What we can learn from Finland’s public spaces

What is the best birthday gift you have received? For some it may be the newest smartphone or a blooming bouquet of flowers, but the gift the country of Finland gave itself to celebrate its centennial is that of a truly accessible public resource. Oodi is a library with a difference – it features everything from music and podcasting studios to 3D printing machines, all of which are accessible to the public for free. Heidi Johansson, PR manager at tour company Helsinki Partners, calls it “the living room of Finland”. “There are so many things one can do here – if you have a meeting or are brainstorming with friends, you can book a meeting room. There are rooms where you can play video games and another to print T-shirts. There is of course also a library, but the idea was to think about what a library could be in the future – where you’re not just borrowing books but borrowing space,” she says.This kind of focus on public spaces and resources being available to its residents is evident in Finland, its status as a welfare state enabling this kind of intervention further. Even its thriving sauna culture relies on public spaces, though many saunas are private and cost money, some are public. Apartment complexes sometimes have common saunas that residents can use.It's not just built third spaces like Oodi or saunas, but nature as well. The country has vast forests that people visit not only to camp or hike (with wheelchair-friendly hiking trails too, in some parks), but also to freely forage. The country has what are called everyman’s rights or jokaisenoikeudet. This law allows everyone living in or visiting Finland to forage or fish for free.In Helsinki’s Central Park, a forest that runs along the capital, biologist and forager Anna Nyman says it comes down to taking what the forest naturally gives you. “Unlike a supermarket where you can go and complain about what is in stock, the forest gives what it gives and we can’t take things for granted. Sometimes we find more, and sometimes we find less. But nature wants to teach you – even a poisonous mushroom teaches you something,” Nyman says.Mushrooms are something Finns regularly forage for, along with herbs and berries. Nyman says it's something families have been doing for generations, with their freezers jam packed with foraged materials. “I am a biologist and have trained as a wild food guide, where we learn about how to distinguish the edible from the poisonous and train professional pickers for the food industry and restaurants. Some chefs even like to forage themselves,” she says. There is no scarcity either – 95% of mushrooms are still left in the forest, she adds.Public transport in Finland, whether its trams or buses, work based on an honour system. “The system trusts you to have a ticket, so you can just hop on and off,” says Johansson, demonstrating the same on a tram. There is no one to check if one has a ticket or not, it is merely assumed that you do, she explains as she makes her way towards the National Library. A beautiful historic building made in 1640 that began with 20 or so books, it now houses every single book published in Finland. “Every single book published in the country has been archived and also digitised now. All these books are accessible to the public,” says Johansson.Meanwhile, at Oodi, groups of students stare at their laptops with concentration, while young kids run around and play. A robot functioning as a library worker whizzes past the giant staircase that runs across the floors of the library. The edges of the stairs are lined with messages collected from the public, who were asked who they would dedicate this space to. From cobblers to vegans, feminists to conservatives, the disparate dedications serve as a reminder that this space is well and truly public.