Urban Pioneers (Tilapioneerit) – Temporary use of empty spaces in urban development

The University of Helsinki’s multidisciplinary Tilapioneerit project course studies and tests the temporary use of empty spaces in underused areas and in areas undergoing a change of use.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

In cities, different structural changes have created underused areas, the development of which presents a challenge for designers, local authorities, real estate owners and other operators alike. The temporary activation of underused areas has been observed to have many positive impacts. Despite it being a successful practice elsewhere in the world, in Finland it is uncommon for private property owners or local public authorities to open up empty spaces for temporary use.

Tilapioneerit promotes the application of the principles of the circular economy to the use of the urban environment. It approaches the development of areas from a multidisciplinary viewpoint and makes use of project-learning techniques in a live environment.

What do we do?

Tilapioneerit is a project course organised by the University of Helsinki, which studies and promotes the temporary use of underused premises or premises undergoing a change of use in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The course seeks fresh and unprejudiced ideas on how the premises can be used, which are then tested by being used for urban events and different short-term trials in the use of space.

During the course, students develop an area, taking advantage of local initiatives and co-operation networks.

The project will create a project learning-based teaching material package, which will be published and made freely available on the http://tilapioneerit.fi website and the website of the University of Helsinki’s Science Education Centre.

Who is participating?

Tilapioneerit project will be implemented at the Department of Geosciences and Geography of the University of Helsinki. Together with municipal officials and property owners, the course will select a project site in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The project will be carried out in collaboration with the local network of operators, including those from the field of culture, civil society activists, educational institutions and companies.

A total of 25 university students will be selected for the pilot course. The course will be produced in partnership with Taaki Helsinki and communications will be implemented in collaboration with the Department of Social Research, Media and Communication Studies of the University of Helsinki.

Where have we got to so far?

The building of the co-operation network began in December 2017. The selection of the project site and preparation of the teaching material, as well as the marketing of the pilot course, will begin at the beginning of 2018. The course will be piloted in March-May 2018. In autumn 2018, the materials will be developed further on the basis of feedback received from students and co-operation partners, after which the updated materials will be published and made publicly available to everyone.

Contact us and find out more

Tilapioneerit
Rami Ratvio, rami.ratvio at gmail.com – http://ramiratvio.fi/
Olli Siitonen, doctoral candidate, olli.siitonen at helsinki.fi
Daniel Rieder, producer, rd at live.fi
Jaakko Lehtonen, lecturer, jaska.lehtonen at gmail.com
Anna Hakala, lecturer, anna.hakala at helsinki.fi
Riikka Oittinen, doctoral candidate, riikka.oittinen at helsinki.fi

Sample chapter from the Urban Pioneers Teacher’s Guide:

(complete English version to be published soon)

Urban Pioneers

A Teacher’s Guide to a Project Course with Impact

Rami Ratvio, Anna Hakala, Olli Siitonen, Jaakko Lehtonen, Daniel Rieder, Riikka Oittinen, Aino Kuusimäki, Frida Wikblad & Anni Kinnunen

Abstract

In cities, different structural changes have created underused areas, the development of which presents a challenge for designers, local authorities, real estate owners and other operators alike. The temporary activation of underused areas has been observed to have many positive impacts. Despite it being a successful practice elsewhere in the world, in Finland it is uncommon for private property owners or local public authorities to open up empty spaces for temporary use.

Urban Pioneers (in Finnish Tilapioneerit) is a project course organised by the University of Helsinki, which studies and promotes the temporary use of underused premises or premises undergoing a change of use in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. It approaches the development of areas from a multidisciplinary viewpoint and makes use of project-based learning techniques in current and real-life environments. On the course, students seek fresh and open-minded ideas on how the chosen premises could be used. These ideas are tested at an urban festival produced by the students as well as in different short-term trials at the acquired space. Within the six-week course, students become acquainted with temporary uses, circular economy and urban development while creating their own ideas and experiments for temporary uses. The course is based on a project-based learning approach supporting students’ action competence.

