Liveable Nordic Cities

As Director of Planning and Sustainability in Copenhagen City & Port Development Corporation, Rita Justesen sees the necessity of being part of that huge transformation of cities, which is why she focuses on the development of new urban districts that are sustainable both in the short and long run. According to Rita, some of the most pressing challenges include the growing number of people looking for a place to live, the provision of a high-class transport system, and of course the creation of dense, diverse, but most importantly liveable neighbourhoods.

Matti Kaijansinkko MArch, Architect, Studied at The Technical University of Helsinki (TKK) and The University of Washington in Seattle. Kaijansinkko is the Head of The West Harbour planning project for The City of Helsinki. He has been with The Helsinki City Planning Office as of 2001. The main works at the office have been the Masterplans of Jätkäsaari (2006) and Hernesaari (2018). Since 2019 he has leaded also the planning project of Kalasatama area.

Dr. Lukas Gilliard has been Chief Of Staff at HafenCity Hamburg GmbH since 2018. He is an experienced public speaker holding degrees in urban planning and urban design. Driven by the urgent need for a sustainable transformation of our cities, he is concerned with innovation-oriented development process and governance arrangements. He has hosted numerous professional and academic delegations, represented the company at business meetings and conferences, and supported the executive board in its strategic communication towards local politics, local administration, and business partners. In addition, he takes responsibility for the development of concepts regarding sustainability and industrial uses in the city.

Christina Salmhofer is the Sustainability Strategist for the Stockholm Royal Seaport Project (SRS), within the Development Administration. SRS is one of the largest urban development projects in Sweden and Stockholm’s flagship on sustainable development, where learnings are disseminated to the other city projects. She is responsible for coordinating of the sustainability work for SRS, with ambitious sustainability targets focusing on integrated system thinking of resource efficiency with the goal of being fossil fuel free by 2030. Christina also coordinates different administration and company-wide focus groups. She is responsible for a number of RD&I projects on digitalisation and source separated waste water systems, energy systems, etc. Christina holds a MSc in Environmental Management and Policy from Lund’s University, Sweden. Christina has a history of working with sustainable development in government administration and private sector.

Johanna Lilius is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Architecture at Aalto University and was a visiting professor at University of Vienna in 2020. Her research focuses on housing and urban and regional development. She is the author of Reclaiming Cities as Spaces of Middle-class Parenthood (Palgrave Macmillan). Since 2020, she is the chief editor of the Finnish Journal of Urban Studies.

Marketta Kyttä works as a professor in Land use planning in Aalto University, Finland. Her work concentrates on research with PPGIS (public participation GIS) methodology studying themes like environmental health promotion, social sustainability, age- and child-friendly environments and participatory planning. 

Ranja Hautamäki is Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture at the Department of Architecture, Aalto University, Finland from 2017. Ranja has a 13-year professional background as the head of the landscape planning unit at the City of Tampere. Ranja´s field is landscape planning and society and her research has focused on urban green and its planning practices and discourses. Her biggest ongoing project addresses carbon-smart landscape planning and design practices. 

Seppo Junnila works as Professor of Real Estate Business at Aalto University. His research focuses on life-cycle technologies, management and innovation, sustainable real estate, industrial ecology and digital real estate. Before joining the academia, Junnila worked in numerous positions in consulting industry. He has also worked as a Business Director at Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra).

Dr. Aija Staffans is an architect and works as Senior Research Fellow at Aalto University, Finland. Her research interest is in urban planning and design, especially in collaborative processes and knowledge integration. She is a pioneer in developing participatory methods and digitally supported platforms for land use planning. Dr. Staffans has initiated and managed several major research projects with over forty public and private partners. Since 2018, she manages the multi-disciplinary key research area of human-centred living environments at Aalto University.