Architecture Outside the Box

Angela Abdi Musse, Kamaludin Abdulla, Nikolai Fabricius (Construction assistant), Lotta Hagelin, Naomi Holopainen (Critical friend of the initiative, Ataa Agency), Matti Jänkälä, Project worker in the initiative, Architecture and Design Museum,  Arja-Liisa Kaasinen (Head of Learning, Communities and Public Programmes, Architecture and Design Museum), Tiina Lintunen, Nuura Naboulsi, Daniela Pascual Esparza, Kaura Raudaskoski (Producer of Public Programmes, Architecture and Design Museum(, Jemina Vainikka-Lindholm (Curator of Community Engagement, Architecture and Design Museum), Bruno Zambrano

Miina Kanko, Masters thesis worker in the research phase of the initiative

Architecture Outside the Box was a community-driven pilot project initiated by the Architecture and Design Museum Helsinki in 2023–2024. The initiative studied how true participation could be integrated in the museum work and how the museum could support the activity of local communities outside the museum building. The goal was to develop a tested method for producing, together with local communities, public programmes taking place outside the museum building. The project was funded by the Finnish Heritage Agency.

The initiators of the project were Arja-Liisa Kaasinen (Head of Learning, Communities and Public Programmes at the museum), Jemina Vainikka-Lindholm (Curator of Community Engagement), and Kaura Raudaskoski (Producer of Public Programmes). I was recruited as a project worker to coordinate the initiative from September 2023 to December 2024. Naomi Holopainen was recruited as the “critical friend” of the initiative, providing honest and critical feedback throughout the process. Miina Kanko conducted her masters thesis as part of the project team, especially focusing on the research phase of the initiative.

The initiative was divided into four phases: research, forming a local working group, piloting community-driven museum work, and reflection. During the initiative we built understanding on the current audiences of the museum, the local communities operating in the Helsinki region, and on how the museum and local communities could work together. The museum organized an open call through which a working group was formed to lead the pilot project of community-driven museum work.

As a culmination of the initiative the working group hosted a two-day bench workshop at Culture Center Stoa in Helsinki’s Itäkeskus. In the workshops 150 participants were invited to build outdoor furniture for the use of their communities around the Helsinki region. The benches found their homes at people’s courtyards, at spaces of associations, at a local mosque, and at a public sauna.