I work with design at varying scales: from objects to spaces to urban areas. My works are often linked together through a common theme: reuse.
I think it is interesting and meaningful, to create value out of ’nothing’: to find new uses for the old and abandoned, and to turn ordinary or useless things into something special. For example, I find it intriguing to turn an old lace curtain into a lampshade, but just as well to create a unique, livable space in a cold attic, or to find new uses for empty industrial buildings or abandoned urban spots. By combining the old and contemporary, familiar and unexpected, I want to bring more character and stories to common concepts.
Bol lampshades are made by hand out of vintage fabrics. A simple structural idea is toned with a sense of old materials that creates stories and memories, and an atmospheric light.
Each lampshade is identified by the details of different fabrics: curtains from the summerhouse, great-grandmother’s embroidery, or old tablecloths saved from the attic. The character of each Bol therefore varies between pure and simple, fragile, graphic, dreamy, or sparkling. The use of vintage materials makes each piece not only unique but also environmentally friendly.
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Written on the Wind, a collection of handmade clothes and accessories by Hella Hernberg, pays homage to a legendary film by Douglas Sirk from 1956.
Underlying the ideas and style of Written on the Wind, there are various influences and impressions of the cinema, with its nostalgia and dream realities, imaginary characters and their intertwining stories. Also the vintage fabrics used in the collection, bring in their own sense of storyline. The clothes, having been made by hand in small numbers, are all individual characters, with individual names. They are waiting for the user to step into the roles and continue the stories – half real, half imagined.
My master’s thesis for architecture, “Urban Dream Management”, discusses the revitalising of residual urban spaces through the means of temporary uses and events, and new ways of promoting public participation and innovation in urban development. The work focuses on case studies and new scenarios in Berlin but introduces ideas that are also applicable to other cities, including Helsinki.
The spontaneous, temporary uses of urban leftover spaces have recently contributed to Berlin’s status as a vibrant and creative city. The grass root activities have proved to have positive impacts on the city also in a larger scale. In many other European cities, similar phenomena often remain outside the traditional planning processes or legislation. Therefore, this master’s thesis looks for ways to integrate the potentials of temporary uses also into the mechanisms of urban management and planning.
The temporary uses represent a new form of inhabitants’ active public participation, thus promoting more attractive, creative and liveable urban environments – the city of our dreams. In order to promote the development of more attractive and liveable cities, the work suggests new practical ways of promoting public participation and collective innovations. Creating inspiring cities is not only a question of design but rather of attitudes. A basis for new urban developments, as suggested in this work, is that people should be encouraged to dream and develop their dreams into feasible forms.
The work was reviewed 28 May, 2008 at the Faculty of Architecture, Helsinki University of Technology.
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