Welcoming Places All Year Around

Article Highlights

Creativity of the youth:
Co-creation produced playful and creative ideas to use rain, snow and darkness as an inspiration rather than an obstacle.

Feeling connected:
Sitting and shelter encourage interaction and break social isolation for all ages and all seasons.

Attracted by the light and colors:
In the winter use of light and color is crucial in designing safe and inviting spaces.

Our City-project brought together citizens and designers from Parkly and Traffic Design (PL) to co-create a colorful, safe and playful space in the city of Kerava. The intervention consisted of a network of three sets of modular settings leading from the train station to the High School. Strategically located, these colorful modular sets provide shelter and places to stay and meet friends.

The challenge

The center of Kerava has the advantage of having significant amount of pedestrian zones. However, both the lack of inviting public spaces and local youth participation are challenges when it comes to providing welcoming public spaces for all. Colder and darker seasons pose even more of a challenge for inclusivity and outdoor life. Designing through a participatory and collaborative process with young people requires a unique approach. Public spaces used by youth are often subject to biases and misconceptions. This design process aimed to authentically incorporate the ideas, perspectives, and voices of young people, leading to a thoughtful and empathetic outcome.

The Solution

The project is based on the modular outdoor furniture and placemaking knowledge by Parkly and with the expertise of Traffic Design, create new kinds of add ons and playful elements which are designed based on findings from the co-creation workshops. Participatory workshops focused on young people’s city experience and engagement. It provided a platform for gathering insight and feedback from the youth within a relaxed, creative and open-minded attitude. As young participants embrace outdoor play and hangout, the project allowed fast improvements to the surroundings and directly contributed to outdoor life.

Playful, safe and warmer places are the main purpose to design more welcoming places. These elements are keys in the solution developed in the Our City-project. For example, the element of bright colours and strategic placing of the modular sets contributed to increase the sense of safety. The position of the modules take advantage of existing street lights and it combines LED lights when necessary.

“The City of Kerava wants to develop urban space with young people. Young people may experience the urban landscape and activities in public outdoor spaces differently from adults. In the Our City project, the furnishings in the public outdoor space are a concrete and clear design task in which young people’s ideas were collected in such a way that the information can also be used in the city’s planning work.”

Pia Sjöroos, Urban Design Manager of the City of Kerava

After implementing the project, public space is most used in the afternoon and evening, particularly by young people who wish to relax and meet friends after school. These urban stops are now fully part of the daily commuting to school and city of Kerava is committed to increase youth participation in urban topics.

“It was really great that the young people of Kerava were involved in the design of the outdoor furniture with an open attitude. This resulted in a final product which, when you look at it now, you can see how all the ideas from the youth council workshop have been incorporated at some level into the final setting. So thank you for having the courage to involve young people. I think it is extremely important that when you are planning something for young people, it is young people who are involved, because they know what their peers’ preferences are.” – Eva Guillard, Kerava youth council member

Urban Revival

Enhancing attractiveness: Many winter cities around the world develop design strategies by exploring ways of keeping outdoor spaces attractive in the cold and windy weather. As people are still eager to go outside and stay in playful, safe, and warmer places, incorporating canopies and LED lights are particularly effective in attracting people, and vibrant colors add a delightful touch to the dark winter atmosphere.
Project flexibility: The different sets of Parkly’s modules provide on one hand a coherent visual identity that can be recognized and on the other hand a design tool that can be adapted to the context’s needs. The adds-on create variations to complete what is missing in the public space (canopy, lights, roof, bike racks, games).
Environmental and aesthetic contributions: Spread in a vast pedestrian area, these poetic installations give an atmospheric and a sense of safety. Our City-project takes advantage of the existing infrastructures while contributing to connect the services together. This narrative route forms a visually distinctive network through a common aesthetic.

Link to the final publication of the project
Link to the Winter is Coming -webinar

The project is funded by EIT Urban Mobility and New European Bauhaus.

Photos: Vesa Laitinen