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The "Taste & Form" exhibition will display objects and spaces related to food culture.

The works of the shared Nordic exhibition give visitors the opportunity to broaden their view of Scandinavian design.

An exhibition at Muotohuoltamo is presenting the graphic interpretation of Lahti's colour chart by the city residents.

Welcome to the Pavilion, the World Design Capital's living room. Open Tue-Sun from 11 am to 9 pm, Ullanlinnankatu 2. Attached highlights of the Pavilion programme.

Hurry up, there’s still time to catch the action-packed Vantaa Urban Festival!

The Think Corner’s new science theme offers a peek into the fascinating world of plants.

One of the legends of Finnish glass, Oiva Toikka is still driven by a genuine passion for exploring new techniques. Toikka's new glassworks can be seen at an extensive exhibition opening at Galerie Forsblom in Helsinki.

The Central Library project in Helsinki is moving ahead. The public will now be given a chance to see the entries submitted to the first phase of the architectural competition.

An exhibition at Laituri highlights the role of urban environments in people's quality of life.

Get in Form, a project, part of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme, brings exercise equipment along a jogging path in Helsinki.

Design Learning Conference presents new ideas and solutions for design learning.

ÖÖ – was it a dream? is a programme of events that introduces the best of Nordic and Estonian design – and recreates the atmosphere of a speakeasy.

Opening today, in Jätkäsaari's Rantamakasiini L3 building, Masters of Aalto (MoA’12) is an exhibition showcasing the theses, diploma works and final projects of Aalto University's new graduates.

Vantaa City Museum's exhibition TIMEless juxtaposes the world of Stone Age artefacts with contemporary design.

This week, the Design Capital will be filled with cycling-related events. We will kick off on Tuesday to celebrate national 'Cycle to work' day.

The world's first ever mass-produced, futuristic house invites people to learn about the wild visions of future housing in the 1960s.

Science workshops let kids try out their own scientific skills.

This year, you can support the Finnish ice hockey Lions with design products.

Finnish Design Market, which will open on the first day of June, will showcase a diverse range of Finnish design from illustrative art to jewellery.

The Helsinki Fashion Summit will place emphasis on how fashion is cross-disciplinary, and challenge us to think about Northern design from a business economical point of view.

Performers are now being sought for Lasipalatsi Design Markets, which will fill Lasipalatsi square in August - apply now to be part of it!

Song, dance and gorgeous national costumes at a park picnic.

A festival of fashion and photography in the south of France saw young Finnish designers take a podium spot.

The Abattoir in Helsinki is going to be turned into an oasis for a new kind of food culture. The search is on for an ambitious and open-minded shopkeeper.

This Saturday, it's time to learn about urban bees.

Opening in the Napa Gallery today, the Yellow City exhibition dives into the depths of the art of illustration.

The Pasila of tomorrow designed through a collaborative effort.

This year's Product Design Gala will focus on user-driven and sustainable design.

The signage system of the City is Helsinki is under renewal. The experiences and ideas of residents are collected in workshops.

The 'Using technology to locate people and objects' guide presents over 20 GPS tracker devices on sale in Finland.

The Curious Life of Trash, a documentary film based on open data and its visualisation, looks at what rubbish says about us. Just what sort of rubbish producer am I – and how can I change my behaviour?

An exhibition opening in Espoo on National Veterans' Day documents life on the home and war fronts.

Turku Design Festival is packed full with interesting cultural events and design-related experiences, with everything from graffiti shows to a delicious design brunch.

Out today, Napa Gallery's Font Map invites you to explore the world of urban graphic design.

An exhibition entitled “Pentagon Design 15 – On the drawing board" is opening today at the Design Museum.

The City of Helsinki and the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra are looking for a strategic designer to fill a position to be established in the city’s Department of Social Services. The application deadline has been extended until 30 April.

A design leadership conference organised on 25–26 April at Wanha Satama in Helsinki will bring together top experts in the design industry to discuss user-driven and collective design.

The Ice Cellar, located in Helsinki's Suomenlinna Sea Fortress, is hosting an event devoted to Mexico today.

Plans are presently in progress to redevelop the site of an old abattoir and turn it into an oasis for food and urban culture. Urban farmers will be given an early start in using the area.

An urban oasis for cultivation run by Dodo ry., Turn Table – The Urban Garden will be kicking off the spring season with planting and cultivation tips and a celebratory toast.

The 'Playce Nord 2012' seminar in Lahti will be studying the future of education in architecture.

Design makes our everyday lives run smoother, and yet we often take it for granted – so much so that it has almost become invisible to us. Finnish Design Yearbook is a publication that highlights good design around us.

Donald Duck Design is a special edition of Donald Duck created in honour of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 year. In it, everyday life at Duckburg blends smoothly with the past, present and future of Finnish design.

The World Design Capital is heavily involved in the Milan Design Week, and at the same time, promotes the visibility of the field of Finnish design. The Milan Design Week will take place 17–22 April.

Together in cooperation, IxDA Helsinki and Fjord will be organising a unique 'Designing for Wellness seminar', on 19 April. The seminar will concentrate on modern design for future wellness.

What will city life be like in 2020? Kristien Ring, a specialist in self-initiated building, will be challenging residents to consider alternative modes of living in Helsinki.

Open Helsinki is challenging all under 19s to think about how to describe their own living environments visually in a fun and informative way.

The Vantaa Art Museum has extended its exhibition “6 Scenes of Beauty” to Helsinki Airport and the Tikkurila Design Window.

Passers-by at Tapiola's Wellbeing Market, can try out an electronic health check, test some gym equipment or find tips for a healthier diet.

Illustrators are at a junction with art and design. The wide gamut of the domain presents itself at the Helsinki Illustration Festival this weekend.

The Bookies seminar debates the outlook of independent printed art publication, and declares the love of books.

Photographer-artist Perttu Saksa is examining the boundaries between culture and nature at Erottajankatu's Laboratory Gallery.

The Yellow City exhibition recounts and illustrates stories about Helsinki. The first exhibition provides opportunities to play as well as to read.

Design ROI, a joint project of Finnish design agencies, is developing a model for measuring the benefits of design to businesses. The Finnish Design Business Association launched last week a service to help businesses tackle their needs.

The Peloton Innovation Camp (“peloton” is Finnish for “bold”), to be held in June in the rural municipality of Kaustinen, is calling for eager innovators to come out with creative solutions to tackling energy challenges and shaping people's lifestyle choices.

This spring, the International Cultural Centre Caisa will be showcasing the works of contemporary Turkish designers.

The University of Helsinki art collection, accumulated over the years, can now be seen at the University Museum Arppeanum.

MAKE YOUR MARK gallery will be hosting the iconic street artist known as “Ghost”.

The Arabianranta neighbourhood in Helsinki is focusing on improving tourist information boards in the area. The new information boards will make it easier for design-loving visitors to find their destination.

The “Design Backstage” discussion series will delve into the story behind the Copacabana Guitar, designed by Eero Aarnio.

Virka Gallery is holding an exhibition to celebrate Helsinki's 200-year anniversary as the capital of Finland.

The exhibition Searching for the city’s soul dives into the history of the urban planning of our capital.

Students at Arkki, School of Architecture for Children and Youth, shared their playful visions for the Guggenheim Museum, proposed to be built in the vicinity of Helsinki’s south harbour. These imaginative pieces are currently on display at exhibition centre Laituri.

Dresses and toys, corsets and home textiles, garters and divans – on the first of April, the Cable Factory will be converted into a real treasure trove for collectors.

Wearable Design exhibition at Design Forum Finland delves into the world of sports design.

The first public Wellbeing lecture at the Espoo Cultural Centre will discuss the significance of family, work and friends to living a rich and happy life.

At this wood-themed event in Lahti, skilled wood industry professionals meet people's building needs and wood from their plots.

Kiitos kyydistä!, or "Thanks for the ride!" is a new kind of car-sharing service, which offers company on business and shopping trips.

A new exhibition at Laituri provides citizens’ visions of what lifestyles Helsinki’s new districts should cater for.

Due to open this autumn, the Kaisa Library will be full of information, research and international experiences.

Lavatories have, through the ages, inspired artistic creativity in people. To continue this fine tradition, seven Finnish contemporary artists are taking to the Helsinki City Hall's sanitary areas.

The Helsinki University World Student Capital(WSC) project starting today will turn our capital into a unique and desirable college town.

‘Punctuation mark’ is an exhibition that showcases the ceramic and crystal works of two acclaimed Finnish designers, Sami Ruotsalainen and Mari Isopahkala.

The upcoming Business Forum, an event that challenges business people to find new ways of doing and seeing things, will be focusing on the importance of design.

“It is natural for an abattoir to appear rough. Therefore we should not overly refine this project,” designer Hannu Kähönen states, at the same time explaining about the key element of ‘the Abattoir’, a local food centre in the planning.