Urban Pioneers. A Teacher’s Guide to a Project Course with Impact has been produced as part of a project entitled “Circular economy teaching for all levels of education” funded by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra in 2017–2019. The guide aims to support teachers and educational staff in organising a project course in the neighbourhood of their school. The teaching material can be adapted to multidisciplinary education in universities, universities of applied sciences and upper secondary education.

Foreword

This guide has been produced as part of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra’s project entitled “Circular economy teaching for all levels of education” in 2017–2019. Urban Pioneers (in Finnish Tilapioneerit) is a project course organised by the University of Helsinki, which studies and promotes the temporary use of underused premises or premises undergoing a change of use.

This teaching material has been produced as a result of the “Urban Pioneers: Temporary use of empty spaces in regional development” project. Our aim has been to develop a project-based geography course on urban space, its temporary use, urban culture and circular economy for universities. We hope that this guide will also be useful to a wider audience through offering support for organising a multidisciplinary and impactive project course in universities, universities of applied sciences, upper secondary schools and vocational schools.

We thank all our partners who have collaborated with Urban Pioneers and who have made implementing the course over the years possible. In addition to Sitra, we would like to express our special thanks to all the roughly 200 students who have participated in the course during 2013–2018; our partner cities Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa; property owners Elo, Ilmarinen and the Premises Centre of the City of Helsinki Real Estate Department, which provided us with course premises; as well as property management company Newsec. We want to thank our partners at Aalto University, Omnia in Espoo, Varia in Vantaa, Metropolia and the Vaskivuori Upper Secondary School as well as active cultural operators, such as the people from the Myyrmäki movement and Street Art Vantaa. We thank Vialliset, Kaupungin Kaiku, Hytky, Espoo Ciné, VJ Finland and UPM11 for the production of the evening clubs, as well as all our partners who took part in the urban events organised as part of the course.

We also thank Docent Hannele Cantell, architect and designer Hella Hernberg, Sitra’s leading specialist Nani Pajunen and Sitra’s specialist Riitta Silvennoinen, who acted as members of the project steering group.

This guide is also available on the internet at https://blogs.helsinki.fi/tilapioneerit/ as well as in the University of Helsinki’s digital archive HELDA at https://helda.helsinki.fi/.

We encourage you to join the pioneers by organising your own Urban Pioneers project course!

In Helsinki on 22 March 2019

Rami Ratvio, Anna Hakala, Olli Siitonen, Jaakko Lehtonen, Daniel Rieder, Riikka Oittinen, Aino Kuusimäki, Frida Wikblad and Anni Kinnunen

 

1. Introduction

The purpose of this publication is to serve as a guide for university and other higher education teachers who want to organise a project-based geography course dealing with urban space, its temporary use, urban culture and circular economy. This guide can also be used by geography teachers in upper secondary schools. More generally, it can be used to support the planning, implementation, assessment and further development of a project course that combines different subjects and involves interdisciplinary learning.

We hope that this guide will be useful to teachers in universities, universities of applied sciences, upper secondary schools and vocational schools.

This publication is based on a project-based course organised at the Department of Geosciences and Geography of the University of Helsinki during the years 2013 to 2018 (Table 1) and the feedback and experiences collected from this course. The Urban Pioneers (in Finnish Tilapioneerit) project course forms part of the Bachelor’s programme in Geography. It is a multidisciplinary course that aims to support working life studies. Over the years, altogether around 200 students from the University of Helsinki and

Aalto University, majoring in dozens of different subjects, have taken part in the course. The teaching materials have been developed by a large group of teachers who have taught the course.

Table 1. Urban Pioneers, the preceding project courses and their teachers at the Department of Geosciences and Geography of the University of Helsinki in 2013–2018.

The organisers of the Urban Pioneers project course have developed a project-based learning model in which the purpose is to carry out a collaborative project and make an impact in the neighbourhood of the school. As is characteristic in project-based learning, the course takes a student-centred approach to learning, and learning takes place through project work (see Bell 2010).

