| On Sunday 14.12.2009 active members of Dodo, a Finnish urban environmental organisation, participated in a Future City Game simulation. Dodo has for many years had a working group that focuses on urban planning, so it was easy to find interested and expert participants for the game simulation. The event had two aims: first, a shortened FCG session focusing on the Suvilahti area of Helsinki (a site of disused industrial buildings whose environs are to be developed in the near future). After the session, the participants discussed the game and its potential is for empowering ordinary city residents.
Suvilahti is becoming a valuable cultural centre in Helsinki, offering new activities to inhabitants. A working group that convened last autumn suggested that the area should become a "cultural oasis" for the eastern part of central Helsinki; a counterpart to the Cable Factory arts complex located in the west of Helsinki. In addition, dwellings for 18,000 people are to be built in the area which will also host 10,000 new jobs, so in the future Suvilahti will be in the middle of a significant new urban district.
In spite of the shorter than normal game duration, the players generated three ideas for the development of Suvilahti. One of these concentrated on the commercialisation of future cultural activity in the area and on the design of light traffic routes. Another focused on a novel conceptualisation of living, free-time, and work. The winner of the game session was the proposal of the third group, the "Studio-hostel". The aim of this pragmatically orientated proposal was to aid interaction between workers in the cultural sector with other people. The Studio-hostel would contain short-term accommodation facilities and a restaurant alongside artists' studios and exhibition spaces, which together would provide opportunities for different types of people to interact and reap synergy benefits. This concrete and interesting proposal was crowned by a creative finger-puppet show, which was an entertaining way of illustrating such an idea.
Please contact Kata Kreft-Burman for further information about the Creative Cities project in Finland.
Kata Kreft-Burman
Projects and Partnerships Manager
Tel. +358 9 7743 3320
first.last@britishcouncil.fi
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