Archive for 2009
Longest Sea Bridge
China has just announced it began constructing the world’s longest sea bridge which will be 50km long. It is y shaped in plan and connects China, Hong Kong and Macau. Just for reference there has been much talk in Finland and indeed Estonia about a link between Helsinki and Tallinn, it was in the Helsinki2050 [...]
Nordic Voices
Nordic Voices is a weblog about literature in the Nordic countries. NV links to an article in the guardian about Estonian literature being translated into English and you could run the same argument in Finland both for and against.
aj notebook
The new aj notebook is pretty cool for a desktop/coffeetable browse.
Roman Architecture
23 lectures on Roman Architecture, in case you wondered what a first year history of Architecture course would be like.
Helsinki World Design Capitol 2012
So Helsinki won the World Design Capitol 21012 competition today. There is already a website, twitter feed and facebook group to follow such being the norm nowadays. I’m happy but not that surprised that we won as the city is home to a vibrant if small design community and the changes in the city coming [...]
Best place to live in Finland
A housing Website staged a survey to find the best place to live in Finland. Karjasilta in Oulu won, it’s a relatively suburban area of detached houses from the 40′s and 50′s the runners up are below, I’m not sure but I think they are mostly of the same suburban character with the only exception [...]
New Pasila
Cino Zucchi Architects have updated their masterplan for Pasila redevelopment. It would add up to forty story 160m high skyscrapers to the Helsinki skyline, at the moment the highest buildings are about 100m high. Pasila was planned and built as an expansion of the centre of Helsinki, infact as early as Eliel Saarinens’ masterplan which [...]
Newly Drawn
Nine up and coming Finnish Architecture practises have a book publication out called Newly Drawn – Emerging Finnish Architects (website). The firms involved are; Hollmén Reuter Sandman, Verstas, NOW, Anttinen Oiva Architects, Lassila Hirvilammi, Avanto, ALA, AFKS and K2S. The link to buy the book is here.
Innovations – Architect and Engineer
The Alvar Aalto academy has organised a two day seminar at the Helsinki University of Technology called Innovations Architect and Engineer on 26th and 27th of November. Go here for the programme, and it’s free. (via)
The Answer
Why is there something rather than nothing? The answer is there had to be.
Wasted Space Helsinki
I went to Vaihtolava in Kallio on Wednesday evening to see some talks given by the Hukkatila Group which, inspired by wastedspace.se is looking for their own wasted space in Helsinki to turn into projects, whether it’s urban farming or setting up a cafe. The talkers last night were Antti Möller- Introduction. Otso Lapila from [...]
Barents Skyscraper
Oslo based architect firm Reiulf Ramstad Architects (nice website – no flash!) is working on a plan to build the world’s highest building ever constructed fully in wood in Kirkenes, Norway. 16 to17 floors in height, all built in natural materials with the aim of being CO2-neutral. Looking through the proposal quickly it looks like [...]
European Green Belt
The european greenbelt initiative proposes protecting and encouraging nature in the zones along european borders which were along the old line of the iron curtain (roughly).
Georss and kml
I always loved pointingit, although it seems to have gone the way of many websites into a kind of coma, and have for some time been geotagging any relevant posts I do here. But I just never was satisfied with a way of showing them that didn’t take an age to load or was just [...]
Nordic Names
nordic names website will answer all your questions about what all those names mean. I particularly liked the entry for Smilla a name made up by Danish author Peter Høeg in the book Smilla’s Feeling for Snow and now being used in Sweden.
Broadband Access Legal Right in Finland
Finland will be the first ( or maybe second behind Switzerland) country in the world to have a broadband connection a legal right from summer of 2010. (via)