The teacher provides the framework for and supports learning, but the teacher’s role is more to facilitate interaction and learning than to impart knowledge. Learning takes place through a production, research or development project, and its objectives, schedules and resources are clearly defined by the students and teacher together. The topic of the students’ project may derive from everyday phenomena or social issues. One central aspect of the Urban Pioneers project course is to support students’ action competence, in other words, their capacity to take action for the social and environmental objectives set for the project (see e.g. Eames et al. 2006, 11; Jensen, B. B. 1994, 73; Jensen & Schnack 1997, 163).

Besides geography, this guide can also be used when planning and implementing teaching in other subjects – especially when the aim is to organise a course that has social impact and takes place outside the classroom. The guide has been created as part of the “Circular economy teaching for all levels of education” project funded by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra between November 2017 and May 2019.

1.1. Starting Points and Learning Objectives

The Urban Pioneers project course relates to a general change in the objectives and practices of regional development. In the 2000s, regional competitiveness and innovations have gained emphasis in the discussions around them. The focus has shifted from eliminating weaknesses to paying attention to regional strengths and specialisation. Demands about paying attention to communicativeness and sustainable development in urban planning have also increased. Currently, it is thought that residents and other stakeholders have the right to participate in the planning of the environment they live in (e.g. Healey 2006, Staffans 2004). Public authorities increasingly support operators outside the administration, network with them and even integrate them to perform public duties (see Vartiainen 1998, Sotarauta 2013, Mäenpää & Faehnle 2018). More often than before, projects initiated by the public sector also involve moderators, i.e. neutral parties acting between the operators, who commit networks, facilitate communication and collect data relevant for the project (Senatsverwaltung… 2012, see Hernberg & Mazé 2017).

In urban planning, the focus has increasingly shifted to planning that preserves, takes into account the social environment and is based on collaboration. In cities, there is a growing tendency to integrate the new with the already existing. However, due to changes in the industrial structure, population structure and real estate economy, as well as to historical reasons, in the 2000s urban areas have seen the emergence of underused areas or areas that are losing their purpose. Typical examples of the effects of such structural changes include empty industrial buildings, office buildings, military sites, hospitals, schools and dock buildings.

The temporary activation of underused areas has been observed to have many positive impacts: it may save resources (such as rents, the costs of new construction), create possibilities for cultural activities and entrepreneurship and bring benefits to the urban economy. At the same time, it may strengthen the identity of the area, generate unique and attractive urban environments and bring social benefits to the area through active citizenship (e.g. Hernberg 2014, Lehtovuori & Ruoppila 2012, Lehtovuori et al. 2003, Senatsverwaltung… 2007).

Different kinds of experimental, “soft” uses are needed in areas that are in search of a new direction, for they can serve as tests about what could work in the area. Instead of carrying out planning interventions that are massive financially and in terms of urban structure, it may be useful to test possible future uses with the help of temporary uses. Temporary use refers to the temporary activation of an underused or empty area or building, or one undergoing a change of use, for example, by renting it to a user under certain conditions.

The Urban Pioneers project course focuses on temporary uses which are short-term (from a single event to uses lasting up to two years) and secondary for the area but which may generate future strengths for it. These temporary use experiments are usually various cultural, arts, pop-up or other small projects carried out by so-called urban pioneers, and they do not require large investments. Different kinds of urban festivals and grass-roots cultural activities make the area interesting and may mark the first phase in the transition of the area (Senatsverwaltung…2007).

The term urban pioneers refers to individuals, communities or small enterprises that make an attempt to launch activities and uses of space that differ from the current ones in a certain area. Their projects are not necessarily financially significant, but they may help to generate new services and products. The projects are light and flexible, for their resources are based on local social networks and cultural practices (Lehtovuori & Ruoppila 2012, Lehtovuori et al. 2003, Senatsverwaltung…2007). Administrative mindsets and modes of operation, too, must change to make it possible to carry out temporary, light experiments (see Mäenpää & Faehnle 2016, 2017, 2018).

