Maria Jaakkola
Maria Jaakkola is a landscape architect and an artist with a long career in both fields, holding a recent Doctoral Degree in Architecture. She works as the head of Urban Space and Networks, after 15 years in City Planning Department of Helsinki, Finland, in Espoo city and in consulting. Her team specializes in the strategic planning of the green areas system, including ecological networks, cultural heritage, urban lighting and beyond. She has developed the discipline of landscape planning as an integral part of city planning, from overall land use strategies to detailed design. As a researcher she is interested in the encounters of phenomenology and the design disciplines, and recently published Understanding Green Urban Landscape – A Phenomenological Approach. As an artist she has exhibited her neo-impressionistic watercolors both in Europe and in the US and explored various media.
Jaakkola’s Helsinki Green Areas Strategy, which is widely used and has raised international interest, will define the future of the city’s green areas network from three perspectives: recreation/well-being, city identity and ecological sustainability/climate change. The vision sets goals of accessibility and integrity of the “green fingers” system and aims at preserving and developing the essential characteristics of green and maritime Helsinki. Jaakkola lectures regularly in the academia and in professional seminars, and her published work includes articles in Green Visions by Nordregio, textbooks for academia, the Green Cities of Europe and Topos international magazine.
As a Loeb fellow, Jaakkola served actively at the GSD, examined the factors that make cities attractive, particularly their open space systems, and explored filmmaking and other arts further. Her short film was screened in the AIA festival in San Fransisco. Her research interests together with her view as an experienced practitioner and artist constitute a platform from which to explore the essence and experience of urban landscape, and strive for better cities.
Information on the recent dissertation here https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/a-deeper-understanding-of-landscape-can-be-the-key-to-designing-better-cities