Urban Hacks

A Study on Urban Elements and their Contribution to the Open City.

In the Urban Hacks project, design hacking is applied to elements of the urbanscape of the city of Helsinki. Design hacking is the term that describes the resourcefulness of the individual stepping in when the products and systems that are offered fall short. Urban Hacks consist of modifications, additions, and transformations of the given infrastructure of the city. The objective is to inspire new narratives of the spaces by encouraging new uses.

Urbanscapes reflect the social circumstances of the cultures that inhabit them. As social situations change, public spaces must change as well to fulfil the necessities of the new realities. However, the deterministic method in which cities are built has assigned a specific purpose to each space.

Taking the city of Helsinki as a scenario, three urban hacks are designed to fit its local context. This experimentation is carried out using a non-deterministic approach, in which forms and uses of the elements are not defined beforehand. The hacks are guided by The Urban Hacks Manifesto.

Download and read the whole study in the following link.

Date June 2022
Location Helsinki, Finland
For Aalto ARTS