Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

Outcomes Summary73Based on these meta-themes the Studio proposed a set often ‘hunches’ targeting a variety of scales in space, from localto national, and in time, from immediate results to 100-yearreturn on investment.In no specific order:— War Cabinet of Mayors and Ministers: Bring togethernational and local decision makers in a war on carbon.— Zero-Energy Homes for Key Gatekeepers: Enlistinfluential citizens from politics, business, sports andculture to lead the transition away from carbon.— Cross-Finance Renewable Energy: Fund expansion ofrenewable sources through taxes levied on non-renewableenergy.— Densify Porously: Explore new city planning typologiesthat combine urban density with access to natureemulating the Finnish model (access to nature hasintrinsic cultural importance in Finland).— Emphasize Small-Scale Natural Areas: Let nature seepinto cities in small pockets too.— Adopt Mixed Use: Intensify the integration of living,working, shopping and leisure spaces to reduce travelneeds.— Invent Medium-Density Public Transport: enable thecreation of products andservices catering to publictransportation for mediumdensityenvironments.— Invent Cellular Infrastructure:Explore smart grids andother technologies to makelower density viable with asmaller carbon footprint.— Performance-based BuildingPermits & Audits: Integratedand holistic ’carbon budgets’should inform buildingdesign, permit processes andusage.— Integrate Urban Planning: Bring together qualityof life, economics, density considerations, naturalresource strategy, mobility, energy, building performanceand land use to make more sophisticated planningdecisions, based on rich, real-time data.Each of the studio's ideas were described interms of their balance across scale, sector, andtimeline. The notion of 'waves' of change wasintroduced to offer a pragmatic way to handlethe extreme inertia in the built environment.There are many things which require decadesto come to fruition, but there are also actionsthat can be taken today. Both must be donein concert.