The leading centre of design in the Baltic Sea Area
The development of Arabianranta as it is now started in the1980's when it was decided to expand housing production to the unsettled shore area. In the beginning of the 1990's plan drawing and prebuilding was started. The area was challenging because the soil was mainly transported or otherwise unfit for building. The prebuilding of Arabianranta cost the city of Helsinki some quarter million Euros. In the year 1995 a letter of intent for the leading centre of design in the Baltic Sea area was signed. In the year 2010 Arabia is a city of a new age with 10 000 inhabitants, 8000 employees and 6000 students.

Drawn to be a suburb but ended up an intermediate state

Starting point for designing Arabianranta was urban structure analysis, the history of the district and its close relation to art and design. Also one objective was to get as many Helsinki residents from all the population groups to move to Arabianranta. This was a successful objective and the residents make an extremely heterogenic unity. The city had already experience in district building projects such as Herttoniemenranta, Vuosaari, Viikki and Huopalahti and the building project of Arabia-Hermanni was founded in the same way. The major difference was that Arabianranta did not form a clearly separate "suburb" but some kind of intermediate state between the suburb and the city centre.

Communal spirit, courage, innovation

Good characteristics to describe the district of Arabianranta are communal spirit, doing things together and mutual affairs. Innovative ideas in the city planning are for example collective yards which are considered to be a successful solution. This experiment is expanding also to other districts in the metropolitan area. Also the information network arabianranta.fi which covers the whole Arabianranta district has received encouragement and it operates as water, heat or electricity. It is automatically installed in every home and is functional, easy and cost efficient 10/10M data network. ADC (Art and Design City Helsinki Oy Ab) is constantly developing this information network service.

The works of art in Arabianranta

More information on works of art can be found on the web pages of the University of Art and Design in Helsinki http://www.taik.fi/arabianranta.