Design · University of Turku · 2025
Within the EU European Urban Initiative’s Urban Biodiversity Parks project, three co-design workshops in May–June 2025 brought 30 participants — residents of the Jyrkkälä and Halinen neighbourhoods and 15 Turku practitioners — to generate nature-based-solution visions from bespoke bilingual biodiversity element cards spanning green infrastructure, microhabitats, amenities and active mobility. The University of Turku published the results as a 36-page ISBN report: 100% of Jyrkkälä residents were satisfied the visions reflected their aspirations, 89% gained new perspectives, and 100% of practitioners saw citizen outputs as valuable.
Who took part
10 Jyrkkälä residents, 5 Halinen residents and 15 city practitioners, with residents freely picking the sites — building entries, lanes, a bridge-side clearing, Erik Julen park.
What the tool did
Element-card co-design with starred favourites revealing preferences per site; the report’s own critical finding notes an AI-render bias — participants kept only elements the AI drew well, and it failed to render deadwood.
What changed
The strongest third-party academic validation in the portfolio: an independent university report in UTU’s publication series, and an EU programme story on building lasting biodiversity in Turku’s suburbs.
Sources
- UBP report — University of Turku — sites.utu.fi
- From Pilot to Practice — European Urban Initiative — portico.urban-initiative.eu
Delivered together with project partners.