29.9 Helsinki Design Week Mag

Helsinki Design Week 08 Magazine was launched at SIS. Deli

Our magazine is out and available all around the city - go get yours! 

Anni / HDW

29.9 Opinion: Theses for Helsinki

Saving energy is the most important means of resisting climate change and rescuing the humankind.

Helsinki is the backwater of lighting. Elsewhere it is already understood that light should be directed to where it’s truly needed - not towards the skies and the space. Similarly it is understood that lights can be turned off, and darkness, in fact, is a friend. 

Lighting up the facades must be confined to special moments and the lights turned off at night and in the summer. 

The carneval lighting that misinterprets architecture must be forbidden - look at the coloured lights of Finland Hall, Central Railway Station and Olympic Stadium.

Helsinki could promote the exotic white summer nights, beautiful sunrises, sets and starry skies by turning off the lights. 

The streetlights must be directed down, that’s where the people walk. The flight of light to the skies must be stopped - the lighting designers are now needed. The overall lighting levels can be reduced, the dimmer is already invented. 

And finally, Helsinki must join the worldwide WWF Earth Hour campaign.

Maija Kairamo

The writer is participating in Helsinki Design Week’s Dark City discussion on October 1 at Laituri (Narinkka 2), for more information, click here.

30.6 What is design?

A reminder of consumption: “Standby Extension” by &made, 2007

Before, design meant the creation of beautiful and usable objects. Today, it is additionally and increasingly thought to be a valid approach to problems related to, well, anything - be it global warming, poor transportation or loneliness.

What differentiates the designers’ way to solve societal problems from that of other professionals’? The essence of design still lies in the quest for aesthetic, functional as well as sensorial experiences that appeal to and help societies. To design is to make the problem-solving a matter of the heart as much as rationality. While engineers can make trains faster, designers can make travellers use and truly love them!

A general understanding of the holistic nature of design is crucial in the world that requires more from designers than just pretty things. Join Helsinki Design Week to experience and consider what design is capable of. You’ll probably be taken by surprise.

Anni / HDW

P.S. This question and many others were tackled in the international Helsinki Design Lab forum in June 2008, which gathered together experts in the fields of design, business, politics and innovation. The results of the event can be found here: http://helsinkidesignlab08.typepad.com.