Promoting Lahti Harbor’s sightseeing for sustainable development

Last week our International Summer School 2024 ‘Co-design Better Urban Living and Well-being’ had finished, where students were working on solving given challenges and providing the creative solutions completed in the multidisciplinary and international groups.

Horizon-funded project Sustainable Horizons have also participated in the Summer School by providing case study for the students. The challenge was to create a route between LAB campus and picturesque harbor area of Lahti, to highlight existing sustainable features which city can offer for its residents. Three participating groups of international students presented three different solutions to address the challenge given and their ideas are going to be the inspiration for further development of the city.

Participants took a creative approach in creating three routes based on three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic. ‘Environmental’ group created a walk route which was fully green and promoting the health and climate friendly factors in the Lahti’s city planning with additional cost-savvy improvements needed. ‘Economic’ group has tested different ways how to get between campus and harbor area with various means of transport (bus, bicycle, e-scooter and walk) with a calculation of cost benefits and health benefits for the further improvement of the infrastructure. ‘Social’ group has checked the accessibility and significant sightseeing of the route and suggested further improvements for bringing the community together, highlighting important points of interest (like Lanu-park with arboretum and art sculptures). This campus sustainable walk responds to the Work package 2 ‘Sustainable Campii Activities’ of the Sustainable Horizons project. In the end, as a summary, all three groups created a unified platform, where their findings and route has been marked. If you are a citizen of Lahti or a tourist visiting, check out the QR code below to retrieve interesting information!

As a summary, all three groups reached interesting findings and conclusions which could be utilized for further improvements of the city. It was discussed that the city of Lahti needs more information signposts and sharing for highlighting the interesting city points of exploration in sustainability field. In addition, stronger engagement tools with the technology support are needed to bring the residents together. Both improvements can raise the knowledge level in the area, which can increase the satisfaction of living for citizens of Lahti. 

Sustainable Horizons is the international project at Faculty of Technology of LAB University of Applied Sciences. LAB is the project partner together with universities from Germany (Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society), Spain (University of Huelva), Czech Republic (University of Thomas Bata) and Romania (Banat Life Sciences University). Lead partner is the University of Algarve (Portugal). Project is funded by Horizon Europe (GA 101071300), and it aims to present a hybrid model of research and higher education, supported by the institutional transformation of the European universities involved. The project also aims at citizen science actions for society in general, internships in companies and the involvement of PhD candidates in distance learning, with an impact on the sustainability of the planet.