Helsinki Design Week Podcast

Mikko Leisti on kaupunkitapahtumien ja -kulttuurin ammattilainen, joka ei pidä meteliä itsestään, mutta jonka ajattelu ja ahkeruus näkyvät monessa paikassa. Hän perusti yhdessä Jyrki Sukulan kanssa legendaarisen Helmi-ravintolan, hän perusti Art Goes Kapakka -festivaalin ja hän oli keskeisessä roolissa siinä, että Helsingistä tuli World Design Capital. Laajinta vaikuttavuutta on kuitenkin ollut Mikon taustatyöllä Helsingin keskustakirjastoa varten. Nyt kun kirjasto on valmis, on oikea hetki katsoa hänen seurassaan sekä taakse- että eteenpäin. Tässä HDW Podcastin jaksossa puhumme siitä, miten esiselvityksellä parhaiten tuetaan suurta julkista hanketta, millaista kaupunkikulttuurin renessanssia elämme Helsingissä juuri nyt ja siitä, mitä vaaditaan, jotta hyvä trendi jatkuisi.

Johanna Gullichsen on tekstiilien suunnittelija, valmistaja ja kauppias. Hänet valittiin kuluvana vuonna vuoden tekstiilitaiteilijaksi ja hän on hiljattain avannut Helsingin erottajalla uuden, entistä suuremman liikkeen. Suomen lisäksi hänen tuotantoaan myydään nykyisin yli kymmenessä maassa. Tärkeimmät vientimaat ovat Japani, jonne viedään 80% viennistä, ja Ranska, jossa hänellä oli pitkään oma liikekin. Tässä podcastissa puhumme Johannan ammatillisesta matkasta, toiminnan kansainvälistymisestä sekä suunnittelun ja valmistamisen etiikasta.

Timo Salli on muotoilija, matkailija, opettaja ja tuore kapakoitsija. Hän murtautui muotoilumaailmamme nuoreen kärkeen Milanon huonekalumessuilla vuonna 1997 yhdessä Snowcrash-ryhmän kanssa. Sittemmin hän on mm. ottanut ja jättänut muotoilun professuurin Aalto-yliopistossa ja rakensi viime vuonna NAKUNA-näyttelyn palkitun konseptin Milanon Design Weekille. Hänen rakastetuin työnsä lienee reilu kymmenen vuotta sitten suunniteltu lamppu nimeltä Helsinki Lighthouse. Se saattoi olla myös hyvin enteellinen työ sillä tätä äänitystä tehtäessä hän on juuri parkkeerannut Kauppatorille kunnostamansa majakkalaivan, jossa toimii Bar Salli.

Asmo Jaaksi on yksi yksi maamme menestyvimpiin kuuluvan arkkitehtitoimiston, JKMM:n perustajista. 20 vuotta sitten hän voitti yhdessä kolmen ystävänsä kanssa Turun pääkirjaston suunnittelukilpailun ja kohta uusi toimisto nousi kohisten arkkitehtuurimme kärkeen. 2000-luvulla se on voittanut enemmän kilpailuja kuin yksikään toinen. Tunnettujen töitten lista on pitkä ja siltä löytyvät mm. Seinäjoen kaupunginkirjasto, Shanghain maailmannäyttelyn paviljonki Kirnu, OP-ryhmän kampus Vallilassa ja nyt taidemuseo Amos Rex, jonka pääsuunnittelija Jaaksi on.

Tämänkertainen vieraamme on design-, taide- ja bisnesvaikuttaja Mikko Kalhama. Hän johti Design Forum Finlandia yhdeksän vuotta ja on sittemmin työskennellyt startup-maailmassa sijoittajana ja konsulttina sekä pyörittänyt taidegalleriaa Helsingin ydinkeskustassa yhdessä vaimonsa Pilvin ja liikemies Antti Piipon kanssa. Tällä hetkellä hän keskittyy auttamaan suomalaisia yrityksiä kasvamaan kansainvälisesti. Asiakkaiden joukossa on monia eturivin luovia lupauksiamme. Tässä podcastissa puhumme hieman Mikon ajasta Design Forum Finlandissa, mutta ennen kaikkea designin roolin muutoksesta sekä design-yrityksen johtamisesta ja kansainvälistämisestä muuttuneessa maailmassa.

