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Design News 05. Dec. 2011

World Design Capital 2012 –Celebrate open, embedded,invisible design in Helsinki

By Ania Dardas

When asked what he knows aboutHelsinki, Joe Average might list: thecapital of Finland, long dark winters, longsummer days that continue well into thenight, magical northern lights, and wintersports like cross-country and Telemarkskiing. Film buffs might take their cuefrom cult director Aki Kauriskmäki withthe rather dark, brooding view of Helsinkihe portrays and whose quirky and often

depressive main characters spend much of their time tryingto get away from the city. Design, in any case, is not likely tobe right at the top of the list, but Finland actually has a longtradition of design that is rooted in the challenge it hasalways faced as a country with a harsh climate and limitednatural resources. Design in Finland is the answer to findingfunctional, economic and aesthetic ways of fulfilling everydayneeds.

World Design Capital 2012

Back in 2009, during the World Design Congress of theInternational Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) inSingapore, Helsinki was announced as World Design Capital2012. This is a unique designation, enjoyed so far only byTurin and Seoul, that takes a broad approach to the definitionof design to encompass not only design as it is colloquiallyunderstood in terms of clothing, furniture or graphics, butabove all in its impact on economies, urban spaces, and thepeople who live in them.

The decision to designate a city a World Design Capital (WDC)is not taken lightly. There is strong competition for the awardand cities must be able to demonstrate that they not onlyintend to integrate design actively in their future vision of thecity, but that they already have a strong track record of doingso. Helsinki’s year as World Design Capital is running underthe umbrella theme “Open Helsinki – Embedding Design inLife”. “Open Helsinki” represents the city’s vision and“embedded design” is the way they have defined to achieve it.

Photo: © Maarit Mustonen

Photo: © Maarit Mustonen

Photo: © Valtteri Hirvonen, Eriksson & Company

A few facts & figures

Helsinki is Europe’s northernmost capital and, while Finlandhas a population of around 5 million, the Helsinki metropolitanarea accounts for about twenty percent of that population withone million inhabitants. Around twenty-five percent ofFinland’s exports come from design-oriented industries andtwenty-five percent of jobs in the Helsinki area are, in fact, indesign-oriented fields. There is great cooperation betweendesigners and industry in Finland and, as a result, Finnsappreciate good design.

The Helsinki metropolitan region includes the communities ofEspoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen in addition to the city ofHelsinki. And the city also has strong cultural and commercialconnections with St. Petersburg in Russia to the east, Tallinnin Estonia to the south and Stockholm in Sweden to the west.Helsinki is very compact and located directly on the coast sothat even the largest passenger ships can access the harbornext to Market Square.

Education is taken very seriously and Finnish schools areconsistently ranked as the best in the world according to theOECD Pisa studies. Education is perceived as a life-timeactivity and Helsinki’s universities are also ranked among thebest in the world. Acknowledging that educational needschange, educational providers also initiate change to reflectthose needs. For example, Aalto University opened in 2009and is made up of Helsinki University of Technology, HelsinkiSchool of Economics and the University of Art and Design. Allthree institutions have merged their resources to stimulateinnovation. The task Aalto University has set itself is to createa sustainable future.

Photo: © Maarit Mustonen

Photo: © Valtteri Hirvonen, Eriksson & Company

Photo: © Maarit Mustonen

Nokia sets the tone

Finland is often referred to as the birthplace of mobilecommunications and Nokia is the country’s flagship companyas well as a world-class benchmark. Design has played a keyrole in Nokia’s success, not only in terms of size, shape andweight of the mobile devices it produces, but also in theservices it has championed such as email, text messaging, andbuilt-in cameras which today are standard but just a couple ofdecades ago belonged to the realms of science fiction.

In 1998, the first downloadable content – a ringtone – wassold in Finland and that’s also where the first mobile paymentswere trialed for a vending machine and car park payment.Mobile advertising started there in 2000 with a daily newsheadline text messaging service. Finland has defined mobilecommunications from the start, which is why getting aroundon the public transportation service, for example, is noproblem if you’ve forgotten your wallet – just buy your bus ortram ticket using your cell phone.

What about computers?

Finland is not known for producing computers, but it doesoffer an important viable alternative to Windows software.Linux is a Unix-like software operating system whose kernelwas developed by Finnish software engineer and masterhacker Linus Torvalds. Linux runs on a wide variety ofcomputer hardware, including mobile phones, tabletcomputers, network routers, televisions, video game consoles,desktop computers, mainframes and supercomputers. Linux isalso a leading server operating system, and runs the tenfastest supercomputers in the world. In addition, more thanninety percent of today's supercomputers run some variant ofLinux. What makes Linux so different from other operatingsystems is that it is one of the most prominent examples offree and open source software collaboration that is available toeveryone to access and use.

Photo: © Maarit Mustonen

Photo: © Maarit Mustonen

Photo: © Valtteri Hirvonen, Eriksson & Company

Open Helsinki

The idea of sharing knowledge and know-how brings us backto the main theme for the WDC year: “Open Helsinki –Embedding Design in Life”. In Finland, design is not regardedas an elitist preoccupation but a force with the power todeliver equal opportunities and something that should beshared. The results of design are put at the service of thepopulation to make life easier, more economically viable, andmore agreeable. Embedded design is a term more usuallyapplied in regard to electronic devices, but the way Helsinkisees it, embedded design offers the means to achieve a betterfuture.

