- New alliances
Nordic Works, at its core, is an international network that brings together architects and urban planners with the shared goal of simply making cities better. Our guiding objective is to strengthen the opportunities for both designers and residents alike to make a direct impact in their own living environment – after all, they are the ones who know it best. In pursuit of this, we developed the Nordic Works method that uses architectural planning as a versatile tool for discussion and problem solving, making the planning of cities and urban environments more visible and accessible for everyone. In fostering a dynamic dialogue that reaches the governmental and managemental level, we foresee the potential in cities to highlight key issues and problem solve before detailing planning even beings, creating an architecture of the future that is more representative of its diverse residents.
The Nordic Works workshops are an award-winning method we developed that is used as a strategic tool for urban development. These workshops generate architectural plans and urban designs in a rapid and interactive way, providing a constructive medium through which to validate the ideas.
Through a partnership with map-tech company Maptionnaire™, citizens act as specialists of their own urban area and their crucial involvement is emphasized throughout all stages of urban design development. They span anywhere from a 2-day sprint up to a 5-week intensive study with full-scale architectural planning available through the member offices.
The success of the Nordic Works workshops has also received a lot of media attention. The Finnish national broadcasting agency YLE documented Nordic Works workshops for a six-episode documentary series “Renew the City” (Kaupunki uusiksi). The series highlighted the positive impacts of a participatory approach in city planning that involves local residents in the design from the very beginning.
Many Nordic Works workshops have fostered collaborative relationships that have spun off into new projects at a variety of different scales. One of the most prominent of these is Dream Hotel, a hotel completed by Nordic Works member Studio Puisto. A hotel entrepreneur from Tampere, Finland got excited about an idea presented at a Nordic Works workshop and asked the member office Studio Puisto to aid in the concept development and architectural design for a new hotel at his company.
Nordic Works has also been involved in a variety of speculative projects as well. Helsinki Suburbs 2100 was an exhibition commissioned by the City of Helsinki to showcase different perspectives on one central question: In 2100, what will suburban neighborhoods look like and what will be their urban future? Through a dialogue with futurologists from the Finnish Futures Research Centre, Nordic Works developed several pioneering proposals for the exhibition.
