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Why Shopping malls? 2/2

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2/2 Heikintori had features that support the human scale ( source , picture taken in 1971)   Have you ever found yourself sitting on a toilet of a shopping mall and wondered if you would not really need a soundtrack of music mixed with commercials for your business? Have you ever gone to a library, located in a mall, in addition to books returned with useless impulse purchases? Have you ever come back home from a shopping mall and noticed that you are extremely tired even though you were supposed to relax over a late lunch with a friend? I know I have, and that is why every time I visit a shopping mall, I cannot help but to think, why do they exist? This is the second part of a two-parted text in which I collect my thoughts on shopping malls and ways they are more hurtful than useful to us. In this part I examine the topic from the points of view of environmental psychology, cityscape and to some extent consumerism.  Environmental psychology is a fairly new branch ...
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Why shopping malls? 1/2

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Heikintori in Tapiola was the first mall in Finland (photo taken in 1969, source )  1/2 Have you ever rushed to find the “nighttime” passage to the metro late in the evening? Have you ever noticed that shopping malls tend to play certain type of music to attract certain type of people? Have you had the feeling of belonging in a shopping mall?  Have you ever wondered why do we build shopping malls? I find myself asking this question every time I visit one and that is way more often that I would like to. By shopping malls, I am referring to the big ones that are in the middle of city centrums like Redi, Iso Omena or Mall of Tripla. From my point of view shopping malls are hurting us more than helping. I think we should guide the development of city centrums to another way that has more well-being factors than problems. In this first part of a two-parted text, I am going to focus on how placing city functions under a private roof is harmful for our social environment....
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How to do a biogradable scale model for landscape architects

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Doing a scale model that is editable can be expensive and difficult to dispose properly. That is why I often use dough for my scale models. To get the recipe and overall instructions on how to do a scale model for a landscape watch my video from YouTube, behind the link: https://youtu.be/qDLlsuZ9MsY If you have a comment, please, post them here!
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Infographic: Overview of the process of baking sourdough bread

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   Baking sourdough bread takes time, and that is the beauty of it. In this infographic, I try to capture the essence of the habit. Baking sourdough bread is an ongoing process with different kinds of chapters. Baking a new bread is always its own kind of session, and between breads there is the starter to take care of. Therefore, it is a continual practice. Furthermore, even though there are time values, sourdough bread is free from tickers and clocks. The dough develops according to its own character, and the baker's task is to become acquainted with it. It is more about intuition than theoretical knowledge. To sum up, baking sourdough bread is an ongoing process that takes time, but it is something that is not to be accomplished. Baking weaves moments of intuition into everyday life.  (Why I find this intriguing: all this could be said as well of landscape architecture!) 
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My digital skills

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  I do remember the time when in school the most used information retrieval method was reading library books. During 2nd and 3rd grade teachers had to point out separately, for us and for themselves, that there is also the internet. Very rapidly, already in the 4th grade, it was very much the opposite.  Being part of a generation who has had the digital environment around them already from childhood onwards, I am, so to speak, a native user of the digital interface. Therefore, my digital skills are pretty good. However, the digital world develops like wildfire and there is so much that I do not know. For example, I have never coded anything in my life or knew how to improve my information security. This is because I haven’t had the interest to look into these things too much by myself. Rather I have acquired my digital skills on the go, whenever they have become relevant to an ongoing task. For example, I have learned to use different softwares (Adobe...
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