Street of the future opened at Keran Hallit

With its street paintings, benches and green walls, it is more like a cosy courtyard. Indeed, the street of the future is much more than just a traffic route. The trio of designers behind the street remind us that the street in front of your home is your closest environment, which also needs to have space for hanging out, games and playing.   

“We could approach streets as spaces that are used in different ways in different seasons and times of the day,” architect Pekka Pakkanen says.  

With this in mind, the Kera new street is full of light street equipment that can be moved and changed as necessary.   

At the opening ceremony, a DJ played music and the people of the Espoo Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development served coffee and buns to the opening guests. Specialist Tessa Armour encourages people to hold events there, from children’s birthdays to street picnics or even graduation parties.   

“No need to ask anyone for permission,” Armour promises. The only condition is that the street may not be closed.  

On Espoo Day, 26 August, the street will host the smallest street festival in Finland. Today, the biggest attractions on the street are the two workshops where you can make a flower crown for yourself or an insect hotel to house some pollinators.   

The former logistics area of Kera is being developed into a sustainable residential area of the future and a testbed for various pilots. The mini street in Kera also serves as a showcase for companies developing various sustainable urban solutions. Six different companies have helped the designers build the street of the future. The street’s entrance pavilion, built from recycled materials, is presented by Petri Salmi from Spolia Design Oy. 

“The glass walls of the pavilion were recycled from an office building in Vantaa, the timber from a nearby bridge construction site,” says Salmi.   

This is the company’s core business, giving new life to the components of buildings being demolished. It would also be possible to move the halls of Keran Hallit to a new location, Salmi says.   

The trio of entrepreneurs from Hyperion Robotics present their own street furniture: concrete flower boxes printed with their technology. The shape of the concrete prints can be designed freely. Only your imagination is the limit when it comes to manufacturing concrete objects by using the new 3D printing technology. Best of all, the company’s technology replaces carbon-emitting cement with a zero-emission binder made from the side streams of mining.   

Text: Petja Partanen