the core.

Bringing security and services close to residential centers was highlighted. Old buildings must be kept and in the future, curved streets as well as colorful and interesting buildings were desired, as well as a well-groomed park and free passages. Many more ideas came, too many to share here, but I’ll try to share them slowly.

Although team members do not know each other before, the team spirit was good. Everyone expressed themselves, some more than others.

I assembled probes for everyone before the workshop. The Lahti WDC file consists of a competition programme, an invitation to the team, leaflets about city happenings and a WDC pin. There is also a diary where participants can draw and write their ideas and thoughts between meetings.

An old textile manufacturer from Lahti donated these Lahti-marks from 70s’ picturing Lahti’s silhouette.

Workshop in Satakieli (nightingale) playschool on April 25

This time it was the children who started the construction job. In previous times we surveyed good and bad things and dreamed for the future. In this city workshop we walked downtown and familiarized ourselves with many different elements of the urban setting by using the senses. On the basis of this, the kids started planning the neighborhood of their dreams.

Left: All thoughts and ideas were collected on the wall and work continues on the basis of these dreams. Right: According to one participant, in a happy city there is white snow and a Ferris wheel with a great view. There are also colorful houses and birdhouses.

Left: Horizontally in the middle was a railway track and vertically the street Uudenmaankatu. On the basis of previous dreaming every child built the neighborhood on their dreams. Right: My husband Pancho cut more than 300 building blocks made of MDF. Several pieces of different design were available and each child could pick what they liked the best. As you see, my whole family is involved in this project!

Left: Children from Satakieli play school choosing suitable materials to neighborhoods of their dreams. right: Very soon neighborhoods started forming alongside Brio track.

People of all ages live there and some animals have even own houses. In this tower block there is a library on the ground floor and elderly people with their pets live on the second floor. Fathers, mothers and children are living on third floor and big sisters on the upper layer. ”This project was exciting!” one of the children whooped. Staff of playschool was surprised how well children could concentrate on the project during the two hours. Young and innovative city planners. Children are skillful in telling imaginative stories and they can easily place themselves in these adventures.

Creative innovation and communication are born when there is a supporting atmosphere, suitable materials, and new connections. To paraphrase children, a happy city is made of lot of people living close to each other. “So close that one can shout over there”, one child pointed with her finger from one house to another.

Their ideal city has sidewalks and walking streets made of cobblestones. Here are big grounds where one can play and run. “My neighborhood is entered through a gate! This tower is church. My family lives in that small house”, one of the girls points out. “This is a radio tower where one can climb and spy on people”.

The children were also surprisingly articulate about discussing public services and commercial activities needed. There was a library, a senior house, a hospital, a church, several shopping centers and smaller shops (including a pet shop). The children determined very precisely in which building each of the citizens live, but in some houses only had animals as inhabitants.

Next time we will continue more precisely on the environment and fairways!

Next Wednesday Lahti is having “market day” and I will be in Rauhankatu working space where the doors are open to all interested citizens. On Thursday I shall present the project in YLE5 and in the Min Morgon–TV show. How exciting!

Hyvää Vappua to everyone!

Elder thoughts in Lahti

Posted on Apr 24, 2012 by Sara Ikävalko in City of Lahti - Building Personable Places, Posts in English with no comments just yet

During the first three months I have been meeting citizens in idea brainstorming sessions. All together I have met around 80 people who have been involved in these sessions. Next I will concentrate on working with idea teams that are comprised of people from these previous sessions. We will be working through different roles and this effort continues throughout the year.

This week I gave a lecture at the design foundation in Lahti. The subject was user-centered interaction in the urban planning process. The only way to do this for real is to meet face to face with different kind of users and stakeholders. Only through meetings is there a possibility to have creative innovation and interaction.

The highlight of the week were the workshops, especially with seniors living at the Radanpää senior house near the railroad tracks. So many seniors participated (15) that I had to change my working plan. Instead of painting our dreams, a live group discussion was born and will become the basis for future work.

From the perspective of senior citizens the closeness of basic services is necessary so that moving around is easy; shops, pharmacy, and other services have to be within 200 meters or they are difficult to use. They also wished to have a park nearby suitable for activities such as sports, meeting people, and having a snack or a meal. But they also dreamed big: discussing a funicular or gondola that stretches across the hilly city of Lahti so that all of its services would be available to everyone. Other dreams: elevators to outer space, colorful houses, and urban agriculture possibilities.

The seniors I met were highly motivated and grateful for the opportunity to participate in this work, but they also wondered what could happen sooner rather than later. With the plans that will come out of this set to be realized in 2025, some of the seniors were interested in what small things could be done without major structural changes. In summer we could already try to organize a small corner where seniors could experiment with their interest in urban agriculture.

The rest of the week I spent in Otaniemi and Helsinki. In Otaniemi at the department of architecture I handed out material and information about the Radanvarsi project XXX. And friday morning I participated in a WDC event in Jätkäsaari that focused on the role of city planning and architecture in the transformation of cities. I spoke about my ongoing work to enhance citizen participation in the Radanvarsi project and there were discussions about cultural change, future needs, and means of engaging citizens.

In the afternoon I visited Sitra. Thanks to Dan for a training session about video editing, and nice to talk and share ideas with Marco and Johanna!