FINEST – smart-city Center of Excellence

Project description

The FINEST Twins aims to build a smart-city Center of Excellence (CoE) based in Estonia capable of mobilising all leading actors and stakeholders in Estonia and establish a solid long term partnership with their Helsinki region counterparts, capitalising on the macro region’s scientific knowledge, innovativeness and entrepreneurship. The smart city CoE will focus on mobility, energy and built environment glued together by governance and urban analytics & data and aims to match leading smart city research centers globally. The FINEST Twins develops the cross-border knowledge transfer infrastructure (Urban Operating System) through real-life pilots capable of attracting international expertise and investment, as well as acting as a springboard for the exportation of Finnish-Estonian knowledge and combined service solutions on a global scale.

In the Built Environment stream we will focus on the research and development of smarter and more communicative city planning approach where the human-centric approach is enlarged towards life-centric planning philosophy that balances ecological values with human values and responds to global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. Life-centric planning approach is explored both through the smart communicative city planning methods, as well as bio-digital design concepts and tools. Additionally, smart communicative city planning strives to move from linear planning processes to dynamic models.

Research themes

Participatory planning

Private: PPGIS and VGI methods development

Project details

  • Start date:
    December 15, 2020
  • End date:
    December 31, 2020
  • Location:
    Estonia, Finland
  • Funded by:
    EU – Horizon
  • Objectives:
    Smart city centre of excellence

Project contact

Marketta Kyttä

Aalto University

Team members

  • Aija Staffans
  • Pilvi Nummi
  • Petri Kangassalo

Participating partners

Kristi Krisakov

Tallinn University of Technology

Kimmo Lylykangas

Tallinn University of Technology

Related publications

Nummi, P. (2020). Hallitsematon tekijä? – Sosiaalisen median rooli kaupunkisuunnittelussa.
An Uncontrollable Factor? The Role of Social Media in Urban Planning. Aalto University publication series Doctoral Dissertations 137/2020. urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-64-0032-7

Harsia, E. & Nummi, P. (2024) Beyond the Blind Spot: Enhancing Polyphony Through City Planning Activism Using Public Participation GIS. Urban Planning. 9, 7096. doi.org/10.17645/up.7096

Ingi, D. Bhusal, P. Pinho, P. Kyttä, M. & Parker, M. (2023) Ways to study changes in pedestrians’ behaviour in the artificially lit urban outdoor environment. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 1099 (1), 012007. doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1099/1/012007

Nummi, P. & Harsia; E. (2022) Socially and culturally sustainable public participation in urban development: Map questionnaire as a bridge-building tool in Kontula shopping mall. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 1122, (1), 012011. doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1122/1/012011

Participatory Mapping Institute
Copyright 2020