What Australia could learn from time-saving Helsinki housing developments

Imagine if your home, and your neighbourhood, could save you time? 

That’s exactly what is happening in the Finnish capital of Helsinki. The city is planning to become the world’s “most functional city” – ensuring new master-planned communities have features that save their residents an hour a day. 

From technology that lets you order an elevator from your smartphone or have a robot select and deliver your shopping, to waste collection – where pneumatic tubes in each building collect and sort rubbish, so residents don’t have to take recycling downstairs.

Many people walk to work, and amenities such as daycare centres (free of charge) are within walking distance in these new neighbourhoods, such as the Kalasatama precinct, according to a New York Times report.

What’s more, the buildings are designed in consultation with the eventual residents, allowing them to choose aspects that are important to their lifestyles and make connections with each other – which also helps them to save time. 

 “When you give people the option, there’s a lot of people who choose to rebuild that traditional village model – and that’s what saves time and that’s what saves money,” says Jessie Summons, founder of Good Designs, a company which evaluates off-the-plan properties for prospective buyers. 

“It’s people who support you to share meals, share childcare, share the school run, share the commute to work – it’s re-building that village in the modern day.”

Ms Summons says the Helsinki model could work for Australian cities, allowing home buyers to live closer to amenities in a more sustainable way that suits their lifestyles but, so far, developments like this were few and far between.

“Traditionally in Australia, the developer may come and propose something, and even with good intentions, there may be a total mis-align with what families actually want or how they want to live,” Ms Summons says.

She is working in conjunction with the founder of Property Collectives, a Melbourne company which facilitates community-designed projects, on a citizen-led property development in Byron Bay, aptly named Byron Bay Collectives.

She says while these projects don’t have some of the technological time-savers of the Helsinki examples, they do inherently save their inhabitants time, through allowing them to share amenities.

“In our project in New South Wales, we were all strangers and what we’ve found is everyone is working, everyone is busy and doing their own thing but they’re happy to help a neighbour,” she says. “I call it the ‘Ramsay Street principle’.”

Just like in Neighbours, she says it’s about supporting the people who live around you, as traditional family structures are often broken down by people moving cities or countries, or just having busy working lives.

“You don’t need to find a special type of person, it is the majority of Australians who want to live by this principle.”

She says even when people eventually decide to sell, others who are wanting to buy will know about the community and be keen to be involved.

“The buildings are not so unique that they only work for that initial group,” she says. “It’s very natural for people to come and go.”

Urban planner and founder of RobertsDay (recently merged with Canadian engineering and construction company Hatch) Mike Day says there is “no question” Australian cities could benefit from time-saving measures in Helsinki developments.

“COVID is the catalyst to investigate and embrace it,” Mr Day says. “There is something inherently sustainable about mixed-use, compact, walkable neighbourhoods.”

He says the biggest problem is the way our planning systems separates uses – a hangover from more than a century ago where industrial activity needed to be kept far from residential areas.

“There are very few noxious industries now,” he says. “I think the future of everything is going to be more locally based, with all your daily needs in a walkable distance.”

He says giving people the ability to walk or cycle to amenities would mean less car reliance – a benefit not only for the environment – but for people’s hip pockets, pointing out the cost of running a car is roughly $10,000 to $12,000 a year.

“It’s about affordable living, not just affordable housing.”

Ms Summons says young families often feel they have no choice but to buy housing that is “not fit for purpose” whether it be an inner-city development, or – more commonly – larger houses in outskirt suburbs.

“They end up paying a much higher cost over the long run, because they’re paying for increased transport costs, increased childcare costs, increased commuting time – which then impacts things like meal habits and all these other negative outcomes,” she says.

She says while the technological side of the Helsinki developments has not flourished in Australia yet, there was a “huge opportunity” to take it up.

“There’s definitely a few projects that are doing things around energy consumption, but there’s still a long way to go,” she says.