I write in margins

I recently moved to work in the landscape office space in my working location in Turku. Humak University of Applied Sciences ' RDI-Centre (Meri) moved recently to Logomo Byrå - centre for creative industries in Turku, Finland and the solution was open office where we all shared an open and spaceous premises. For me, who comes from a family with seven kids, working in such a location is not problematic at all, but once and a while there is a situation where you would prefer a quiet chat in a phone because of the background noice - or because you want to let others to work undisturbly. Finnish Framery developed a solution for landscape offices I happened to be around when Vesa-Matti Marjamäki and Samu Hällfors from a small design company Framery came to install a phone booth designed for landscapes to our premises. It is worth to mention that these start-uppers live with the enterpreneurship spirit. They are not just installers but they also company managers. Sometimes you d...

T-Sairaala, TYKS, Finland , a set on Flickr. Architect: Mikael Paatela , Year of completion 2013. A visit to a new T-Hospital in Turku was an exciting experience for someone who appeciates lean and functional architecture. A week ago I visited first time in the new T-hospital in Turku. A hospital which would replace among other things one of the signal buildings of the Finnish architecture: Alvar Aalto 's Paimio Sanatory (video). Paimio has been in active hospital use since 1930's and now, almost 80 years later, it was replaced with the new modern hospital building. But how does the new building comparison with an old one drawn by one of the icons in the modern architecture? Comparison, of course, is just for fun since you can't really make a comparison between these two buildings. One central part of Paimio's great design is how the place is situated in the middle of the nature and how Aalto's architecture brings the surrounding nature as part of the b...

Great News for the Finnish Classical Art Got just message from Facebook wall. Ateneum (National Gallery of Finland) pages for the Google Art Project have been published today. Google Art Project's ambition is to collect the best of the national treasures around the world and bring them alive to everyone in the world. What is specific for such a art lover than myself is that you can get closer to the paintings through the internet than in real galleries. You get the details of brush work and colours better from the high resolution images than from the real ones. Today, Google Art Project have artwork from 230 different galleries. Eero Järnefelt's Under the Yoke photographed with Google's Gigapixel technique. You can go even closer. Click the link below. Thank you for the Great Name, Our Ancestors! Now, when pages opened in the internet we can congratulate our ancestors when they named our National Gallery as Ateneum. It's a bit odd name for the Finnish ar...

In 2010 Finland's National Brand Committee lead by former Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila presented its paper to a former Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb. The committee stated proudly that Finland was the forerunner of democracy since Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. But something was left out from the report. Something which was part of the Finnish Social Policy in many decades of the 20th Century. In many countries this would be called slavery. And this is something which is quieted story of the Finnish history. A modern time slavery. Finnish historician Jouko Halmekoski writes about the modern slave market which was the fact in Finland as late as in the 1950's. He interviewed 25 persons who had been auctioned away by the local government in order to save money in sustaining the children. The lowest bidders won the custody of the child for one years period. Ironically the auction was held in the 29...

Suomalaista muotoilua parhaimmillaan. Toimivaa, yksinkertaista ja tyylikästä. Sinin valmistamalla vessaharja pystyy pesemään vessanpöntön hankalimmatkin kohdat vaivatta ja roiskimatta (ks. ao. kuvasta, jonka otin havainnollistaakseni asiaa). Lisäksi tuote on ekologisempi kuin muut. Kun harjaosa tulee tiensä päähän, irrotat sen [mukana olevat] kumihanskat kädessäsi ja vaihdat uuteen. Vähemmän jätettä - enemmän puhtautta. Kiitos Sinituote Oy! Sini vessaharja - Sini toilet brush Finnish design as its best. Functional, simple & classy. Toilet brush which allows you to clean difficult parts from the upper part of the toilet seat (see the picture above) In addition it's more ecological. When you need to change the brush, just use the plastic cloves (included) and chance the new one. Less waste - more purity. Fantastic. From Sinituote Oy.