In the Urban Pioneers project course, students study and test temporary utilisation in the development of underused areas and areas undergoing a change of use. The teacher selects an interesting target area and a property located in the area in cooperation with the project partners. On the course, students seek fresh and open-minded ideas on how the chosen space in the area could be used. These ideas are tested at an urban festival produced by the students as well as in different kinds of short-term trials in the area to be developed. In their course work, the students make use of local initiatives and collaborative networks. The aim is to support local social networks, sense of community and culture, which sets the Urban Pioneers course apart from ordinary development projects.

Figure 1. The development process used in the Urban Pioneers project course.

At the beginning of the course, students acquaint themselves with the target area and its development needs with the help of a preliminary assignment, visiting lectures given by local operators and expert interviews (Figure 1). These are followed by various workshop phases in which the students work in so-called innovation groups to create ideas for temporary use for the selected space and use them and the feedback they gather to develop concepts for temporary use. The students build their concepts for temporary use inside the space used for the course and develop them further through various workshop phases. They form four production groups and produce an open-to-all urban festival in which the new uses are exhibited and can be tried out by local operators. Finally, the groups report the results of these trials in their final course reports using, for example, the blog platform of the course. In Chapter 4, you can read further information about how the course can be carried out in practice. Alternatively, the course can be organised by carrying out the orientation and workshop phases and replacing the urban festival by a final seminar, in which the students present their concepts for temporary use (Figure 2). The knowledge and skills objectives included in the learning objectives of the course are described in Table 2.

Figure 2. Two alternative ways to conduct the Urban Pioneers project course.

Table 2. The learning objectives for the Urban Pioneers project course.

The learning objectives for the course

  • You understand developments related to the change of urban structure, temporary use of spaces, urban culture and changes in civil society action and you are acquainted with theoretical debates relating to the themes of the course.
  • You are able to apply the topics and methods discussed in the lectures to project work.
  • You are able to plan and implement different project phases in the development of temporary uses and in the production of an urban festival.

You are able to analyse and evaluate actions from the point of view of the theoretical debates discussed in the course.

1.1.1. Course Instructions, Assessment and Communication Channels

The Urban Pioneers course has been organised at the Department of Geosciences and Geography of the University of Helsinki during the years 2016 to 2018 as a six-week project course. In 2018 the Urban Pioneers course was offered in the fourth period in the spring semester, between 27 March and 6 May 2018 (Table 3). The course was included in the Bachelor’s programme in Geography as an optional 5-study-point project course, forming part of working life studies. The course was open to all basic degree students enrolled at the University of Helsinki and Aalto University. 25 students were admitted to the course.

The students were selected based on completed studies and the preliminary assignment for the course. The course was mainly taken by students in their third year of the Bachelor’s programme, but Master’s programme students also participated in the course.

Table 3. An example of the course schedule of the Urban Pioneers project course in spring 2018. During the first weeks, there were two course sessions per week, but in the production phase, there were three to four contact teaching sessions every week.

Course schedule, spring 2018

  • Lectures and workshops: 27–29 March (Tue and Thu), 4– 20 April (Wed and Fri),9:15–13:00
  • Locations: 27 March room C123 (Kumpula Campus of the University of Helsinki, Exactum, 1st floor, Gustaf Hällströminkatu 2 b); 29 March Coworking Myyr York, shopping centre Isomyyri, Liesitori 1, Myyrmäki, Vantaa; 4–20 April Rajatorpantie 8, Colosseum, 1st floor, Myyrmäki, Vantaa.
  • Production weeks: 25–27 April (Wed, Thu and Fri), and 3–4 May (Thu and Fri), 9:15–17:00
  • Location: Rajatorpantie 8, Colosseum, 1st floor, Myyrmäki, Vantaa.
  • 5–6 May (Sat and Sun): the production weekend of the urban festival at the office hall in Rajatorpantie 8 in Myyrmäki, Vantaa. The timetable for the weekend will be specified later.
  • We will have an assessment session and wind-up party relating to the urban festival in May, on a date to be agreed upon.

