Oulu go

OULU GO！

OULU is a technological city with the youngest population in Finland. Our main goals of this planning and design competition are to build the connection among the currently segregated pieces (university of Oulu, the student housing and the commercial center of Kaijonharju), and propose a sustainable possibility with the central consideration of productivity and local identity.

1. The concept of Productivity

In the design process, we consider the traditional productive activities, such as agriculture, industry and services, while at the same time trying to provide an environment where people could improve themselves. For instance, we assign common gardens where people need to collaborate for food; we provide spaces for small-medium business where people could sell their ideas, services and products, linking practices with the theories received from university and technical park; we also highly value the communicative venues such as bars, gardens, plazas, co-working spaces, so on and so forth, for the reason that we believe the public and semi-public space could help with the generation of ideas and strategies. Furthermore, with the various products and services, and the level up individuals, we conceive that the productive space could then become the motor of the following development for this area, which means it forms a virtuous system in a sustainable way.

2. How it works

The main target of our strategy is to create an integrated versatile and vibrant productive district by reorganizing transportation system, redesigning the outdated buildings, and infilling the area with new services and small businesses.
The infrastructure system is fundamental for the inter-connection among the currently segregated zones. We limited the private cars from the center of this design area, proposing multifunctional car parking buildings for the inter-change. We conceived two main walking and cycling axes, passing through the whole area and linking with the diversified activities. We highly value the porosity of the new settlement system, since it provides the chance of activities and mutual communication. Buildings follow the grid of 8×8 m2 strictly. The small green spaces scattered inside and in between the residential clusters, plazas, and the waterfront leisure area made up the environmental system, which aim to facilitate with the productive atmosphere and even form the productive public space itself.