Designing for wellbeing

6
Design studio
in the field
Katja Soini & Heidi Paavilainen
The city of Helsinki 1 had worked on suburban development
for decades, applying a range of tools and
methods. In spite of this we saw an opportunity to
revolutionise suburban development. We believed
that future suburbs could be a key attraction in Helsinki
and, in our bold vision, wellbeing in Helsinki
suburbs could be so deeply satisfying that it would
draw people to Helsinki and drive the cultural and
financial growth of the whole metropolitan area 2 .
1 Our project partner was the city of Helsinki and its Neighbourhood Project.
See http://lahioprojekti.hel.fi/en
2 The vision described Helsinki as a so-called “alpha + global city” due to certain global
developments (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city). The vision included, for
instance, industrial innovations (“ridding technologies”) and excellence (Helsinki will
have prospering biotechnology and marine industries), pedagogical innovations (Helsinki
will learn how to domesticate immigrants) – all of these making it possible for Helsinki to
attract and benefit from people moving to Finland due to, for example, climate warming.
As such, the vision provided working grounds for the students to focus on a positive future.
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