Crafting a planning issue with citizens in the context of planning competition: a case of ‘Nordic Superblock’

Abstract

This paper describes the formation of the planning issue 'Nordic Superblock' through the early planning phase of the Hiedanranta area in Tampere, Finland. The workshops with citizens and professionals as participants, held after a planning competition, were an important part of the area's initial planning. The paper argues that the superblock issue emerged because the institutional context differed from the traditional zoning process. Furthermore, the issue itself challenged the traditional planning process and the current urban development regime. The case is a promising example of the outcome of expert-citizen interaction; however, it also reveals some bottlenecks in the planning process.

Advancing residents’ use of shared spaces in Nordic superblocks with intelligent technologies

“…This study adds the resident perspective about shared spaces and technologies in them to the superblock discussion (Sjöblom et al 2021 ; Rueda 2019 ) and already started unique resident participation to the planning process of Hiedanranta (Kuoppa et al 2020 ; Laine et al 2020 ; Sjöblom et al 2021 ). This perspective brings the discussion on the intersections of place, people and technologies (Foth et al 2011 ) closer to investigation of technology use in residential areas.…”

“…This happened at the early stages of developing the area, which was rare, because it happened before the master plan for Hiedanranta was composed. Usually, residents have opportunity to comment urban development only after an almost ready draft plan has been and later, in a form of a complaint (Sjöblom et al 2021 ).…”

“…Resident’s preferences have been examined from the viewpoints of their personal accommodation and its features (Kuoppa et al 2020 ) and collaborative housing (Laine et al 2020 ). Resident participation has already been proven beneficial to urban development in the context of the Nordic superblock (Sjöblom et al 2021 ), but resident’s preferences for shared spaces in the context of housing have not been investigated before.…”

“…The concept of Nordic superblock refers to a new planning, housing, and living concept developed in Hiedanranta, which is an innovation- and sustainability-oriented, rapidly developing city area in Tampere, Finland. It is a combination of mixed-use residential blocks that share yards, common spaces, services, and utilities (Sjöblom et al 2021 ). In the Nordic superblock development, the idea is to create new urban structure, and to bring a novel scale of co-operation into urban planning and development: number of blocks would now share the resources previously shared between residents of one building.…”

Heating up the sauna: Analogue model unraveling the creativity of public participation

“…Urban planning and design have a long tradition of public participation (Arnstein, 1969;Healey, 1997;Forester, 1999;Innes and Booher, 2004;Laurian and Shaw, 2009) with varying methods, from local forums and workshops to game simulations (Faehnle et al, 2014;Kahila-Tani et al, 2016;Leino et al, 2018;Sjöblom et al, 2021). These diverse means position citizens in different roles.…”