Rewiring the Finnish Forest Edge Condition
The historic Finnish attitude to the forest is built upon cherished values of folk law and community, which contemporary forestry operations largely disregard.
Equally, in the city of Espoo, west of Helsinki, urban development policies prioritise mature stand preservation over full-ecosystem protection, resulting in the systematic erosion of the forest’s edge for residential development.
A ‘modelling-first’ methodology to the project strives to counter this. At analysis phase, a bespoke site-measurement device was formed, ultimately identifying the project’s problem statement; the inevitably of anthropogenic disruption of the landscape, irrespective of intention.
In response, three strategies are proposed; DISRUPT, NURTURE and DISTRIBUTE.
DISRUPT reframes and ‘rewires’ socio-environmental relationships within the Pinus dominant forest, proposing the symbolic felling of high-voltage electricity pylons in a radical act that promotes a new phase of successional development. Secondly, NURTURE follows by activating residential communities in the propagation of pioneer species to speed up the successional timeline, built on lessons from Hackney Community Tree Nursery in the UK, for example.
Finally, DISTRIBUTE installs augmented reality towers into the landscape that instruct citizen users of the forest to take greater ownership of the ecosystem and actively plant the propagated juveniles in suitable locations.
