Defence of dissertation in the field of Spatial Planning and Transportation Engineering, Tiina Merikoski, Landscape Architect

Planning of cities and communities is a complex task, which requires contributions from multiple disciplines and interaction between them. In the recent decades, the task has become even more complicated and demanding, due to the challenges posed by environmental and climate change. There is much that is still not understood regarding sustainability of communities, and new solutions and innovations are needed.

In this thesis, the instrumentality of planning competitions in generating solutions for sustainable community development is investigated. A key observation is that there are limitations in the planning competition conventions that restrict the realm of possible solutions. Planning competitions are dominated by the traditions of the architectural profession, and thus effective, multidisciplinary collaboration becomes crippled. Other professionals, who are not familiar with using visualisations and reading imagery, are at risk of receiving a secondary role in a collaborative, multidisciplinary design team. Moreover, the results imply that similar difficulties may be experienced more broadly in practices of urban planning and design, beyond competitions. The research adds to our understanding of what is needed from planning competition practices and planning more generally, in aiming to meet the goals of sustainable community development.

The opponent is Professor, PhD Agatino Rizzo, from Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.

The custos is Professor Raine Mäntysalo from the Department of Built Environment, Aalto University. 

Electronic dissertation: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/44189

Doctoral candidate’s contact information:
Tiina Merikoski
[email protected]
+358 50 339 6163

A doctoral dissertation is a public document and shall be available at Aalto University, School of Engineering’s notice board in Otakaari 4, Espoo at the latest 10 days prior to public defence.