Teachers: Rami Ratvio, Olli Siitonen, Daniel Rieder, Jaakko Lehtonen and Anna Hakala

The course instructions and a more detailed course schedule were sent to the registered students in advance (Appendix 1). In spring 2018, the course consisted of the following components to be completed:

  • Preliminary assignment: designing a concept for temporary use and assessing other students’ preliminary assignments. The teachers will provide further instructions. The instructions for the course and the preliminary assignment are included in the appendices (Appendix 2, 3 and 4).
  • Participation in the lectures and workshops. The lectures include lectures by visiting experts and they give an introduction to current research. Absence must be compensated for by reading the lecture material, completing the exercises included in the lectures independently and reporting your progress to your group and teachers in the Slack area of the course.
  • In the workshops, students work in innovation groups to create concepts for temporary use for the selected space in Myyrmäki (these concepts will serve as content for the urban festival organised as part of the course). The urban festival will be produced in production groups. Absence must be compensated for by completing the tasks assigned to you in your group’s production plan independently and reporting your progress to your group and teachers in the Slack area of the course.
  • Participation in the production of the urban festival in Myyrmäki on Saturday 5 May during the production weeks of the course. The teachers will provide further instructions.
  • At the end of the course, students write a report about the creation process of their temporary use concepts either in pairs or independently. These reports will be published in the blog area of the course website1. The purpose of the report is to document the phases of the course:
    • Workshop 2: solving the research problem and creating concept ideas, testing the concepts with people living and operating in the area (establishing interview questions, conducting the interviews and the results).
    • Workshop 3: Developing the concepts further based on feedback, testing them at the urban festival and their success at the festival. Depending on the size of the group, the report should be approximately 4 to 6 pages long.
    • The teachers will provide further instructions for the report during the course. The finished report must be uploaded as a blog post on the course website by 20 May 2018.

Assessment forms an important part of the teaching and learning process. In the Urban Pioneers project course, assessment is focused on students’ knowledge of the themes of the course and applying this knowledge in writing, as well as on their project work skills and active participation in the different phases of the project. The aim is that assessment is based on a continuous and comprehensive evaluation of students’ abilities all the way from the preliminary assignment to final reporting and that they are provided with feedback throughout the learning process. In this way, students are able to correct any misconceptions they might have and can focus on the areas they need to improve. At the same time, the teacher can develop their teaching based on assessment and can better take into account different types of learners. It is a good idea to also give feedback to student groups during the course as this will lighten the workload of giving feedback. The self- and peer assessment by students at the end of the course makes the assessment more comprehensive and supports the teacher’s assessment work. For assessment to be successful, it is important that the learning environment is warm and supportive, assessment is transparent and the goals are motivating and have been set together.

 

The course will be graded on a scale of 0 to 5 (5=excellent, 4=very good, 3=good, 2=satisfactory, 1=passable, 0=fail). The teachers will carry out the grade assessment together. The final course grade (100%) will be weighted as follows:

 

  • Completion of the preliminary assignment: 10%
  • Active participation in project work in the lectures and workshops: 30%
  • Active participation in project work in the project area during the production weeks: 30%
  • The final report: 20%
  • Self- and peer assessment: 10%

When assessing the written final report, the following criteria, for example, can be used:

Grades 1–2.

  • There are deficiencies in the reporting; some sections are missing entirely or have been prepared incorrectly.

Grade 3.

  • The most important results are described well in the report.
  • The text is coherent, and the results are visualised with the help of figures, for example.

Grade 4.

  • The report shows analytical thinking, and the results of the course project are described very well.
  • The results of the course project are analysed to some extent, and well-grounded conclusions are drawn based on the results.
  • The text is coherent, and the report includes high-quality figures and tables or other visual elements.

Grade 5.

  • The report shows academic maturity; for example, skill in the use of research literature.
  • The results of the course project are analysed in an excellent manner, and many new perspectives are introduced.
  • The text is coherent and fluent, and visually the report is extremely impressive.

