Greetings from Finlandia-house! Eriksson Architects attended IFME World Congress on Municipal Engineering June 5-6. Eriksson Architects’ Environmental Program as well as KUUMA-Quality Housing were introduced to a worldwide audience with members from as far as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA and Brazil!

Our presentations stimulated interesting discussion. The Environmental Program is a research and development project whose aim has been to lead offices’ planning practices into a more sustainable direction. During the project we have been developing planning tools, such as Eriksson Architects’ eco-efficiency tool. Sustainability has many different aspects: environmental, social, economic and cultural. All of them should be considered when aiming to more sustainable communities. The challenge of having a reliable tool to evaluate all of them was pointed out in the comments of audience. Still, it was founded important to continue working for the better practices in urban planning, in its every sector and work field.

Improved Eco-efficiency and sustainability have been the focus of KUUMA-Quality Housing project too. The main objective is to find structural and qualitative criteria that are in accordance with sustainable development. In addition, the project aims at constraining urban sprawl and raising the quality of construction in residential areas. Continue reading →