Client: The British Council for the World Design Capital Helsinki
Site: Suvilahti, Helsinki (2012)
Designer: Wayward
Partners: Dodo
The British Council commissioned Wayward to represent Britain at the World Design Capital 2012. The Helsinki Plant Tram was a participatory project which transformed a tram on the city’s transport network into a mobile garden that travelled through Helsinki – mapping potential spaces for urban growing and collecting plant donations – as well as an imaginative urban garden filled with adopted and useful plants.
The design of the garden was inspired by the iconic wooden roller coaster found at the Linnanmäki Amusement Park, which opened in Helsinki for the 1952 Olympics. Over 200m of timber planters weaved through the site of Suvilahti, alongside an orchard of twenty large mobile planters which provided seating and fruit tree planting.
Produced in collaboration with the local environmental organisation Dodo, the project sought to strengthen the network of growing spaces along the tram routes in Helsinki.