This is the Kotka Old Port development team checking in again. We have at this point come to a fairly satisfying solution that has been approved in a way by our partner when we presented it to them last week. Our biggest challenge now lies in making our ideas presentable and clear. We each have a field or topic of our own that we have focused on and now we have to integrate them, to create a synthesis. We would like to come up with a solution that is a package with several dimention, a portfolio.
We have divided the workload, as we have multiple concrete ideas for the indoor and outdoor spaces of the area, digital solutions and services, information and accessibility, which we will try our best to tie together under the umbrella of sustainability. We have most of the ingredients, we just need to come up with the best recipe for a old port pie. The atmospheric look is one of our main subjects. We are aiming for a Kotka that is attractive to residents and visitors alike.
We started todays lecture with a vote and debate on the best solutions we had at that point. Or we were supposed to, but as our solution is actually many solutions, we instead talked about how to combine them, which, in fairness, was also one of the instructions. After that we thought about the people our ideas would affect. The users of our solutions are surprisingly easy to think of. We have locals residents as well as entrepreneurs and visitors. A good question is how our solutions will make these peoples’ lives better. The entrepreneur will earn a living, residents will enjoy the beautiful and stimulating environment, which will increase their wellbeing. Visitors will have a relaxing and unique experience in a new relatively unknown travel destination outside Helsinki. All will have an opportunity to enjoy nature and culture. We then had to present our guests in a TV Shop-style interview, but failed to reach the accurate level of desperate enthusiasm. The exercise was a good way to try and identify with the people our decision effects.
We are all a bit stuck on our old ideas. It has been hard to look at the bigger picture bringing our ideas together while focusing on more practical solutions. Filling out the impact assessment canvas at the end of the session was helpful in that. We did our best to look at our problem and solutions in a new light once more before we start making deeper research and backgroud work on the components of the solution we have envisioned. We filled out the form. Thinking about the impact of our solution and change it would bring to the area was especially productive and a great way to try and get a new point of view. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, but we have definitely made some progress.
-Team SANE