Landscape as a city - city as an island

TEAM PORTRAIT

VIDEO (by the team)

INTERVIEW
^{Click on the images to enlarge}
1. How do you define the main issues of your project in relation with the theme “Re-sourcing”? Re-sourcing thanks to nature, to social dynamics, to new materiality? In which way do you think your project can contribute to an ecological and/or social evolution? And in which way do you think your project can be called a “regenerative project”?
For us, Re-sourcing begins with a change of perspective. Reading historical maps of Turku, we observed how the city was built “on top” of its archipelagic landscape, imposing a rigid urban grid onto a territory shaped by rock formations, water flows, and diverse biotopes. Natural systems were often straightened, buried, or treated as interruptions to urban order. Our project reads these interruptions (rocky outcrops, residual biotopes, the buried Varsoja stream) not as leftover conditions, but as existing sources of spatial, ecological, and cultural value. Re-sourcing therefore begins by revealing and reconnecting what is already there. More broadly, we believe that working with reuse, and the shift in planning methods it requires, calls for clear and powerful imagery. In this sense, the archipelago motif emerged for us as a particularly compelling framework: a catchy, robust, and open solution that can guide transformation while remaining adaptable over time.

2. How did the issues of your design and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?
The site’s mutation revealed a territory in transition: a fragmented district shaped by past industrial uses, infrastructural barriers, heterogeneous housing, and leftover natural elements without a coherent structure. The key question was how this area could densify and evolve without erasing its ecological potential or repeating the logic of isolated urban objects. Our design issues emerged precisely from this condition. Instead of “repairing” fragmentation through a new rigid order, we recognised fragmentation itself as the site’s defining quality — spatially, ecologically, and socially. This led to the archipelago concept, where distinct neighbourhood entities coexist within a continuous landscape framework. The mutation of the site therefore becomes an opportunity to shift from scattered urban growth to a model where landscape structure guides development.

PROJECT: