this is the title screen to a little flash presentation done by the helsinki city planning department (click on “flash presentation” for the erm flash presentation).

this multimedia presentation introduces four recent urban projects by the helsinki city planning department: arabia waterfront, pikku huopalahti, ruoholahti and viikki.

all the areas presented here are close to parks or the sea, and all incorporate some educational establishments or research institutions of university level. along with good public transport connections, each area has its own profile and character, a feature adopted as a major objective for the modern urban environment. the variation stems from local conditions and the different planning ideals of the project leaders.

i could never imagine something like this happening in ireland. the concept of “forethought” just isnt a factor in many of the planning ideas there. that was until i read an article in todays irish times. (you need to pay to see the article. doh). but here is an extract:

adamstown development zone approved
(site of 550-acres 10 miles from dublin city centre to have phased delivery of 10,000 new homes)

there are to be 13 phases of house-building, each phase dependent on a level of infrastructure such as roads, railway, services or schools being in place before housing can proceed.

significantly, the board decided that the development should not proceed beyond the first 1,000 houses until the upgrading to dual-carriageway of the outer ring road between the development and the n4 road is complete. the council said yesterday it expected this road to be ready by 2005.

a new railway station must also be provided as part of phase one. another condition is that the rail link to dublin must have the capacity to carry 3,000 passengers per peak hour before the developers may build beyond 4,000 homes.

there are to be four schools provided as part of the scheme, the first of which is to be in place before the number of houses can rise above 1,800. there should be a second school at 3,400 houses, a third at 5,000 houses and a fourth at 6,600 houses.

not less than 14 per cent of adamstown must comprise parks, playgrounds, playing pitches, tennis courts and landscaping.

things like this just dont happen too often in ireland. normally, the houses are built, then the school/shops/services are built (sometimes not built at all). hope this goes as well as it looks on paper.

bbc world is my saviour. although too much of a good thing can be damaging. thankfully they have started putting in new programmes. one of the interesting ones is “dreamspaces“. upcoming programmes are:

from 24th september : this week affordable city centre living, the building that taste forgot, britain’s new bridges and ireland’s national gallery.
from 1st october : this week the 80’s buildings revival, art deco in miami, the fall and rise of the high rise and the old meets the new at lords cricket ground.
from 8th october : this week the dreamspaces team visit the hip city of antwerp, and look at re-used nuclear bunkers, parks designed for play and the inside out building, lloyds of london.
from 15th october : this week dj bars, architecture in brazil, new embassy’s in berlin are all investigated in dreamspaces, plus nick moran visits one of london’s most famous towers.
from 22nd october : this week dreamspaces does it helsinki style, they also visit london’s last power station, and visit the office of the future.

im looking forward to that helsinki one in a few weeks. the one that was on this week showed the national gallery of ireland, with its new extension. hurray for bbc world!

the furniture fair that we were at today was pretty poor. it was huge and had a lot there, just nothing much of interest. about 10% seemed interesting. ah well. i did get interviewed for german radio. so keep an ear out for that. also had a nice ice cream.

yesterday the professor of comparative literature at columbia university in new york, edward said, died of luekemia after a long battle. he was born in (at the time) british controlled jerusalem and emigrated to america as a teenager. his parents were pasestinian and he grew up feeling at home in both arabic and western soceity but still feeling an outsider. he died yesterday aged 67.

new york times obituary
robert fisk talks about said too

tomorrow we are going to a furniture fair in the convention centre (messukeskus) nearby. its called habitare and apparently all of the convention centre has been filled. so expect our apartment to be littered with hundreds of brochures tomorrow evening.