ENTROPIC has received a purchase prize in the 2023 ideas competition for the centre of Ylöjärvi, Finland. Entered as The Neighborhood Junctions and presented in our portfolio as The Lake Neighborhood, the proposal approaches urban development through the spaces and routes that connect a town, rather than through isolated building plots.
A network of green corridors, plazas and pedestrian connections draws everyday activity towards the waterfront. Different routes acquire distinct characters, linking neighbourhood life with the wider landscape. The competition jury highlighted the imaginative treatment of these connections and the strategic potential of extending their logic beyond the immediate planning area.
Housing, workplaces and ground-floor amenities contribute to the same public framework. Townhouses and apartments offer different ways of inhabiting the district, while courtyards create a transition between domestic life and the open spaces of the town. Density is considered through relationships: between buildings, between uses, and between the intimate scale of a neighbourhood and the larger lake landscape.
The recognition supports an approach to mixed-use urban design in which connections establish the identity of a place. For ENTROPIC, Ylöjärvi offered an opportunity to make landscape, movement and civic life the starting points of a new urban fabric. We thank the City of Ylöjärvi, SAFA and the competition jury.
Explore The Lake Neighborhood · SAFA's official competition results
