Helsinki Design Week’s TRUST programme at the City Hall is an opportunity for citizens to learn about and participate in the development of the city.

Helsinki Design Week takes over the City Hall from 6 to 16 September. The City Hall lobby will provide an event programme for the city people every day, and all events are free of charge.

One of the objectives of the events is to present how the City Hall will be developed as part of the new participatory and interactive model, in which design plays an important role. Kari Korkman,the CEO of Luovi Productions, which produces Helsinki Design Week, says that HDW has always striven to lead the discussion away from the traditional design scene.

“We think good design can impact the development of the entire society. We are an urban festival, so our natural environment provides plenty of challenges related to population growth, sustainable development, construction, services and related issues,” Korkman says.

The TRUST programme includes discussions, workshops and seminars at the City Hall. The daily programme will begin on Thursday, 6 September with the “50 Years Later” event inspired by the international workshops of industrial, environmental and product design organized in Suomenlinna in 1968. The objective is to solve problems of social, economic, cultural and environmental importance.

“The workshops 50 years ago were participated in by design gurus Buckminster Fullerand Victor Papanek, among others, who had a strong influence on the students initiating the event. Now 50 years later some of these people are looking into the future and the many challenges we’re facing,” Korkman explains. The event is organized by the Arctic Design School, which is focused on architecture and the arts.

The workshops in 1968 at Suomenlinna were enabled by Sitra, which is also very much involved together with Demos Helsinki in organizing the “Helsinki Design Trust” seminar in the Great Hall of the University of Helsinki on 13 September. The objective is to ponder the future of the Nordic welfare state based on the recent book published by Sitra: The Next Era of Well-being (Hyvinvoinnin seuraava erä). Other Helsinki Design Week partners include the University of Helsinki and the City of Helsinki. The seminar programme including the speakers will be revealed later in August. Free entrance.

In addition to these two events reflecting society from a wide perspective, the City Hall will address the smart homes of the future and the new participatory budget model of the city. Furthermore, visitors will have a chance to learn about the new museum of architecture and design and to celebrate 75 years of free school lunches in Helsinki.

Alongside these events during the whole Design Week, local school children are to participate in workshops in the lobby of the City Hall. They’ll daily apply phenomenon-based learning, a technique that earned a Helsinki Design Award last year. They’ll also have an opportunity to design and build a city of the future, an installation produced in cooperation with the Asko Foundation. A more detailed daily programme for the City Hall will be published on the website during August.