Beautiful parks play a vital role for the wellbeing of people living in cities. Residents of Helsinki can make a difference in maintaining their local parks and ensuring they remain attractive places for visitors by becoming park volunteers.

MTV3 channel and World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 recently organized a workshop where residents could design and create break bumpers for the TV station. The TV spots that were created are now shown in between programmes on the channel.

The new Gloria Design magazine enjoys a spot of lunch in Helsinki's hidden backrooms, examines the intricacies of design and captures the everyday lives of immigrant families.

Notebook is a service that allows people to share their observations about design – about what works, and what still needs improving.

Bird box and wash graffiti workshops, shell suit discos and parkour training – the World Design Capital year of Itä-Pasila is full of activity.

The new architecture guide from Puuinfo features Finnish masterpieces of wood architecture from different periods.

The new exhibition at Nature House Villa Elfvik in Espoo shows furniture and interior design elements created from trash materials.

The Table is Set 2012 exhibition at the Hanasaari Cultural Centre displays Swedish utility ceramics.

Colourful looks and functionalities were ideated for industrial storage premises in the Transform a container or pumping station competition of the Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority (HSY).

In January 2012, Valio organised a unique design auction, inspired by milk cartoons. The entire profit of the event, over EUR 6,500, was donated without deductions to support the operation of the SOS Children's Village's city block homes in Tampere.

Extras are now being sought for the shooting of the Underground short film, which is part of the WDC Helsinki programme. Send your application by 31 March to maria@artshortcut.com and contribute to the creation of a unique art project.

The Degree Programme in Fashion and Clothing Design and the Department of Marketing bring together students from different disciplines for the first time at Aalto University. The new course is geared towards preparing students to become leaders in fashion marketing.

High quality Finnish fashion worn by City of Helsinki Tourist & Convention Bureau and Event Office workers attracts attention.

Thanks to Teema's back-to-back airings of up to three design-related quality programmes, those interested in design can now top off their weekends by settling in front of their TV.

The new visual identity of the International Design Alliance (IDA) reflects international presence and cooperation.

Helsinki students will again be heard at the event targeted to strengthen community spirit and develop school environments.

In the Dialogue series of discussions, influential figures in the design world discuss such matters as the work of designers, the history of design and prospects for the future.

Design Window's new exhibition Aviapolis presents construction and environmental design projects which improve the comfort, accessibility and quality of life of the residents of the City of Vantaa.

Nopsa Fashion Library service allows customers to hire dazzling outfits against a reasonable monthly fee.  The concept has been a hit in Stockholm, offering fashion ecologically, ethically and with a sense of community.

Design hotel Klaus K invited designer Harri Koskinen to design two new rooms. One of the rooms is like a personal movie theatre, and the other is close to nature.

An exhibition opening in the Children’s Book Café, one of the venues for World Design Capital 2012 events, revives memories of much-loved characters in some favourite bed-time reading books.

The University of Helsinki new social and interactive wall invites everyone to discuss and comment.

The withering of small shops in city centres is a concern to many. The Rovaniemi Design Week idea competition aimed at finding ways to improve the appeal of small shops.

Kauko’s name day, Saturday 3 March, is the last chance to visit the WDC Helsinki 2012 Café Kauko in the Forum shopping centre. In less than two months, this remote-controlled café has attracted a considerable virtual global audience.

The Kraftfullt touring exhibition to arrive at Design Forum Finland will display surprising and topical craftsmanship.

The children’s opera Building the city! opens at the Museum of Finnish Architecture. The performers, set and costume designers are 4th-year pupils from Kaisaniemi Primary School.

The Design Market to be set up to celebrate WDC Helsinki 2012 will bring top Finnish design products to the Market Square in the summer of 2012. Vendors are currently being sought to occupy a market stall, so don’t delay, apply now! Marine market atmosphere and design encounters The Finnish Design Market, specifically dedicated to Finnish design and arts and crafts, will open this coming summer at the Market Square in Helsinki.

The role of Helsinki as the World Design Capital of 2012 has attracted much interest and media awareness around the world. Over the last six months, WDC Helsinki 2012 has occupied a prominent place in several notable newspapers, magazines and on TV channels outside of Finland.

A remarkable new small-scale exhibition opens today in the upstairs lobby of the Museum of Finnish Architecture, displaying drawings and photographs of Kallio Church through the years.

The Functional Home exhibition which was opened on Wednesday 1 February introduces solutions, technology, aids and products for an accessible and safe living environment.

Helsinki Photography Biennial, HPB12, is a colourful festival of photography, which from the beginning of March will spread around the World Design Capital. This year’s theme is the city, urbanity and urban culture.

The photographic exhibition 12xLahti opening today at the Lahden Muotohuoltamo Centre depicts the story of the city over a one-year period.

The exhibition Peaks – the Future Tower Building in Helsinki opening today at the Information and Exhibition Hall Laituri presents visions of high rise construction planned for the capital.

The Sitra report exposes the environmental impact of construction throughout the lifespan of buildings. The Finnish wood construction industry is eager to take up the challenge of developing new, sustainable solutions.

This week the Café Kauko at Forum is full of events. Hufvudstadsbladet will organise interesting programmes at the café from Monday to Friday from 11:30 to 13:00.

Here are some of our events taking place this week.

How high in fact are the pylons which act as the WDC Helsinki 2012 landmarks? The first competition in the design quiz delves into the world of triangular advertising towers and tests the accuracy of one’s perception skills.

The newly opened Of Toys and Men exhibition at the Helsinki Art Museum will transport you on a time journey into childhood, at the same time taking a look at the relationships between play and society.

The airport will become an art port through the opening of art and design presentation galleries for the benefit of its passengers. The exhibitions invite people to participate and, for a while, to stand back from the rush.

Finding one’s way around the Helsinki underground stations has just become easier. New station guide maps will help everyone find their way through the station and end up at the exit they need.

The Helsinki area libraries are not needlessly collecting dust but are receiving an increasing number of visitors. City libraries which are very much appreciated by Finnish people are also an important part of WDC Helsinki 2012.

The Viikki Environment exhibition presents the various aspects of nature within the area as well as Viikki area planning and solutions to be used for climate change mitigation in construction and housing.

Starting today, the 24-hour Design Competition brings designers and entrepreneurs together to spawn ideas for the next small specialist or ‘basement’ business success stories.

Aalto University combines its skills in the fields of art, economy and technology to create better living environments.

The Snow Parks 2012 pulka riding (sledding) hill offers pulka riders fascination of speed and incredibly fun bends and hillocks.

The Think Corner set up in Aleksanterinkatu Street by the University of Helsinki introduces a selection of the university's top research and teaching programmes in an exciting format.

The following are some of our up-coming events.

On 6 February, the Alternative Master Plan workshop of the OUTReach action programme offered residents and experts an opportunity to bring forward new ideas for the changes planned for the Meri-Rastila area master plan.

Action packed days at the Arctic Circle. The theme of this year’s Rovaniemi Design Week, now being organised for the fourth time, is Arctic Design – Light and Darkness.

The entire year long Fiskars Design Village 2012 project launches WDC Helsinki 2012 with two great exhibitions. Visio and 5x3 Design Visions will introduce new interesting designs and future plans for the Village (the former ironworks).

We are looking for a project manager for a development programme utilising design, with the aim of encouraging public and third sector organisations, such as associations, to apply design and use it in new contexts and socially significant development challenges.

The latest exhibition of Design Gallery 12 established in the basement of the Design Museum introduces works by the most gifted young Polish designers.

The Private Space design competition challenges students to sketch out a place where one can calm down, be quiet, rest and relax.

The architectural publication ArchDaily extends an invitation to choose the best building of 2011 to professionals in the industry.

It is celebration time, because Helsinki has been Finland’s capital city since 1812. So the year has begun with exhibits which cover eras from the city's imperial past to surprising modern day innovations and the concept of a more open city yet to be realised.

Exhibition Centre WeeGee is one of the main platforms of Espoo WDC Helsinki 2012. The five different museums from Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA to the Finnish Toy Museum offer many things to see, experience and to be involved in for people of all ages.

Bicycle shelters will soon spring up in Lahti with local people being encouraged to participate in their design.

The 6 Scenes of Beauty exhibition opening at the Vantaa Art Museum on Friday 10 February is one of the main exhibitions of Vantaa during WDC Helsinki 2012. The theme of the exhibition is beauty.

On Friday in the centre of Helsinki, right next to Design Forum Finland, a temporary exhibition facility called Laboratory is opening.

During the Late Night Shopping events the basement shops in the Design District Helsinki will be open at least until 9 pm. In addition to special offers, the shops organise special programmes, like catering, shows, concerts, designer meetings, or seminars.

