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We are a creative architecture publication with a desire for bold and current critical reflection. Issue.03 ' Identity ' is open for submissions now.

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We are a bi-annual, creative architecture publication based in Glasgow with a desire for bold and current critical reflection.This channel will host recordings of our talks and/or future video media output.

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Given the difficult and unexpected circumstances we have all found ourselves in this past year, we have decided to make the magazine available for an accessible price and format.

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DUMBØ, VISIT TAMPERE, KAARIKOIRAT

ELIAS MARKKULA, TEEMU HELJO, ALEKSI MARTIKAINEN

JANNE J.

MIKAEL ASHORN

Tampere, dubbed as the Manchester of Finland. A city nested between two big lakes that is famous for its industrial heritage and the first electric light in the Nordic countries, its factories made out of red bricks and rapids running through the city. A city famous for Näsinneula seeingtower and Mustamakkara black sausage, but definitely not for skateboarding.

Until quite recently.

Finland with its harsh winters isn't your typical choice for a skateboarding vacation, but recently both amateur and professional skateboarders from around the world have been showing up, knocking on the large iron doors of an old factory building. What is going on, and why would skaters from the UK, Russia and even California hop on a plane and make their way to Finland. More importantly, why won't they stop in the capital city Helsinki, but venture down to Tampere?

The simple answer is - good vibes.

The longer answer lies partially inside one of those old red brick factories where Kaarikoirat (Ramp Dogs) have made their home - appropriately named Kenneli, which literally translates to dog shelter.

A couple of years ago the city bought several abandoned factory buildings in Hiedanranta and started to develop the area. Kaarikoirat jumped at the opportunity and in 2016 they managed to rent one of the buildings. Nowadays this almost 1000 square-meter indoor-space features a 10-foot mid-vert ramp, one of the largest indoor concrete skateparks in the Nordic countries and an outdoor pool - all built by skaters for skaters. And the plans for the future are grand.

Obviously, to get to this point, the entire Kaarikoirat crew has put in an incredible amount of work. Kaarikoirat was officially established in 2012 to be able to receive the prize money the group had won from a toilet paper company's "good deed" campaign to invest it on their first concrete D.I.Y skatepark. However, the core members have been in the scene for years before this.

The guys (at this point it was still mostly a male-dominated sport) grew up skating parking lots and alleyways, building their own "skateparks" from wood scrapped from construction sites and the few public parks that existed at that point. Several small and sketchy outdoor parks alongside a better quality indoor park were available, but the city officials had no know-how in skatepark construction and skaters were largely non-existent in the planning stages of the parks or the end-result turned out something completely different than planned for. Even though Tampere had a concrete skatepark with a pool corner - probably one of the first in Finland - the quality was on a completely different scale than what would be acceptable nowadays. In a way, the skaters of Tampere have grown up skating D.I.Y. standard skateparks their entire lives.

After years of complaining, finally in 2008 the city officials revealed an extensive plan for skatepark development to improve the situation. But the joy was short-lived, as it quickly became clear that there was no money reserved to implement the plan and thus the kind words would not translate into action. Simply complaining and waiting was clearly no longer a viable option.

Something had to be done.

Slowly a core group of like minded skaters found their way to an abandoned match factory just outside the city center. They found plenty of scrap material lying around right next to a suitable area where a house had once stood before burning down and leaving a perfect concrete flat for the skaters to use. Slowly something that resembled a skatepark started to form, and eventually the guys started to also use concrete - despite the fact that they had no prior knowledge in building anything from concrete. The internet was their friend and slowly their building skills improved.

One of the first culmination points for the group came in 2012, when the the group secured several thousand euros from the "good deed" competition for their project to make Tikkutehdas D.I.Y. a "real" skatepark. Over their travels the members had seen what is possible, and they didn't see a reason to settle for any less here in Finland. They studied the art of building objects from concrete and learnt what works and what doesn't. They pooled all of their personal money, raised sponsors, organized events and even collected bottles to supplement the prize money and to make the ends meet.

With skateboarding being an official Olympic sport now, and some more recognized skaters, such as Jaakko Ojanen, making a name for skateboarding in Tampere, the city officials realized the importance of having an world class sized indoor training-facility. When the added benefit of training unemployed youth was combined, the project got a go-ahead and was also awarded some money. However, after making some calculations, the group realized, that to implement their vision they would need more money - a lot of it. Luckily several organizations, the city and government officials as well as individuals and companies believed in the project and somehow, after countless applications, the group had everything they needed. Well - the money was still not nearly enough, but they decided to go ahead and make their dreams come true.

The initiative was called Builders Jam and more than a dozen of unemployed skaters were involved in it. Over the winter the newly formed group worked tirelessly and little by little Kenneli D.I.Y materialized in an old factory building. Not only did Tampere get a new training facility unlike any other, but after the project over 80% of the unemployed skaters that were involved in the project were employed by other companies building professional skateparks.

A success rate this high is unheard of in any other context.

This was the first time any of the groups' members started to get paid - until this point everything that Kaarikoirat had achieved had been done for the love of the sport, through un-paid labour and even investing most of the groups' personal money. Somehow Kaarikoirat eventually also managed to pay off the debts that they had acquired while building the park.

The Finnish skateboarding championships, that used to be organized in Helsinki, had been on hold for a while. Kaarikoirat managed to forge a working relationship also with the Finnish skateboarding association, and as Kaarikoirat had a newly built skatepark with a large-scale industrial building suitable for over 1000 people festivities, a contest made a street course right next door the concrete pool, and the know-how on implementing big events, the event was moved to Tampere in winter 2018 and combined with Finnish skate events Manserama and HELride, previously also organized in Helsinki. Professional skaters from abroad were flown in again to support the Manserama and HELride parts of the event and the best skaters from Finland came to battle out for the chance to be crowned "the best in Finland" as the "Finnish Champs". The success of the weekend made it clear, that this will become a tradition.

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Tampere, dubbed as the Manchester of Finland. A city nested between two big lakes that is famous for its industrial heritage and the first electric light in the Nordic countries, its factories made out of red bricks and rapids running through the city.

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Aoife’s point about editing contributions into standard academic English is well made; I still come up against this with reference to Scots phrasing, which can be subtly different from what the academy expects... it takes energy to retain your voice as an author at times. (RL)

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Love the idea of this as a sister publication - really looking forward to it!

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Something i’ve been wondering about the digital space we are currently (largely) inhabiting: normally our personal identity is formed ‘in relief’, and is formed socially - like its not entirely in our control - one understanding of our identity is that it is a two way thing between who we are on one hand and how we are perceived by others (on the other hand). The online space potentially allows for our identity to be more fluid and less fixed, but still maintain some collectivity/connections. Do you think there are any opportunities for architecture in this?

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Beatriz Colomina