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City-making: A multi-stakeholder approach for Helsinki
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
Ask about the availability of the thesis by sending email to the Aalto University Learning Centre oppimiskeskus@aalto.fi
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P1 OPINNÄYTTEET D 2015 Morales
P1 OPINNÄYTTEET D 2015 Morales
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en
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103
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Abstract
Cities in the twentieth century were the object of quantitative analysis by experts in planning. The urban perspective was driven by top–down visions of how cities should be physically arranged, without much attention to lifestyles and quality of life.
Today, challenges in cities, by a wider spectrum of problems in urban life, have united a rather complex urban discipline. City design remains partly technical, concerned with land use division, spatial urban forms and compositions seen as the city hard infrastructure. But also the increasing attention to the city soft infrastructure as less visible design layer, involves new disciplines to design for urban life. The debate cuts across traditional urban and planning disciplines with socio–economic aspects that redefine city design (Tonkiss, 2013, p.3).
City design integrates multidisciplinary approaches to enrich the picture of urban form and urban life. It remains strongly focused on formality and expertise, which responds to a city–planning legacy. Although the distinction between formal and informal has marginalised informal participation in decision–making, it has also exposed a series of rich approaches to urban space and urban life by informal every day designs.
The collection of those countless acts, which add value and distinctiveness to cities, compound the city–making practise. They make and re–make cities through unorthodox methods such as experimentation and the use of local networks, and represent the interrelation and engagement of communities in city life. City–making is the wide understanding of participation to the city itself in the city hard and soft infrastructures (Landry, 2006, p.5).
This thesis studies in parallel the acts of city–making and conventional city design to understand physical changes and social processes in cities and also, to find opportunities to integrate informal actors in processes of decision–making.
In order to handle the vast complexity in cities, this thesis firstly analyses case studies in creative and inclusive city solutions in various contexts. And secondly and as prototyping laboratory, it analyses urban cycling as local case study. Cycling in Helsinki, by a wide range of actors who creatively participate in city life, is a rich city–making environment that has become the main focus in sustainable urban solutions.
Finally, and based on analysis of methods, processes and tools used in city–making, city design and case studies, this thesis proposes a ‘platform’ that invites for a participatory approach to city design. It aims to find flexibility in city planning by highlighting actors, methods, and tools that creatively deal with city space and city life. The main objective is to better equip the city design tool kit to integrate informal actors in processes of decision–making.
References
Landry, C. (2006). The art of city–making. Sterling, VA: Earthscan.
Tonkiss, F. (2013). Cities by Design: The Social Life of Urban Form. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.