Embedded design

For Helsinki’s purposes, embedded design has a number ofcharacteristics: it calls on the user’s point of view early onduring the planning process; it takes a systemic approach,following a co-creative process with experts and end usersthat recognizes mutual interactions; it acknowledges that gooddesign is not always visible to the naked eye.

According to designer Harri Koskinen: “The bad, the uglyand the awkward will be noticed, but the best design isalmost invisible for things are simply expected towork.” Embedded design influences and strengthens the roleof design as part of the planning process and boosts the city’ssocial, economic and cultural development.

Helsinki’s Mayor Jussi Pajunen believes that embedded designcreates a link between design and innovation and that designacts as the connective tissue between different disciplines toensure that solutions meet users’ needs and are desirable.And this, in turn, is how inventions, technologies and systemsare developed into innovations that are suitable for everydayuse.

Photo: © Maarit Mustonen

Photo: © Valtteri Hirvonen, Eriksson & Company

Photo: © Maarit Mustonen

Living city

Designing cities is a long-term project demanding solutionsthat work over time. Helsinki has a difficult climate to dealwith, as well as Europe’s fastest-aging population. The aim isto keep the aging population independent and integrated intotheir city and neighborhood for as long as possible. Differentapproaches take these challenges into account. “HelsinkiLiving Lab”, for example, helps to promote user-drivenmethods and tools for improving the real-world developmentof products and services. It is both a communications hub anda brand to enable companies and the public sector to get intouch and co-operate with all the different “Living Labs” in theHelsinki metropolitan area. Because of its size andinfrastructure, advanced Living Lab operating models havebeen developed in Helsinki that serve as a testing ground forsolutions that can later be applied in communities around theworld.

Another approach is represented by “Helsinki Design Lab”,which helps government leaders see the “architecture ofproblems”. They present challenges from a big-pictureperspective and provide guidance toward more completesolutions that consider all aspects of a problem. Started backin 1968, Helsinki’s Design Lab is a part of SITRA, the Finnishinnovation fund think-tank and public fund, which bringstogether designers, policy makers, innovators andrepresentatives of the business world to discuss issues ofsocietal interest.

Helsinki also has its own Design District that is located in thecenter of town and is described as a “neighborhood and astate of mind”. Twenty-five streets are lined with design andantique shops, art galleries, restaurants, showrooms andfashion boutiques – a thick slice of urban Finnish culture.

What will be going on in 2012?

A busy program of events at various levels is in planning:events to launch the year that will involve many locationsaround the city connected to design. These include theMuseum of Finnish architecture, the Design Museum, theArabia Museum (that focuses on the design and manufacture

of 20th century ceramic classics), the Alvar Aalto Studio, theAlvar Aalto Museum (located in Alvar Aalto’s house), design-focused galleries and dedicated centers such as the DesignForum Finland, the Espoo Museum of Modern Art, the FinnishMuseum of Horology, as well as the libraries of architectural

and design institutions.

Photo: © Valtteri Hirvonen, Eriksson & Company

Photo: © Valtteri Hirvonen, Eriksson & Company

Photo: © Valtteri Hirvonen, Eriksson & Company

In 2012, Helsinki will also celebrate its 200th anniversary as acapital city, it will hold the Helsinki festival, which is referredto as an “annual cultural blowout”, and Helsinki Design Weekin June 2012 will be all about design, architecture and graphicdesign. The design week is an umbrella concept made up ofmany events, a large proportion of which are held at the CableFactory – a former industrial space. The week includes“Designpartners”, a platform for professional networking,pecha kucha nights followed by a great party, the Helsinkiday-long design hub seminar, the “Open House” program,where buildings that are normally off limits are opened up tovisitors, “Open Studios” and the “Design Market” where designcompanies empty out their warehouses for two days of designconsumption.

“Habitare” is an annual event that was introduced in 2009. Ithas become a well known and popular event that shows whatFinns can do in the furniture and interior decoration field.Habitare presents collections, designers, concepts, youngtalents and new companies that fill all six halls of the HelsinkiFair Center.

The above represent just a small selection of events that willtake place during the year but more importantly, beingdesignated WDC 2012 has initiated a process in Helsinki thataims to bring about a new level of design effectiveness. Theyear will feature workshops to share knowledge andlaboratories to experiment with ideas, dialogue will be initiatedbetween industry and government as well as service providersand users, the city will open its doors hosting events both athome and abroad.

All in all, Helsinki is convinced that, over the long-term,embedded design will enable the city to visualize a future that

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is worth pursuing – Open Helsinki.

More Information

Official Website of World Design Capital 2008: TurinOfficial website of IcsidOfficial website of IcogradaOfficial website of ADIOfficial website of World Design Capital 2010: SeoulOfficial website of the World Design Capital projectOfficial website of World Design Capital 2012: HelsinkiOfficial website of World Design Capital 2014: CapeTown

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