The new Redi Shopping Centre in Kalasatama, Helsinki, has been plagued by problems of customers getting lost in its winding corridors and two distinct but spatially similar parts separated by a street. To address these concerns, the shopping centre’s management organized a much publicised design competition to harvest ideas for a solution. Our (with Jori and Pauliina Grym) proposal received the shared grand prize in Spring, 2019.
As the centre’s original architectural concept was based on the non-rectilinear, organically grown centres of ancient Italian towns, I thought it appropriate to base the solution on urban planning, namely Kevin Lynch’s 1960s work on city-dwellers’ mental mapping of their surroundings.
Instead of a single gesture, the proposal included a series of improvements including, e.g.:
- differentiation of separate localities
- articulation of important places
- demarcating main paths with landmarks
- emphasising transitions between the centre’s two main parts
The proposal is in Finnish. Translation available on request.