The feedback for the course and the self- and peer assessment were collected using anonymous web forms provided by the University of Helsinki’s electronic form service. These types of questionnaires can also be implemented using, for example, Google Forms, which is free of charge.

  • An example of the course feedback form (Appendix 5)
  • An example of the self- and peer assessment form (Appendix 6)
  • We will use Moodle for internal communication during the course, and it is also used to distribute the lecture slides and articles.
  • We have created a Slack area for instant messaging concerning the production of the urban festival. Please install the Slack application on your mobile phone2.
  • We have also created a Whatsapp group called TP2018 to be used for internal communication concerning the course. Please install Whatsapp on your mobile phone and join the group by opening the link on your mobile browser.
  • For external communication, we have established a course website, which will be used to inform our communication partners and other interested parties about the phases of the course. For external communication, there will also be an open Facebook group, Facebook page, Twitter account and Instagram.

1.2. Target Groups of the Course and Teaching Material

The teaching materials in this guide are designed to help the development of a project-based, working life-related course for universities and other schools of higher education. The course can be included, for example, in programmes in geography (human, urban or cultural geography), social sciences, architecture, urban and regional planning, design or arts. These are examples of fields where themes related to urban space or culture are important. It is recommendable to make the course open to students from many different programmes, because this better supports the learning of working life skills as well as the success of the project. In addition, the course will be easier to carry out if it is done by a team of teachers from different fields of research. It is also possible to combine several courses by having the students from different courses work for a joint project. The teachers should be prepared to be flexible, open-minded and cooperative to ensure more fruitful results.

The course can also be modified to be implemented as part of the curriculum of a university of applied sciences or an upper secondary school, for example. The methods described in this guide can also be used in integrative learning, i.e. in combining knowledge and skills from different fields into meaningful entities for different types of interdisciplinary thematic studies. Organising the course as a joint project between several subjects gives the teachers and students from different subjects the opportunity to use their expertise in practice in different areas of the project.

The Urban Pioneers project course has been implemented in cooperation with the following schools, among others:

  • Aalto University, a 3D contemporary art course, Espoo
  • Vaskivuori Upper Secondary School, geography and music courses, Vantaa
  • Omnia vocational school, studies in Logistics and Audiovisual Communication, Espoo
  • ‍‍Vantaa Vocational College Varia, studies in Tourism Industry, Vantaa

In practice, this collaboration meant that students from different schools worked under the supervision of their teacher and organised an urban festival together. The following list offers ideas for collaboration by including the Urban Pioneers Project course in the curriculum of an upper secondary school or a vocational school.

Examples of including the Urban Pioneers project course in an upper secondary school curriculum

Various interdisciplinary thematic studies

  • Students have the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills in practical work and situations.

Geography

  • A geographical project that participates and makes an impact (GE4); an optional, advanced course in urban geography that deals with improving citizens’ participation in decision-making and urban planning.

Social studies

  • The Finnish society and Economics courses (YH1 and YH2): e.g. networking and community relations, gathering partners, project economics, engaging citizens in decision-making and actions.

Mother tongue

  • Textual skills, communication skills, writing as part of the festival communications.

Visual arts

  • The visual image of the festival, spatial design and implementation.

Music

  • Festival production, music production, presentation skills.

Student representative activities in schools

  • The administrative and technical aspects of festival production, increasing students’ participation in decision-making.

Examples of including the Urban Pioneers project course in the curriculum of a vocational school or a university of applied sciences

Cultural production

  • The production of the urban festival implemented as a project.

Tourism

  • The production of the urban festival and customer services, e.g. customer guidance.

Music and music technology

  • The design and implementation of the urban festival performances.

Arts

  • The design and implementation of the urban festival performances, e.g. dance, theatre, visual arts, music.

Logistics

  • The design and implementation of the urban festival logistics.

Audiovisual communication

  • The design and implementation of the audiovisual communication and documentation related to the urban festival.

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