Embrace the border

Tornio in Finland and Haparanda in Sweden have received international recognition for their cooperation and interaction while planning projects which unite the twin city. The development and construction of the joint center has been ongoing for 20 years and the process continues with Europan 14. The aim of the competition is to create unique and compelling urban content for the prestigious shoreline area shared by the two cities.

Tornio and Haparanda are developing their city centers to become one commercial and functional entity. The project site at the south end of Suensaari island and the north end of Haparanda downtown is important and visible in the urban structure. It holds potential to unite the two cities, yet it is mainly unbuilt and underutilised now.

The site is split in half by the busy highway E4. It is an extremely busy border crossing between Finland and Sweden with 14 million annual crossings. The whole area is currently affected by the noise and traffic of the highway.

The objective is to find ideas to connect the project site to both cities. The competitors are asked to propose functional and urban ideas for the area such as buildings for travel, recreational uses and housing. The scale and nature of the highway needs to be studied as well – how to make it a productive street.

Implementation process

The competition is organized by the twin city of TornioHaparanda in collaboration with Europan Finland. The intention of the two cities is to give a commission to the winner/s at the level of urban planning. The commission will be to develop the ideas of the competition proposal further and to work with the cities to design the new area. TornioHaparanda will make a detailed plan for the area based on the competition results.