Architectural students have produced designs for a design year centre that will not only display completed achievements but will also actively create additional new aspects.

At the Kunsthalle Helsinki Studio, a large number of architectural pavilion models await the visitor. The Finnish Pavilions installation consisting of imaginary architectural pavilions originated from the discussions artist Anu Pennanen had with dozens of senior citizens.

The Ball Chair, designed by Eero Aarnio in 1963, is one of the best known and best loved classics of Finnish design.

The following are some of our up-coming events.

The currently ongoing Stockholm Furniture Fair is presenting fashion and design, as well as furniture design and light fittings, in Stockholm. World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 is also being introduced to Stockholmby the HEL YES! restaurant.

The Ekolandia exhibition showcases Finnish design and fine art through spatial entities. 

Five cities. Three days. 180 events. There is still time to join the design carnival. Here are 11 tips for the WDC Helsinki Open Doors Weekend on Sunday.

Five cities. Three days. 180 events. Here are 8 tips for the WDC Helsinki Open Doors Weekend on Saturday.

On Thursday, 2 February, the World Design Capital gala brought together a global design audience to witness the presentation of three major design awards.

Events, competitions, guided tours, seminars and open lectures. Open doors and exhibitions. Workshops and ideation projects, as well as open data and ice lanterns.

The Lahti region is one of the most significant design centres in Finland. The TRACK to Industrial Design exhibition series will introduce the internationally awarded design skills of local industrial companies.

The role of design in industry and technology will be highlighted in the Technology Museum’s WDC Helsinki 2012 exhibition series.

The Smarter Cities Challenge programme examines and creates ideas for the use of city data.

Some while back Sampo Latvakangas, 16, was wondering why the Finnish coffee served by his grandmother tasted so very bitter. So he embarked on a quest for better coffee – and he will be the youngest finalist at the Barista of the year 2012 competition to be held this weekend.

Saint-Étienne is a former industrial city which has discovered new direction through interactive city planning and design.

Spring in the Design Museum will reveal the various sub-sections and meanings of contemporary design on several different levels.

The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation Tekes and Suomen Asuntotietokeskus [Finnish centre for housing information] have awarded the Housing Market Innovation Prize to the HOAS Laboratory, a joint project of the Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region HOAS and the think tank Demos Helsinki.

The event which arrived in Finland from Sweden, invites workers at the daily grind to dance for an hour in the middle of their work day. When leaving, everyone will be handed a lunch bag, yet during the actual Lunch Beat it would probably not be polite to sit down and eat.

The Dreaming of Light exhibition will showcase Jukka Korpihete’s diverse production.

What is the designer’s responsibility in 2012? What does the word design mean? Why is design thinking important to everyone in all parts of the world? What happens when design meets government? Why are roof gardens beneficial? How much water does it take to make one pint of beer? What is the importance of open data? What is the relationship between a person and an object?

A major Finnish fashion show event, the Finnish Catwalk, will bring together fashion lovers and professionals on Friday, 27 January 2012 at the Old Student House in Helsinki.

The residential blocks of Arabianranta rose from the former earthworks on that site. The recently awarded design will be introduced at the Lasipalatsi Laituri exhibition.

Designing of work uniforms poses its own challenges: heavy-duty use requires much from the materials to be used, the many different body shapes and diverse personal preferences on the other hand require skilful patterning and attention to detail.

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 producers will open their doors during the WDC Helsinki 2012 Open Doors Weekend from 3 to 5 February 2012. The three-day design carnival will delight the residents of five cities as well as tourists with its 180 events. 

Tekes and Design Foundation Finland have launched a Design Into Profit initiative to promote design and design expertise in Finnish SMEs. By focusing on design, companies can improve their competitiveness and create preconditions for expanding their business and speeding up their internationalisation.

Which travel treasure in Finland would you like to save? Does your favourite café need more pleasant furnishings or improved online visibility? Is the path to your favourite lookout spot overgrown with willowherb? Disclose a travel location in Finland which is in need of new lifeblood!

Cinematic experiences in unusual places will characterise the opening of the documentary festival.

Design is the main tourist attraction in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area in 2012. The New York Times has already put Helsinki on its list of most interesting travel destinations in 2012.

Innovative, creative solutions in the sport and fitness sector are important when seeking solutions to big problems in population health and wellbeing.

There is still time to visit the Information and Exhibition Hall Laituri to view and comment on the Helsinki South Harbour exhibition put together by using the development ideas for the area.

What could be a better time for realizing the plans of a Finnish design visionary than the year of the World Design Capital?

When taking the routes offered by Nopsa Travels, there is no need to pack one’s shampoo bottles in small plastic bags or wait for one’s turn in the winding queue for international airports' security checks. Nopsa travellers have no need for a passport and may even travel on the spur of the moment.

On Friday, anyone interested should jump on the bus in front of Kiasma and head to the free science event now organised in Otaniemi for the third time.

The Museum of Finnish Architecture exhibition Seven Connections takes a look at Finnish architecture around the world beginning on 11 January. A video production which is central to the exhibition will showcase Finnish architecture on three giant television screens from locations of some distance to Helsinki.

The "More about functionalism, Reino!" – design in Helsinki films is a joint WDC Helsinki 2012 project between Helsinki City Museum and the National Audiovisual Archive KAVA, explaining about the staging of films and film costume design as well as the urban culture in Finnish films from the 1930s to 1960s.

Hooray for Helsinki! Our Very Own city is a fully illustrated, colourful and extensive picture book produced to celebrate the commencement of WDC Helsinki 2012. 

The participation period for the Bullhorn Design Competition focusing on the improvement of comfort and convenience of everyday travel will end on 15 January 2012.

In February 1944, a total of two thousand bombers from the Soviet air forces pounded Helsinki for three nights. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed or damaged. The Two Faces of Helsinki photography exhibition, created by the special unit conscripts of the Combat Camera Team, depicts today’s Helsinki as if ravaged by the bombings of the Continuation War.

Report Proposes Location, Purpose, Financing and Governance of a Museum and Recommends Moving Forward with an Architectural Competition.

Design 200 is a 200-part TV series, each episode lasting for approximately two minutes and focusing on a particular Finnish design object. The aim is to offer an entertaining and convenient way to learn about the milestones of Finnish design.

Manuel Estrada, one of Spain’s most famous graphic designers, will open his exhibition A Juggler’s Notebooks on 9 January 2012 at 18:00 at the International Cultural Centre Caisa. The exhibition is part of the WDC Helsinki 2012 programme.

As part of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme, the City of Helsinki is organising an open international architectural competition for the design of the Central Library.

Today, WDC Helsinki 2012 will open a remote controlled café at the Forum shopping centre. The café is used to illustrate the significance of good design in everyday life.

The exhibition entitled Finnish Design Unwrapped showcases the most interesting Finnish design of the moment through selected design objects and photos by photographer Jani Kaila.

The World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme listing is digital, always up-to-the-minute and easy to carry around. The mobile app WDC 2012 was released today.

The Vaasa Prize for Design Journalism 2012 competition aims to promote the effectiveness and quality of design writing. The competition is launched at the start of the year and will culminate in an award ceremony organised in the autumn.

The Design Station in Lahti will start the WDC Helsinki 2012 in the City of Lahti with Tapio Anttila’s (Interior Architect, member of Finnish Association of Interior Architects SIO) exhibition ‘Design from Lahti by Tapio Anttila’. The exhibition will be open from 1 Jan until 27 Jan 2012.

We wanted to give Finnish designers an opportunity to tell their story: to explain what design means to them and how diverse the world of design is.

The year turned at the Senate Square and Helsinki became the World Design Capital of 2012. 

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 gets underway at the traditional New Year celebrations organised by the City of Helsinki. The festivities take place on Saturday 31 December 2011 starting at 22.00 on Senate Square.

The New Year celebrations start in the afternoon for the whole family. An illuminated adventure trail has been set up especially for children in the empty showrooms of Kiasma Museum.

We wish everyone a relaxing and joyous holiday season!

WDC Helsinki 2012 has began the campaign to decorate the city for the important year - banderols, flags, posters and display windows have recently popped up everywhere to enliven the streets. Next in line will be the approximately 400 Helsinki City Transport rubbish bins located at tram stops and underground stations.

The 200 works submitted to the international ideas competition for the design of the Helsinki South Harbour have been published for commenting online. The residents can give their opinions about the works until 21 January 2012.

The Aalto University World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 series of programmes has launched a website at living.aalto.fi.  The website introduces all WDC Helsinki 2012 related Aalto University projects as well as the thought processes behind them.

The British lifestyle magazine Monocle assessed the good connections at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport to be the best in Europe.

In cooperation with the Milli Reasürans gallery and Istanbul Technical University’s Department of Industrial Product Design, the Finnish Embassy in Turkey will organise an event in Istanbul focusing on Finnish design.

