shadow park

An idea competition with landscape architect Jan Pesonen and artist sari Airola.

The discovery of a fifty year old toxic waste dump under an apartment complex in Myllypuro, a Helsinki suburb, resulted in the demolition of 102 apartments and the relocation of their occupants.  The toxins were drained and the underground site permanently sealed.  The city invited architectural and landscape solutions for the problem of the disposal of the 100,000 m3 of building rubble.  Part of the brief was to symbolically recognition the absence.

Our proposal was to use the building rubble to lay out a park in the shapes of the shadows of the absent buildings on midsummer day.  We hoped to evoke the former buildings in a positive manner through vegetation taking hold and converting the memory of poison into one of green activity: picnic areas, sports fields, gardens and outdoor leisure spaces.

 1) the apartment buildings and the sealed contours of the toxic dump.  2) one of the building being demolished

The shadows of the absent buildings on the longest day of the year.