Multilingual Espoo residents want to participate in planning their neighbourhoods – series of story workshops held in Espoonlahti and an exploratory walk through Suvela
In spring 2026, the Espoo City Planning Department and Espoon monikulttuuriset lapset ja nuoret ry, an association for multicultural children and youth, organised a series of themed story workshops on ‘Your environment – your ideas’ as well as an exploratory walk through Suvela. Multilingual Espoo residents attended these workshops to tell the story of what’s best about Espoonlahti and what about the area needs improvement through art and stories. The Suvela area walk took a trip through the history of the area, which also included a presentation on the plan for Kiltaveljenmäki.
Story workshops encourage participants to talk about their environment
The story workshops met five times. Their work was founded on the City Planning Department planners’ stories about their work and where their handprint is most visible. At the workshops, the participants got to see how plans for their neighbourhoods come together. They got to learn simple ways to introduce their own ideas into urban planning.
“It was a joy to see how committed and interested the participants were to think about their own relationship with the urban environment. We shared many valuable discussions about the places that are important for their daily lives as well as the concerns and difficulties of the urban environment. Many of the perspectives had a common thread: how does the urban environment better support a comfortable and easy-going daily life for families, young people and children,” says Mervi Hokkanen, Area Architect in charge of the story workshops.
At the story workshops, we found that no matter what part of the world we’re from, we all want the same kinds of things from our local environment.
The Suvela area walk was a peek through the history and lives of the area
Name Planners Aurora Salmi and Sami Suviranta led the exploratory walk, during which they talked about the past, history and future of Suvela. The walk started at Espoontori towards Kirstinharju all the way to the Suvela residents’ park.
On the way, we stopped to talk about the new, colourful blocks of flats in Kirstinharju and learned about the distant history of the area. We walked past a 175-year-old protected oak and the remains of an old well.
The name planners talked about how Suvela was named after the medieval village of Södrik, which included much of modern-day Espoon keskus. One of the houses of the village was called Kirsti. While that is a woman’s name, it is, however, likely that it was named after the owner, as that was the custom at the time. The name of that owner might have been Christiern or Kirstin. The Kirsti estate was a functioning farm until the construction of Suvela.
“Everybody living in Suvela knows the names Kirstin koulu, Kirstintie, Kirstinharju and Kirstinmäki. They are all reminders of the old Kirsti house and farm,” says Name Planner Aurora Salmi.
We had a look at the future through the plan for Kiltaveljenmäki, which is currently in the preparation stage. Heidi Liljeqvist, the detailed planning engineer in charge of the area, told us that the plan includes a day care centre and housing.
Story workshops and exploratory walks through interactive eyes
The City Planning Department wants to develop methods with which residents from all backgrounds can take part and influence city planning. “Story workshops and exploratory walks are ways for our residents to bring their important opinions about their area forward. At the same time, they also get to learn about the history and specialities of their neighbourhoods. This also helps newer residents see the opportunities of where they’ve come to live,” says Mervi Romppanen, Project Coordinator, about the interactions of City Planning.
The story workshops were the first trial of a new interaction method. The City Planning Department has already organised exploratory walks at various neighbourhoods. Both highlight open encounters and discussions with the residents of each area.