The winner of the Maternity Pack new look competition organised by Kela is Johanna Öst Häggblom's design Sukupuu (Family Tree).

A lively debate took place on 23 November during the Creative Meeting Place event at Lasipalatsi in Helsinki concerning the opportunities of those working in the creative fields as well as SMEs to involve themselves with World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.

Next spring will see the publication of a new magazine, Gloria Design, which will widely broach design issues not only in its content but also in its own outward appearance.

The traditional New Year celebrations at Helsinki City Senate Square will launch the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 year. WDC Helsinki 2012 will bring to the evening an extensive light and video show as well as a New Year resolution in the words of a young Finnish designer.

The largest architectural event in China, ‘Shenzhen & Hong Kong Biennale for Urbanism and Architecture’ is now being organised for the 7th time. The event hosted by the cities of Shenzhen and Hong Kong will highlight the current phenomenon across increasingly urbanised China, and bring together the major players in the field of architecture from developers to architects and design media, both in China and the Western world.

Design gallery Köln im Studio's “Manifesto exhibition and exhibition manifesto” Red December which will be staged in December redefines Christmas decoration. Young designers’ hand-made decorations will take over the gallery as well as decorate the only spruce tree forest in Punavuori.

Held for the third time, the Apps4Finland idea competition inspired citizens more actively than ever to develop new ways to utilise the open data reserves of public administration.

Next weekend, on 26-27 November 2011, a shop on wheels will be driving around Helsinki loaded with organic and local foods.

Students of Interior Architecture and Furniture Design at Aalto University have examined ways in which lightweight, durable aluminium can be used in furniture design. Aluminium is an almost fully recyclable, corrosion resistant material, which makes it appealing from the viewpoint of sustainable development.

The latest exhibition at the Design Station in Lahti, venue for the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012, is called Metamorphosis. On display for the next two weeks or so is furniture designed by students of the Lahti Institute of Design.

The residents of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen and Lahti expect the World Design Capital year to mainly concentrate on housing conditions, the living environment and services.   The expectations were studied in a questionnaire carried out by the Design Capital, with responses from more than 900 residents.

Restaurant Day has become very popular and will take place for the third time on Saturday 19 November, 2011.

Forum Shopping Centre in central Helsinki will hold its first Turku Design Fair from Friday 18 to Sunday 20 November 2011. It will be an extensive presentation of Turku-based designers and their work.

We have collected a range of successful classic and future products for the Design Capital. The designers of the products vary from promising talents to internationally renowned and recognised pioneers of Finnish design.

The Telakkaranta area, an old shipyard in Helsinki, is to be revitalised and turned into a living room for the citizens of the World Design Capital. The winning entry of a competition organised for the future of Telakkaranta, entitled Living Harbour, has now been developed further, and a street plan has been drafted for the area.

The new Finnish design magazine Trash focuses on sustainable design and is aimed at anyone who believes in the power of design to change the world.

Next May, the International Expert Meeting will submit proposals for concrete solutions to global problems, such as population ageing and sustainable development.

Finnish design is a world-renowned concept, which is above all based on the products and objets d'art of past Finnish designers. But what happens when a designer has nowhere to work or show off their skills? How would increasing exposure, let alone international fame, be possible? A solution to this problem has been found by Finland's first design gallery, Köln im Studio, which has taken the idea of a rental workspace much further than merely a shared studio.

At a press conference today, we published our programme, which consists of some 250 projects. This is the most extensive design programme ever realised in Finland and one of the largest in the world.

On Friday, the first exhibition at Vantaa’s World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 exhibition centre, Habitaren kaikuja, (echoes of Habitare) gets underway.

During the autumn, the University of Helsinki has been holding a series of lectures that is open to all and free of charge. This series culminates in early November in lectures dealing with the circulation of matter and the materiality of reality.

One of the main goals of the World Design Capital is to provide residents with tools for developing their living environment themselves.

The Cellar to Catwalk recycled fashion show will present repurposed clothes and accessories at the Climateinfo point of the World Design Capital.

The ‘Design from Finland’ label was taken into use in September. It designates design, research, product development and innovations of Finnish origin. The label responds to the growing need of businesses to show off their efforts and competence in Finnish design. 

What is Helsinki like in the eyes of designers, craftspeople and artists? 20+12 Design Stories from Helsinki has collected captivating stories about creative and cultural Helsinki, drawn from interviews with designers.

In October, we publicised several WDC 2012 projects on the topic of the environment as part of our programme. Most of these are located in the region of the five cities of the World Design Capital, namely Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen, Lahti and Vantaa, but some are also having an impact abroad.   

Cape Town will be World Design Capital in 2014. The appointment was announced on Wednesday 26 October 2011 at the International Design Alliance Congress, which was held in Taipei. The award was received by Patricia de Lille, Executive Mayor of Cape Town.

The Hel Looks – street fashion from Helsinki – exhibition is on display at the Designcenter De Winkelhaak in Antwerp, Belgium from 14 October to 30 November 2011 as one of the international events linked to World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.

Finnish design has been on display at the International Ceramics Festival ’11 in Mino, Japan from 16 September to 23 October. The event lasting more than a month has honoured Finnish ceramics and showcased the work of Professor Kaj Franck, both as a designer of objects and as a thinker and teacher. 

Ten internationally successful Finnish illustrators are taking part in one of Holland’s largest design events in Eindhoven from 22 to 30 October 2011. 

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 publishes a high-class magazine in cooperation with Sanoma Custom Publishing.

The largest, most international architecture event of the Design Capital year will be arranged next summer in Suvilahti, Helsinki. The two-week festival examines the present situation and potential of backyards, wasteland areas and unwanted spaces around the world.

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 is getting ready for next year through promotional events in New York 21-28 October 2011.

Helsinki is presenting itself as the World Design Capital at Helsinki Days in St Petersburg from 5 to 15 October 2011. This ten-day festival culminates in a weekend family event in the courtyard of Suomi-talo (Finland House).   

Our living environment is full of design in its tangible and intangible forms. City dwellers continuously use, enjoy, consume and experience design in their everyday lives. Can design be energy-efficient? Is there more to design than aesthetics and usability? How can a citizen choose “energy smart” design?

Our meeting point in Espoo, WeeGee, is reaching the age of five years, and celebrating its anniversary with a four-day Art Marathon from 13 to 16 October 2011. At the same time the Art Marathon will launch the YLE Hyvä Säätiö foundation’s Red Nose campaign.

The Bullhorn design competition is targeting the development of the area around Malmi Railway Station. The competition focuses on the use of fibre-cement in an urban environment.  

The functioning of the pavilion that will be built in spring 2012 on a plot of land between the Design Museum and the Museum of Finnish Architecture has been tested by means of a test erection.

The best illuminations for 2011 were announced and awarded at the Valo Lighting event, arranged in conjunction with the Habitare fair. The Chapel of Saint Lawrence came first in the interior lighting category, while Saunalahti children’s house won the outdoor lighting category. Kodinykkönen home store from Lielahti, Tampere, received an honorary mention. 

Slow Food local food market will be arranged in Fiskars Village on Saturday and Sunday 1 -2 October 2011, between 10 am and 4 pm. 

Next weekend, a community environmental artwork, Rhythm, will be planted in the garden city of Kauniainen. It will consist of more than 20,000 white and orange tulips. The residents of Kauniainen will create the artwork themselves by planting the flower bulbs.

The original HOK-Elanto Kaurakakku multigrain oat bread will be returning to shops in the Design Capital. It was a popular product manufactured from 1960 until 1984.

Lahti Muotohuoltamo Centre (previously Design Station), the Design Capital 2012 meeting place in Lahti, is taking in applications for potential exhibitions until 30 September 2011.

Fashion Brunch, which will be held on 8-9 October 2011 in the downtown area of the Design Capital, is an opportunity to enjoy great food and fashion shows. 

Music will be taking over the blocks near Senate Square on Saturday 24 September at the Soiva Kortteli (Musical Block) event jointly arranged by We Love Helsinki and Radio Helsinki.

City residents can go to http://www.ksv.hel.fi/keskustelut to express their opinions about how the design capital’s vast Helsinki Park recreation area should be developed. What new things could Helsinki Park offer for leisure time, as a travel route or a hiking destination?

For Finns, limited access to drinking water seems like an unfamiliar and distant problem.  However, on a global scale only 1% of water is drinkable and an overall shortage of water is a growing problem.  According to UNESCO, the need for water is expected to increase by up to 50% in rapidly developing countries over the next 20 years.

The Redesigning 925 project will redesign the working week and the City of Helsinki visualises better use of open data.

Entrepreneurship presents independent design actors with plenty of challenges: Where to find partners for projects?