Tämänkertainen vieraamme on arkkitehti Jenni Hölttä Mer Arkkitehdeista. Jenni perusti Mer Arkkitehdit yhdessä  Julia Hertellin and Paula Leiwon kanssa kolme vuotta sitten, ja toimisto tunnetaan ennen kaikkea sen suunnittelemista yksityisasunnoista ja huviloista. Suomessa näyttävät julkiset arkkitehtuurihankkeet saavat paljon huomiota, mutta kodit melko harvoin. Puhuimme Jennin kanssa siitä, miksi näin on sekä ennen kaikkea siitä, millainen on onnistunut asuntosuunnitteluhanke. Entä mihin Jenni luottaa tässä maailmassa ja mikä nykyrakentamisessa vetää hänet mietteliääksi.

Antrei Hartikainen tunnetaan hänen taitavasti veistetyistä ja sorvatuista herkistä puuesineistään. Ne ovat välillä taidetta, välillä käyttötavaraa ja usein molempia. Antrein työt ovat voittaneet useita palkintoja niin kotimaassa kuin maailmallakin, muun muassa viime vuonna Helsinki Desingn Weekin Muoto-gaalassa Vuoden tuote -palkinnon. Antrei on myös erittäin taitava sekä perinteisten että uusien viestintäkanavien käyttäjä, taidekäsityön mestari ja sanansaattaaja digitaalisessa ajassa.

Nadya Peek is a leading researcher on digital fabrication. She is about to start as a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Nadya is working towards a world where manufacturing is as accessible to individuals as computing is today. Marko Ahtisaari is the CEO and co-founder of The Sync Project that is developing music as precision medicine. Previously he worked as the head of design at Nokia. They met at a CNC milling machine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology a few years ago and started sharing ideas around manufacturing - and then decided to form a band called Construction. Nadya and Marko threw a gig during Helsinki Design Week and kindly agreed to join us for a podcast. Although personal digital fabrication is not yet accessible for the common people as such, are we on the verge of a revolution? What is the role of human design in it? Marko and Nadya share their insights and tell us how to get started if you get excited about digital manufacturing. They also tell the story of how did the two of them end up forming a band.

Sonja Heikkilä is currently employed by OP Financial Group, but she is a traffic engineer and a pioneer of Mobility as a Service thinking. She has previously worked as a transport engineer for the City of Helsinki and her groundbreaking work on Mobility as a Service has been featured in Business insider, Bloomberg and Fast Company among others. Ian Sacs has graduated from the University of Tennesee-Knoxville in civil engineering in transport and has worked as the traffic director or the city of Hoboken, in NJ. He has also blogged extensively on traffic related topics. Today he works as a traffic consultant at Ramboll in Helsinki, Finland. In this episode Sonja and Ian discuss how we are moving from transport as a service to mobility as a service. As the opportunities seem endless, one of the challenges is to move away from what we already know and be truly creative. Why is Helsinki in an advanced position regarding this development? What is the future of private cars in the future? What is the menu of mobility? And what are the cities which these two experts look up to?

Zeynep Falay von Flittner is a service designer, originally from Istanbul in Turkey but has studied and spent most of her working life in Helsinki. She has worked with clients like Nokia, Telia, Danske Bank and the City of Helsinki implementing human-centric thinking and design. Currently she is working at Hellon, one of Finland’s leading service design companies as the Head of design. Zeynep loves problem solving and puzzles. She sees that digitalization is actually not so much about the technology itself but changing peoples lives and enabling new things. In this podcast Zeynep shares her thoughts on how to use machine learning and AI to best effect in the future, why it would be important to think more about the role of technology in solving long term problems, and what is transition design.

