EmbEDDED DEsiGn is An OPEn mODEL FOr mEEtinG COLLECtivE CHALLEnGEs Despite being unique, Helsinki is not a special case among the world’s cities. most human needs are universal and varied. Although the Helsinki region is by now a well-developed, high-quality living environment for the people, we still face substantial challenges. timely and insightful design may play a crucial role in meeting them. Finland’s population is ageing faster than any other European population. We must look for ways to sustain the functional capability of senior citizens, find productivity leaps in services and develop tolerant attitudes as well as increase the region’s attraction for and capability to receive immigrants. Light is a source of health, positive mood and activity. Light also plays a major role in a safe and aesthetic environment. Due to Finland’s location in the north, the winter is dark and the summer light, and the sun is always fairly low in the sky, all of which require innovative solutions. Transport/traffic is a phenomenon that will mould Helsinki strongly in the near future, creating new traffic environments. they need to be not only functional and safe, but also aesthetic and stimulating. Present traffic environments may be anything but. National and local democracy work well in Finland, but there is still untapped potential in neighbourhood democracy. We must be able to involve people at an early stage in shaping the city environment and developing services. Global challenges such as preparing for global warming, managing the global financial crisis, biohazards, and controlled urbanisation – these are examples of challenges that touch the whole of humanity and for which solutions must be actively sought, found and then shared with everybody. in particular, in developed economies we can not expect someone else to solve these problems for us; instead, we must start working on them using the principles of embedded design. it is impossible to think that the resources of one country and one city could solve the problems facing us, since it cannot be done by resources of entirely different orders of magnitude. We must look for solutions openly and jointly with researchers, artists, planners and designers, and with the people that the solutions are produced for. this leads to the vision that design is everywhere, everything is design and design is for all. in the end, everything is just a question of good or bad design – a question of quality. Designer Harri koskinen expresses the importance of quality in this way: “the bad, the ugly and the awkward will be noticed, but the best design is almost invisible, for things are simply expected to work. Of course, avant-garde design is also needed, but that brings us to the borderlines of art. radical design is only made for a small group of people, often as unique pieces. the mainstream of design flows elsewhere.” FinnisH DEsiGn is mADE FOr WOrLD DEsiGn the train of thought proceeds in a logical fashion: Finnish design is made for world design. it is created together with the international design community and the people of the world. this is also reflected in our 2012 programme. the same tradition of sincerity is visible here – the Helsinki 2012 WDC Application is the result of cooperation between five independent neighbouring cities. Open Helsinki — Embedding Design in Life World Design Capital 2012 Application