Nokia is the latest Main Partner of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012. The design capital currently has a total of 20 corporate partners. This is one of the largest corporate partnership projects ever carried out in Finland.

We wanted to collect the multiple sounds of the city on a single CD. Although the urban environment of Helsinki includes buildings that divide opinions, classic neighbourhoods, lush parks and the seashore surrounding all of this, it also includes noise, humming and music created by residents inspired by their surroundings.

The future Helsinki district of Kruuunuvuorenranta will consist of the former Laajasalo oil docks, Kruunuvuori, Kaitalahti, Tullisaari, Stansvik estate, and the wooded areas to the west of Henrik Borgströmintie road and Gunillantie road. Kruunuvuorenranta will be both a cosy residential area and an attractive recreational area for all Helsinki inhabitants.

The PICNIC Festival being held in Amsterdam in September is built around the urban future, and explores that theme from the angles of sustainable development, infrastructure, society, design and media. The design capital is collaborating with Forum Virium Helsinki to present the opportunities offered by open data at the festival.

On Espoo Day, Saturday 27th August, there is another opportunity to plan the look of the design capital. Openness is one of the key themes during the World Design Capital year.

Held on Friday 26 August as part of the Helsinki Festival, the Night of the Arts offers free activities all over the city – also including design. 

The Aalto University project 365 Wellbeing is part of the World Design Capital 2012 programme. 365 Wellbeing is one of Aalto University's spearhead projects related to the design capital year.

The Helsinki Horizon 2030 exhibition container presents development plans for the seafront suburbs of the Design Capital.

On a sunny Saturday last May the streets of Helsinki were filled with wandering, curious and smiling people. Their eyes were turned upward towards windows, into corridors and they seemed engaged in vibrant chatter.

This year the Helsinki Environmental Award will go to a recipient whose environmental achievement is related to food. The City of Helsinki is looking for a Helsinki company, organisation or person who in their activities combines safety and health in foodstuffs with an environmentally friendly approach.

Flow Festival, which is being held for the 8th time this weekend in the historic Suvilahti power plant area, brings the most attractive names in music to Helsinki. In addition to music, the festival presents new design and art.

The best way to see city sights in the summer is on foot. Helsinki has catered to design enthusiasts for several years now by arranging the Helsinki Design Walk. In addition to providing an overview of the history of Finnish design and its most influential figures, this popular English-language walking tour presents new Finnish designers and promising future talent.

The combination of summer sun, a love for food and innovative design are capturing the hearts of Helsinki residents in a completely new way. The Kalasatama district is the site of a restaurant built by volunteers, a place where natural forces are being harnessed to produce gourmet experiences for city residents.

What’s it like inside the Katajanokka icebreakers? How about Yrjö Kukkapuro’s Ateljee? What kind of solutions has the architect used in the new Saunalahti Children’s Home? And what can you find in the courtyards of Kruununhaka, the island of Santahamina, the old Ford car plant or hidden away in the historical buildings of the Helsinki Deaconess Institute?

The Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum are expanding their activities to the courtyard between the two museums from June to September 2011. The Ihan Pihalla! – Out There! event series is part of the Sandwich project that takes the museums into the public space and raises awareness of the acute need for expanding the two museums with a new joint annex.

In early June, a Helsinki Service Map that has been online for two years was expanded to encompass the municipal services of the cities of Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen. The map is designed to provide easy access to information from all the government bodies and municipalities in the area. Searches can be made by free text, service type or address. For the City of Helsinki, the map also provides information on the population structure.

The Kamppi Chapel of Silence, which is currently being built on Helsinki’s Narinkkatori square, forms a part of the World Design Capital programme. Open daily from early morning until late evening, the chapel will offer a place for quiet meditation and, occasionally, conversation, with personnel from Helsinki’s religious congregations and the Social Services Department available for a chat. There will be no worship services or congregation events in the chapel as such.

The week after midsummer is the time of Helsinki Pride, the largest LHBTQI festival in Finland. The programme for the week consists in discussion forums, photo exhibitions, youth events and pop star driven parties. In total there are over 80 events during the week.

Following deliberations on 9 June 2011, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) has the pleasure to announce on behalf of the members of the World Design Capital® (WDC) Selection Committee that the cities of Bilbao (Spain), Cape Town (South Africa) and Dublin (Ireland) have been selected as the three shortlisted cities that will move on to the next round of evaluation in the bid to becoming the World Design Capital in 2014.

The architectural concept of the central meeting place of the Design Capital, a temporary pavilion, has been chosen. The pavilion will be built in spring 2012 in an empty lot between Design Museum and the Museum of Finnish Architecture in Helsinki, at the site long planned for a permanent and vital new wing for both museums.

The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid), which is behind the nomination of Helsinki as World Design Capital, is proud to announce the winner of the 3rd annual World Industrial Design Day student poster competition.

The British magazine Monocle has selected Helsinki as the most liveable city in the world. Zurich took second place while Copenhagen placed third.

A stamp design competition organized by Itella Posti Oy/Itella Philatelic Center, and part of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme, has received more than 300 contributions. The theme of the competition is Future City.

Helsinki is World Design Capital 2012 together with the cities of Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen and Lahti. The central meeting place of the WDC Helsinki 2012 in Lahti is the Muotohuoltamo Centre (previously Design Station), which is a venue for local, Finnish and international design. Lahti Muotohuoltamo Centre is a place where everybody can acquaint themselves with the activities of the WDC Helsinki 2012.

UPM will partner with the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 as one of its main corporate sponsors. UPM’s business areas manufacture various materials which will be presented in innovative ways during the design capital year.

A key meeting place of World Design Capital (WDC) Helsinki 2012 will be a pavilion placed in an empty lot between Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum in Helsinki. The design of this pavilion will communicate the role of WDC Helsinki as a pioneer in wood construction.

The winners of the Future City stamp design competition have been chosen. Eight contributions were picked from the total of 1,422, to be made into stamps that will be released in January 2012 and used as World Design Capital Helsinki stamps.

INDEX:’s mission is to promote and to apply design and design processes that have the capacity to improve people’s lives worldwide. By entering the INDEX: Partner City Network, Helsinki, Singapore and Copenhagen become a vital part of this mission.

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 and INDEX: of Denmark have launched a partnership. In addition to Helsinki, the new alliance includes the cities of Copenhagen and Singapore.

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 has announced two new corporate partner agreements. BMW is a new Main Corporate Partner while Paulig is a Corporate Partner.  The Design Capital now has a total of 17 Corporate Partners.

The first phase of the process where World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 invites proposals for programme items ended at midnight on Friday, February 11, 2011.

The first programme proposal phase of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 ended on Friday, February 11. We received more than 1,000 proposals, many of which consist of sub-projects. The number of proposals exceeds expectations.

What does World Design Capital look like? Would you like to show it? World Design Capital (WDC) Helsinki 2012 believes that World Design Capital looks just like you. Or your grandmother, nephew, exchange student friend, the caretaker at your office… you tell us!

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has been appointed chairman of the committee tasked to support the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project. The appointment is the first accepted in Finland by the former president and CEO of Nokia Corporation after his term ended at Nokia.

  The dealine for applications fo the DMY Festival in Berlin has been extended. The theme country for the festival is Finland, and the overall theme is copying vs. inspiration. Designers, companies and design schools still encouraged to apply to exhibit at DMY International Design Festival 2011: The last deadline for submissions is February 28, 2011.

How should a city market itself as a winter destination? Do we have enough bicycle ways and bicycle parking? How parks can be put to use in winter? What is the role of nature in cityscape? How could young people be recruited to improve their city? What kind of world would you design? World Design Capital (WDC) Helsinki 2012 cities Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Lahti and Kauniainen once more invite everybody to share their views with us on the possibilities of design, organizing brainstorming during the weeks of March 8 and 19. The events are follow-up on the Ideas Forum held last May.

Helsinki has been selected for IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge grant programme as the only Nordic city. Through this programme IBM offers technology and services to help develop cities around the globe. Helsinki seeks to use the new collaboration to combine and visualize data available in the city in novel ways. The project will be part the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme.

The Helsinki Region Infoshare project initiated by the cities of the Helsinki metropolitan area opens up the cities’ databases for everybody. The publicly available data can be found at the new web service www.hri.fi. The data can be utilized free of charge.

The European Commission will launch an initiative in 2011 to reinforce the link between design, innovation and competitiveness. The European Design Innovation Initiave (EDII) will have a secretariat, which will be located in Designium Innovation Centre. Designium operates in Aalto University.  The Secretariat will locate in Finland for two key reasons: the mission of Aalto University to integrate creative disciplines, economics and technology, and the know-how and experience of Designium in broad-based utilization of design.