Professor Winy Maas is an architect, urban planner, landscape architect and one of the three founding partners of globally operating architecture firm MVRDV. We strongly suggest to check out the gallery of their exhilarating projects on their site. Maas lectures and teaches excessively around the world in both academic and professional settings and is also a professor at the Technical University of Delft where he runs The Why Factory: a post-graduate research institute for the future city. He is also the official urban planner of Almere in the Netherlands. Maas points out urbanism is not dead - unlike some critics have earlier maintained - and that there is power and will to make cities better. His company, MVRDV, does not only design buildings but also make urban plans and strategies for bigger companies. He says that dreams are needed to paint the future. In this episode Maas tells us about the importance of research in the work of MVRDV. How do data and creativity interplay? And can urbanism offer help in solving problems such as social injustice and inequality?

Laura Aalto is the recently appointed CEO of Helsinki Marketing. Helsinki is of course the home of Helsinki Design Week, but also a town which is getting more and more recognition as a business and cultural hub and as a travel destination. Laura may be new to her current job, but she has worked for cultural design and marketing organizations in urban context for years. Currently the City of Helsinki is renewing its marketing effort and has high hopes for the future. So Laura is definitely in the right place at the right time with the right skill set.   Laura sees that Helsinki is going through the biggest transformation of its history. She believes that the activities and events create a modern livable city. How does City of Helsinki try to get citizens involved in co-designing the city? In this episode Laura also tells us why design is an exceptional tool to recreate the city, how is design in the very core of marketing Helsinki and why she is so impressed by Istanbul.

Kari Korkman is the man behind Helsinki Design Week. He is the founder and the CEO of the organization that produces the event and also the president of the recently founded World Design Weeks Network. He is also a competitive sailor who owns and captains a classic sailboat. In this episode Kari tells us the story behind Helsinki Design Week: how it evolved from an one-off exhibition to a ten-day celebration of good design. His vision is to bring designers and the public together. Kari also tells us what he means by saying that the residents are taking over the city and why it is so exciting, how does the World Design Weeks Network work and is there something similar in captaining a sailboat crew and leading the Helsinki Design Week.

On his webpage, Saku Tuominen describes himself as ”entrepreneur, innovator, creative director, executive producer, author, keynote speaker, curator, olive oil producer, right wing in ice-hockey. I dream and I do”. Saku has surely done a lot. He ran one of the most successful TV production companies in Finland and created some of the most loved TV shows in the country. He then sold the business and started applying his capabilities as a producer and creative director to other fields. This has lead him focusing his efforts on improving education, especially through his non-profit company HundrED. He’s also a big lover of things Italian.   For Saku, bold ideas, clarity of thinking and brilliant execution make great design. He has a great passion for new ideas and creating something wonderful. In this episode Saku tells how to take the first steps from a great idea to the execution and how to avoid the risk of procrastinating. How does he approach the design challenge of HundrED when there are so many different dimensions involved? He also talks about how improving education became his passion and about falling in love with Italy, where everything is a problem and everything works.

Linda Liukas is a programmer, programming instructor, a children’s book author and an entrepreneur. She’s the founder of the international Rails Girls community for girls and women who want to learn coding. She’s also the author of best-selling children’s book Hello Ruby, which she financed through a super successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014. Since then she has published two more Ruby books. Last spring she attended the TED conference Residency program in New York City and also won the largest design prize in China, the DIA Gold award. Linda’s task is to increase the number of creators in the world by democratizing programming. In this episode we discuss why learning coding is so important, and what is the role of programming in designing the future. Why does Linda think programmers need to get smarter - and fast? She also tells us the story behind Rails Girls community and how it spread rapidly all around the world, why is open-air karaoke cool and about her enormous crush on Al Gore.