Antti Ahlava

Controlling Risks Through Flexibility and Urban Integration: The Regeneration of Otaniemi Campus in Finland

Aligning Aalto University’s scientific and economic potential and risk management with the growing Otaniemi campus takes place with flexible and integrative spatial and urban concepts. The campus development wants to maximize the usages of existing resources, optimize the flexibility of uses and minimize fixed costs of users for changing future as well as to produce urban, street-level places for enhanced social encounters and open innovation. This living laboratory of campus development aims at flexibility also in energy production, as well as at increasing self-sufficiency, made possible by local energy solutions, a smart utilization of electricity network and by changing consumer behaviour. The new internal service operator role for renting relevant resources has diminished surplus areas of academic units and the freed spaces are treated as shared resources for work, housing and services according to the principle of Building as a Service (BaaS). New types of gardens support biodiversity cycles. The university has also implemented on-demand public transportation service supporting flexible mobility to other campuses. The campus sustainability programme connects the university with external partners, such as industry, government, and various organisations of civil society. Through this multi-faceted development, the mono-functional green-field campus receives company from a new diversified city with mixed-use urban development. Partnering is crucial, contributing to sharing economical risk, social and humanitarian programs, sustainability networks, city partnerships, greening events, and cross-disciplinary academic programs. Along the philosophy of BaaS, companies and partnering research institutions are welcome to locate their personnel to the thematic quarters of the campus, supporting co-creation and empowering the culture-economic ecosystem.