  World Design Capital (WDC) Helsinki 2012 has earned a Silver Award for its brand identity in The Best of the Year competition, where Grafia, Association of Professional Graphic Designers in Finland, annually awards the best in Finnish advertising and design. Organized by Grafia for more than 30 years, The Best of the Year (Vuodet Huiput) is Finland’s foremost competition in its field.

IIHF World Championship games will be played in Helsinki in May 2012. Two global players, World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 and the 2012 ice hockey world championship organization, will collaborate to produce a unique, world-class ice hockey event. Design is a key part of both ice hockey and major sports events in general. As World Design Capital in 2012, Helsinki seeks to show how well the city understands this and how exceptionally well it can manage the organization of such events.

The Open Helsinki section of DMY Maker Lab features some prominent examples of the open and participatory design scene in Helsinki: YKON world simulation game, Low2No Camp of urban social innovations, data hacking with We Love Open Data and co-design of open processes with Open P2P Design.

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 is already actively operating, especially outside Finland. Numerous events are an important part of the WDC Helsinki 2012 programme and a means of focusing the international design community’s attention on Finland.

The Helsinki City Planning Department is organising the international South Harbour ideas competition as part of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 programme. The entrants’ task is to create a comprehensive ideas plan for the South Harbour that can be used as a basis for the future development of the area.

Starting on Thursday, May 12, new designs by a select group of young Finnish designers will be on display in New York’s trendy Meatpacking District in the event titled New Finnish Design SCENARIOS – A Story About What Happened in the Future.

Design Museum in Helsinki puts on display a major exhibition on modernism, exploring the various manifestations and trends of the style. The exhibition juxtaposes Finnish modernism against the international scene and follows the path of modernism in Finland to contemporary Finnish design.

 Svenska kulturfonden (Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland) has joined the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project as one of its financiers and partners. The significant and extensive cooperation now announced aims at production of joint contents. At the same time, the cooperation will facilitate joint projects with other Nordic partners.  

The Inspiring Office competition, part of Martela’s Design Awards 2011, sought a novel, creative and inspiring work space. The competition was open to designers, architects, design and architectural students, and teams. The jury had four members: industrial designer James Irvine, industrial designer Pekka Toivanen, designer Ilkka Suppanen and graphic designer Xiao Yong. The jury was chaired by Leena Puttaa-Sollo, who also acted as the jury secretary. 

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 has confirmed five new corporate partners. The project is becoming one of the largest corporate partnership projects in Finnish history.

Future City is the theme of the stamp design competition organized by Itella Posti Oy/the Itella Philatelic Center. The competition is part of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 program, and the winning stamps will be sold publicly and used by the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.

Finland is the theme country of the largest design event in Germany, DMY International Design Festival, held in Berlin in June 2011.

The winner of a competition for ideas to liven up the business district of the Herttoniemi suburb in eastern Helsinki is a proposal named Park Avenue.

Helsinki’s Viikki district will be home to 113 housing units in multi-storey wooden buildings. The buildings constitute one of Finland’s largest wooden housing projects to date. It complies with the City of Helsinki’s goals to promote ecological construction and innovations in multi-storey housing.

The Season of Light city event, from December 31, 2010 through January 9, 2011, will liven up the darkest time of the year in Helsinki, as light art installations create inspiring atmospheres in the city centre.

The World Design Capital title was officially transferred to Helsinki on Wednesday, 8 December.

The concentration of creative businesses in Design District Helsinki organizes a Late Night Shopping event on Friday, December 3rd, offering the busiest consumers an opportunity for leisurely Christmas shopping after working hours. 

The first corporate partnerships with World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 were announced on Monday, November 29, 2010. Main partnership agreements were signed with Blue1, Finavia, Fortum, HOK-Elanto, Martela, MTV MEDIA and Viking Line. Partnership agreements were signed with Clear Channel and Stockmann.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has launched a design competition, EESC Design Eleven – 2011 European Design Award For A Sustainable Present, for European designers and design students.

Many people are in sweat in the weeks before Christmas over what to buy for the family and friends. Personal, ecological and fun design gifts are available from Christmas markets where designers and artisans sell their products.

Finnish furniture and interior solutions company Martela seeks concepts for a new type of creative and inspiring office in a new Inspiring Spaces competition targeted at designers, architects, design and architectural students, and teams.

The design event producers Helsinki Design Week and Dutch Design Week have initiated co-operation, which has produced its first concrete outcome: the newly published Trend Book.

Students of Aalto University have won the Wood Award 2010, a Finnish prize for innovative uses of wood in construction in Finland, for their zero energy house named Luukku.

The City of Rovaniemi has signed a collaboration agreement with International Design Foundation, the management organization of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project.

The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) is currently inviting cities to submit applications for the World Design Capital 2014 designation.

Laituri gallery presents the diploma work of seven Serbian architectural students, comprising their takes on the planning of the Kruunuvuorenranta district of Helsinki.

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 organized a series of visual image workshops together with design agency Kokoro&Moi in Shanghai

The best pavilions of Shanghai World EXPO 2010 were awarded on Saturday October 30th by BIE (Bureau International des Expositions) in Shanghai. Finland pavilion received a Golden Statue for the best Pavilion Design in category B

Proposals for programme items are now accepted by World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 and can be submitted through February 11, 2011.

Helsinki’s new Kalasatama district, under re-development from a former industrial and harbour site for housing and jobs, will be home to an innovative building that houses a day care centre and comprehensive school. First prize in an invited architectural competition on the building organized by the City of Helsinki has been awarded to the Helsinki-based firm JKMM Architects for their proposal Wigwam.

Helsinki Region Infoshare will make open regional data easy to find and use. The Apps4Finland 2010 competition has been completed and winners announced.

Design Forum Finland will stage a major design export initiative in Tokyo from late October through early November, titled HIRAMEKI Design × Finland. The project is the largest and most multifaceted presentation of Finnish design seen in Japan to date.

Helsinki’s waste management organization HSY Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority has organized an open photo competition to mark the centennial of the protection of the Baltic Sea through wastewater treatment – Long live the sea! Metropolis and the sea.

Designer and professor Kaj Franck would celebrate his 100th birthday in 2011. To mark the centennial, a number of Finnish design institutions are organizing a series of programmes to honour the legacy of this leading and one of the most influential figures in of Finnish design.

The City of Helsinki and Senate Properties will organize a competition on the plan for Pasila One, the core area of the Central Pasila (Keski-Pasila) district.

  Helsinki Region cities and municipal organizations are setting up a new service for citizens, Climate Info. The service is meant to motivate citizens to fight climate change and to help them shift towards a low-carbon lifestyle.

Helsinki Design Week 2010, from August 26 through September 5, celebrated storytelling on the themes Past-Present-Future, gathering design professionals and the general public together to explore dimensions of design.

  The management organization of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project, International Design Foundation, is recruiting staff and setting up its headquarters in the Helsinki city centre.

  The next few years will see more construction in Helsinki than ever before. Vast sites, many of them on the waterfront, have been vacated from former harbour and other industrial uses, and redevelopment of these sites for housing and jobs has begun.

Helsinki advances the use of public transport by means of events that combine fun with information and awareness building, a Car Free campaign, and trams spiced up with cultural offerings.  

The business district of the Herttoniemi suburb in eastern Helsinki has been designated as a design street, and the City of Helsinki is inviting ideas in an open competition to redefine the identity of the street.

The data content of the Helsinkikanava portal is now accessible to application developers. In addition to video recordings of City Council meetings, the data content includes associated metadata such as voting records.

Austrian architect Hermann Kaufmann is the winner of the International Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award 2010, granted to him by the Wood in Culture Association of Finland. The award recognizes an individual or team for progressive and creative use of wood in architecture.

Young design professionals and Aalto University students investigate possibilities and today’s realities of glass in a series of one-off and prototype glass items, on display at Design Forum Finland.

The annual Habitare fair, Finland’s largest furniture, interior decoration and design trade event, puts on display a wide variety of products and ideas in its 2010 edition, blending commercial products with prototypes and concepts, and incorporating sustainability and contemporary art.

Helsinki Design Week 2010 gathers design professionals and the general public together around the theme of storytelling. The verbalizations and visuals unravel the meaning of design in people’s everyday lives.

The Art goes Kapakka annual urban festival recognizes Helsinki personalities and institutions with awards for making Helsinki a more fun city.  

Helsinki Festival 2010 seeks to collide art with audiences during the two week-run of this annual festival, the largest and most diverse event on Finland’s cultural calendar.

The City of Helsinki’s building and construction board annually awards architects and other key players distinguished in the architectural design and development of Helsinki with recognitions of excellence (Rakentamisen Ruusu). The winner of the 2010 main award is architect Juha Leiviskä, recognized for his lifetime achievement.

