Campus in transition: Suburban transformation and resilient urbanity

This article looks at Finnish suburbs as a resource for urban growth. It explo-res the process of suburban transformation following the case of Otaniemi, an area which is actively changing following the regional development and the needs of the growing university campus. The main focus of the study is the extent to which the suburbs, designed between 1960 and 1980 in accordance with modernist planning principles, can be transformed into livable and attractive urban spaces. Informed by two theoretical perspectives—social production and construction of space—this study outlines the factors which both enable and constrain suburban trans-formation using the data collected from 2015 to 2018. Study findings demon-strate that successful suburban transformation results from a combination of material and social factors. The article suggests that social diversity is as important for a post-suburb as density, land use mix, and street connectivity, and that it calls for more attention towards non-material factors in urban design and planning.