Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2016 | Page 15

From left to right Terhi Tikkanen-Lindström and Risto Jounila.
to make way for a better system from the
point of view of the citizens. Urban solutions
are, after all, what the people want,” he says.
Terhi Tikkanen-Lindström says that
zoning has often been too one-sided: urban
planning should encompass more than just
residential production. She feels that due to
cyclopean zoning policies, a considerable
chance has been missed:
“Urbanism can provide competitive
edge in a tough economy. So far, we have
not explored this opportunity in Finland.”

tors just like traffic capacity did in the 20th
century.
“Through city boulevards, the environment favoured by the new economy would
be significantly enhanced. Even more significant is the fact that these new economy
jobs will not arise in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area at all, if the boulevards are not
implemented,” says Holopainen.
Still, even as many things are changing
– even dramatically – some things stay the
same. Jorma Mäntynen feels that economy
and technology are the key drives in ushering in this new era, but for every action there
is a reaction of some kind:
“Attitudes take time to change, and so
do infrastructure and means of mobility such
as cars. This means that we can not only
look at what’s new or being developed right
this moment, but, instead, take full inventory of the existing resources and optimise
their proper use.”

Core Competence

Engaging Espoo
Another example of WSP Finland’s urban
prowess is its recent cooperation with Espoo
which is eager to enhance its urban appeal.
Espoo has an urban policy that revolves
around its five city centres, namely Lep-

Make It Big?
Teemu Holopainen adds that while big community development projects have kicked
off around Helsinki, for instance, attraction
is not created via scale of a project alone:
there are plenty of examples from history
where ambitious visions failed to resonate
with the citizens.
“If one wants to increase the urban
appeal, project management must be taken
into another level entirely,” he says, calling
for a true paradigm shift here.
Jorma Mäntynen is concerned that if
Finland does not improve its track record
in the urban arena, it will fall behind in the
international race.
“As people travel from one country to
the next more than ever, it is clear that the
bar for urban environments is set high,” he
says, adding that e.g. Central European city
milieus offer fine benchmarks, but Finland
does not have to settle for copycat practices.
“For one, utilising nature in the urban
framework could be a distinguishing factor.” O

Photo: WSP

WSP has plenty of expertise in this
field, having, for instance, won the 2015
Municipal Engineering Achievement Award
for its work ‘A goal-oriented impact assessment of city boulevards’, which relates to
Helsinki’s city master plan. Timo Kärkinen observes that developing city centres
is, indeed, challenging, if traditional ways
of thinking are followed. Moreover, in current traffic assessment practices, there are
“a number of shortcomings” in assessing the
meaningfulness of measures that change the
community structure.
“In the impact assessment, we questioned the traditional mindset and began to
apply traffic modelling ‘backwards’ using
the so-called back-casting method – showing, in the end, what measures are required
for the successful development of city centres,” says Kärkinen.
Teemu Holopainen says that in the
impact assessment, one planning objective is to increase population numbers and
economic vitality, which will also increase
employment, cultural attractions and the
region’s attractiveness.
“Traditional assessment is not able to
take this into account. For this, we had to
develop our own assessment method and
the concept ‘urban capacity’ alongside traditional transport capacity,” he explains.

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