OpenHouseHelsinki opens doors to buildings, spaces and sites not regularly accessible by the general public. The three-day event offers citizens and visitors to Helsinki opportunities to see old and new architecture, exciting city facilities and enticing interiors, acquainting them with spiritual experience, diplomatic life, contemporary architecture, Helsinki’s past and future, and the functions of the city.

Finland will put on display seven school buildings at the Venice Architecture Biennale, all built in the past decade and each designed by a different architectural firm.

  Design Museum Helsinki coordinates the European design education project Fantasy Design in Community 2009-2011, where children and adolescents solve challenges in their environment through the means of design.

Architectural student Heikki Muntola has won first prize in the Helsinki Townhouse competition with his proposal titled [tabula rasa] by a unanimous vote of the jury.

Is Helsinki more creative than other cities, and what makes Helsinki creative? A new study reviews creative Helsinki from the perspective of the preferred locations of both artists and IT professionals in terms of living and working.

The summer exhibition at the Museum of Finnish Architecture presents some of the most notable Finnish architecture from 2008-09, continuing on a biennial Museum tradition now in the fourth edition. Finnish Architecture 0809 displays 25 projects that together offer a broad cross-section of current Finnish architecture, ranging from small to large projects – from summer houses and single-family homes to entire urban areas.  

One of the grand names of Finnish design, Oiva Toikka (born 1931) is celebrating his 50th anniversary as a designer for Iittala. In honour of the event, Design Museum in Helsinki has organized a major retrospective of Toikka’s work as its summer exhibition.

Finland’s biennial Millennium Technology Prize has been awarded to Professor Michael Grätzel from Switzerland for his third generation, low cost, dye-sensitized solar cells. The Millennium Technology Prize is a tribute to life-enhancing technological innovations. The prize awards technologies that have a positive impact on the quality of life and are based on humane values.

The exhibition Helsinki Horizon 2030, produced by the Helsinki City Planning Department, was opened in London on Friday, 18 June. It is one of the many exhibitions in connection with the London Festival of Architecture.

Nuuksio in Espoo will become home to a new forum of cultural and nature activities in 2012, the year of World Design Capital Helsinki. A new Nature Centre will offer a window to Finnish nature and showcase today’s ecological Finnish wood architecture at this wilderness site only 40 kilometres from the Helsinki City Centre.

Helsinki’s Töölönlahti Bay area will be home to a major Central Library, housed in a new building designed for the purpose. According to the new project plan, the library will open its doors in June 2017 and welcome 5,000 visitors daily.

A new foundation will be established to manage the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project, according to a Helsinki City Council decision of June 2, 2010. The foundation will be named International Design Foundation (Kansainvälinen designsäätiö in Finnish, and Internationella Designstiftelsen in Swedish).

  Citizens participated eagerly in brainstorming for World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 (WDC Helsinki 2012) during the Ideas Forum on May 22. Altogether, they proposed more than two thousand ideas for better cities in the approximately one hundred sessions held in Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen and Lahti. Some of the ideas can already be viewed on the project’s website. Brainstorming will continue on the site until the end of May.

Blue is a natural choice, as the colours of Finland are blue and white, and blue is also Helsinki’s colour.

  The Finnish Design Yearbook is one of the main sources of information on new Finnish design and designers, manufacturers and the latest trends. The third edition of the series, Yearbook 2010-11, has been published and is available from Design Forum Finland, bookstores, online shopping outlets and major Finnish design events. The book is in English only. It is produced and published by Design Forum Finland.

In Scale! Trees and human figures is a new exhibition at the Laituri meeting place and gallery of the Helsinki City Planning Department. The exhibition consists of models that urge Helsinki residents to look around themselves and study the scales of the cityscape and the relations between people and the city.

Straightforward – New Finnish Design continues a series of Finnish design programmes in New York City, now in the third edition. Straightforward, from May 14-17, 2010, showcases new design from Finland and seeks to find new ways to export Finnish design. 

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012, a joint project by Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen, Lahti and other partners, extends an open invitation to citizens, companies and other organizations, clubs, universities and other educational institutions, city districts, and all other interested parties: join the organizers to brainstorm, discuss and plan what the year 2012 as World Design Capital can mean and be for everybody.

The Best of the Year in marketing communication and design have been chosen: the Finnish Association of Professional Graphic Designers Grafia announced the winners of the annual contest on April 15th, 2010.

The Arkki School of Architecture for Children and Youth continues its commitment to educate children and adolescents of ages 4-18.

Helsinki Design Week is an annual city-wide event encompassing design, architecture and fashion. It offers visitors exhibitions, seminars, workshops, fashion shows, shopping experiences and open houses.

Two Finnish jewellery designers, Heli Kauhanen and Essi Sikanen, share methods and views about their art. The designers have combined forces to set up an exhibition, titled Impressions of Sensitivity, on display at Design Forum Finland.

Helsinki’s Viikki district will be home to a new ecological office building. The building will feature the lowest energy consumption of all office buildings in Finland. The project continues the commitment in Viikki to seek eco-efficiency in the building stock and lifestyles. 

How will we live in the coming decades? What kind of care environment will our eldering population have? A new exhibition on architectural competition entries provides answers.

  The Friends of Finnish Handicraft association was founded 130 years ago in response to a manifesto urging Finnish artists and crafts enthusiasts to cherish Finland’s national heritage of crafts and to develop the tradition. Textiles have played a central role in Finnish handicraft throughout these years.

Helsinki City Art Museum in Meilahti hosts an exhibition titled Photography and Video NOW consisting of the latest work by the young generation of the Helsinki School. On display are photographs, videos and installations.

The Institute of Design and Fine Art in Lahti has collected 13 student furniture designs from the design studio, in the exhibit UNI ON 2010 (“dreams of 2010”).

The potential offered by the Chinese architectural market for international firms and the opportunities of Finnish firms to tap into that market are the themes of Snowball Helsinki Shanghai 2010, an architectural export promotion project carried out in the two cities in February-March.

Habitare, Finland’s largest furniture, interior decoration and design fair, continues its programme of special exhibitions focusing on ecological design. The 2009 fair featured an EcoDesign chair exhibition, and the theme of the second EcoDesign exhibition in 2010 will be light.

The Baltic Sea is one of the most polluted seas in the world. In an urgent call to save the sea, public and private sector players come together to recruit everybody to act. Cities can play a major role through their wastewater policies and practices.

Helsinki’s energy company Helsingin Energia has opened a charging station for electric vehicles on a downtown Helsinki street. The station is a pioneering experiment to test technologies as Helsinki paves the way for rapid growth in the city’s electric vehicle stock.

A new study places the Helsinki City Library’s central unit in a new building to be located in the Töölönlahti Bay area in downtown Helsinki. If approved by Helsinki’s City Council later this year, the Central City Library will open its doors in 2017, when Finland celebrates the 100th anniversary of the nation’s independence.

The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) has launched a call to designers to unite in an open dialogue with international relief organisations to assess potential design-effective rehabilitation projects.

The Finnish Association of Professional Graphics Designers Grafia and the Finnish Association of Designers Ornamo have chosen their designers of the year from among 2,600 members. The annual designer awards recognize innovation, artistic merit, response to current values, general interest value, or long and respected careers.

A technically advanced senior citizens’ home for the mentally impaired has opened in Helsinki, and a design competition for a homeless centre comes to a conclusion.

The winners of a competition for the two main artworks of Helsinki Music Centre have been announced: a sculpture titled Gaia by Kirsi Kaulanen will be placed in the main lobby, and another sculpture titled Laulupuut by Reijo Hukkanen will be placed in front of the building.

The official launching of Aalto University took place in Finlandia Hall and at the Contemporary Art Museum Kiasma in Helsinki on January 8, 2010. The new innovation university combines three leading Helsinki-area universities in the fields of art and design, economics, and science and technology, aiming to become a world-class institution of teaching and research in these fields.

  The Viikki traffic circle in Helsinki is the stage of Twig Hummer built from timber, twigs and cardboard. The environmental artwork by Ilkka Karhu is the artist’s Master of Art diploma project at the Aalto University School of Art and Design.

Design Forum Finland exhibits 45 chairs designed on ecological criteria by Finnish designers, on view through January 10th, 2010.

The Season of Light festival gives everybody an opportunity to become a lighting designer at its website. Visitors to the site can design lighting for Parliament House and share their designs with all others in the gallery.

Helsinki’s City Planning Department has prepared an underground plan to ensure well-managed development of the city below surface. The plan is ready for final approvals. Helsinki is the only city in the world to have prepared such a plan.

Helsinki will be the World Design Capital of the year 2012. The designation was announced by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) at the Icsid World Design Congress 2009 in Singapore on 25 November 2009.

A new data centre in central Helsinki is air conditioned by district cooling, and the waste heat generated by the electronic equipment is recovered and used as district heat. The centre is projected to be the world’s most eco-efficient.

