A Competition for Sustainable Urban Development Launched in Helsinki

HELSINKI - Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, and the city of Helsinki are
launching an international competition for building a sustainable and
innovative block in the Western Harbor of Helsinki. This competition is a
search for teams that can provide an architecture of solutions.

“The project to build up a harbor area almost in the middle of Helsinki
is very innovative in the sense that we are genuinely combining different
aspects of urban, environmental, social, and business innovation. We aim to
prove that national and international sustainability targets can be reached
cost-effectively through high quality architectural solutions that are robust
and reproduceable,” says Marco Steinberg, Director of Strategic Design in
Sitra.

“What is clear is that no single organization, profession or ministry can
achieve the goals of sustainable urban development by itself. It will require
an architecture of solutions including low or no carbon buildings;
sustainable economic models; enhanced mobility; sustainable planning and
energy policies; resilient social systems among countless others. And for
each problem, care must be taken to ensure that the solution will not
undermine progress at different scales. This is a way to promote systemic
changes that reach the whole scale of what is at stake,” Marco Steinberg
continues.

Energy efficiency is one of the key tools when the world is combating
climate change. However, in the international scale sustainable and systemic
urban development and constructing are still an exception rather than
convention.

“High savings in energy consumption are possible for new buildings and
existing old building substance - with a consequent significant reduction in
CO2-emissions. This opens up a highly interesting range of tasks for
architects and engineers worldwide,” says Jukka Noponen, director of the
Energy Programme in Sitra.

“We hope that a model of sustainable urbanism emerges from the
competition proposals that will not only serve the City of Helsinki and its
inhabitants, but also be a learning model for development globally,” Noponen
says.

The competition was launched in an international seminar Energy
Efficiency in Built Environment which was held in Helsinki on 31st March.

Further Information:

www.sitra.fi/energy

www.low2no.org/competition

Source: Sitra

Jukka Noponen, Executive Director, Energy Programme, Tel. +358-9-6189-9430