Comprehensive information of Finnish architecture and architects can now be found from one online source. The new virtual information service is targeted at the international community, both at professionals and at all others interested in Finnish architecture. Its goal is to increase awareness and knowledge of Finnish architecture and to make information of Finnish architecture increasingly accessible.

Milan-based architectural office Cino Zucchi Architetti has created a dense urban complex with 10 sculpturesque towers for Helsinki’s Keski-Pasila (Central Pasila) district. Citizens have been invited to comment on the plans.

Helsinki is systematically developing new concepts for varied types of apartment blocks to render this type of housing an appealing alternative for residents. The effort underscores the emphasis in Helsinki on high density and public transport, as sustainable approaches to urban development.

Andy Best’s electronic artwork “Power Flower” took the first price in a city art contest organized jointly by the Pixelache electronic art festival and the City of Helsinki’s energy company Helsingin Energia.

The latest edition of the touring Eero Saarinen exhibition is on view at the Museum of the City of New York, presenting Eero Saarinen’s roots and work in Helsinki as well as his links to New York.

“Over the next ten years, Helsinki is likely to see more changes than any other major European metropolis,” says Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen. “There will be significant shifts in both demography and the city structure.”

Helsinki Madrid FinDesign, on view at the Contemporary Art Center in Matadero, is the main exhibition of the current Finnish Design Month in Madrid. This exhibition displays hundreds of products from Finnish companies and designers.

Helsinki has been shortlisted for the World Design Capital 2012 together with the city of Eindhoven of the Netherlands. ICSID, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, will announce the winner in November.

One of the leading contemporary Finnish designers, Harri Koskinen, is the latest winner of the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg’s Prize of Sweden.

  Helsinki will celebrate the beginning of the year 2010 with two light-art installations by Mikki Kunttu in the Season of Light event.

Conference provides new ideas, means and methods to explore architecture and design with children in school and after school activities.

OpenHouseHelsinki is an event that opens doors which are normally shut for Helsinki residents and visitors.

Optical fibre is a symbol of the rapid evolution of techniques and technology, while weaving by hand lends a human touch.

The photo exhibition by Jussi Tiainen consists of 75 photos of buildings in Helsinki that represent new architecture. The photos cover a span of about ten years, 1998-2006, and most of them were ordered by the architects themselves. The buildings represent a large scale of new construction.

Experience the old days tram from 1930 or on an open trailer from 1919 in Helsinki.

DO TOUCH! Helsinki Design Week 09 brings design within reach of everyone. The theme is manifested in the events that encourage collaboration between creative professionals and other people. The Helsinki Design Week organizers believe that design should be open for interaction, opinions and touch. Come and leave your mark at Helsinki Design Week events in the Cable Factory and other venues!

 Helsinki Festival is an multi-arts festival held annually in late August – early September. It takes in music, theatre, dance, the visual arts, cinema and city events featuring both Finnish and foreign artists of international repute. In 2009 the festival is held from 13 to 30 August .

This is the night when Helsinki never sleeps. The August night on Friday, 21 August, will be filled with events and experiences of all shapes and sizes from the early evening until the small hours. Discover what’s going on just around the corner – in the city’s parks, streets and squares.

Let the arts get under your skin! Helsinki’s best pubs, bars and restaurants will be buzzing as performers of all shapes and sizes take to the stage across the city until 22 August. Art goes Kapakka offers a wide range of high-quality events and  programs by top artists staged in Helsinki’s most interesting bars and  restaurants. The festival brings together the worlds of visual art,  cuisine and science for an unprecedented event. Each year the festival  awards the “Making Helsinki More Fun” prize to an individual or group  who has brightened up the city.

Habitare, Finland’s largest furniture, interior decoration and design fair, will take over the exhibition halls of the Helsinki Fair Centre from 9 to 13 September 2009. The previous Habitare, held in 2007, attracted nearly 90,000 visitors. Now in its 20th edition, Habitare is becoming an annual event.

The buildings designed by architect Alvar Aalto are an important part of Helsinki’s urban landscape and valuable architectural heritage. The city is home to some 20 buildings and other sites designed by Aalto, the majority of them internationally recognized.

Helsinki made a splash in Berlin in spring 2008 through the HelsinkKissBerlin programme of events. One of the events was a city planning seminar between planners from both cities. This seminar created the basis for ongoing co-operation, which will enter its second stage in the beginning of September in Helsinki.

What is luxury today? Design Forum Finland’s summer exhibition studies modern varieties and phenomena of luxury. “Luxury” has traditionally referred to opulence, abundance and rare expensive products and designer brands. Today’s luxury products emphasize above all good design and their focus is shifting from the objects as such to their different, and even surprising, contexts.

Northern Line, a review of eight designers born in Finland but working abroad. Common to all are the cultural differences they have encountered during the years abroad.

Originally a substitute for furs used as protective cover on boats and sledges, the Finnish “ryijy” (long-piled rug), also known as “ryijy rug”, has evolved into a beloved artistic textile for both everyday life and special occasions in Finland

The winner of the first architectural competition for the Jätkäsaari area has been announced: “Breakfast on the lawn” by Helamaa and Pulkkinen Architects presents a high-quality and workable solution for State-subsidized student housing.

Association of professional graphic designers Grafia and Finnish Association of Designers Ornamo award annually six distinguished designers. The criteria of selection include innovation, artistic considerations, topicality, interesting work or a long career of achievement.

Finland’s largest design event, Helsinki Design Week is dedicated to bringing people closer to design. Under the theme DO TOUCH!, this year’s programme offers a vibrant combination of workshops, seminars, exhibitions, fashion shows, installations, shopping opportunities and open-house visits to designer studios, from September 4th to 13th.

Helsinki Design Week’s event for shopping and fun, the Design Market outlet sale, made top design ranging from international brands to unique boutique items available under one roof, and a great many of the visitors made real bargains.

One of the core programmes of Helsinki Design Week 2009, Designpartners captures the essence of the week: the main focus is on design processes.

Finland’s largest design fair Habitare puts on show Finnish and international design, furniture and interior decoration. The fair explores today’s values with a strong ecological angle, and even takes a new look at Finnish roots through sauna.

The EcoDesign special exhibition at Finland’s largest design fair Habitare introduces the views of leading designers on ecological furniture.

Open Studios is one of the core programmes of Helsinki Design Week. Designers open their studios to the public for a glimpse of the creative processes behind the scenes and for better understanding of Helsinki as a design city.

Imu Design and the Finnish Fair Corporation organized a Protoshop exhibition at the Habitare design fair.

Finnish architect Vesa Honkonen created the high-profile Ahead! design section at the Habitare fair, playing with contrasts and light.

Helsinki Design Week’s Director Kari Korkman reflects on the week, which offered new insight into design under the theme Do Touch!

The latest ideas and concepts of young Finnish designers are on view in the Somedemos and Living Details exhibitions at Design Forum Finland in Helsinki through October 25th, 2009.

Helsinki City Planning Department’s gallery and information centre Laituri puts on display Spacial Design diploma projects from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in an exhibition titled “What if…”, September 25th to October 24th, 2009.

Helsinki’s Jätkäsaari area will be home to Finland’s first low- or no-carbon suburb. The winner of an international design competition has been announced.

The book Newly Drawn – Emerging Finnish Architects presents nine Finnish architects offices that are achieving rising international recognition, as well the young architects who work there. How did they first start working together? How do they work together? What have they achieved so far? What do they expect of the future? Their careers are only just beginning, but several competition victories, honorary mentions and significant commissions show that the future is theirs.

Helsinki City Museum put on view a controversial exhibition on the Roma minority of Finland in summer 2009 and studied people’s reactions to the new approach in the museum’s exhibition policy.

The winners of a contest on digital innovations for the public sector were announced in the Mindtrek digital media convention in Tampere, Finland.

DesignForum Finland hosts an exhibition where top designers display their ideas of the “leukupuukko” knife of Lapland, October 2nd to November 29th, 2009.

 Helsinki’s Arabianranta city suburb is a showcase of the widespread use of architectural competitions in Helsinki to build high-quality areas. The 21st competition, one of the last for the suburb, has been completed.

 Helsinki’s energy company Helsingin Energia and the Pixelache electronic art community invited artists in the spring of 2009 to come up with proposals for artworks related to energy consumption.

Finnish industrial designer, artist and professor Hannu Kähönen has become the 18th winner of the prestigious Kaj Franck Design Prize.

The electric car ERA developed by the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences has been qualified for the second round in the distinguished Progressive Automotive X Prize contest in the United States.

Wooden reliefs by Ilona Rista combine art and functional interior decoration. Her latest collection depicting Helsinki is on exhibit at Design Museum in Helsinki.

The third Living Labs Innovations seminar was held in Helsinki on November 3rd, 2009. The presentations highlighted recent developments in the concept and its implementations.