Open the project in Zeitmaps application
Open the project as Zeitmaps presentation
How did a remote island become the center of urban life?
The story of Jätkäsaari begins at the end of the 19th century, when only a handful of families, fishermen and sailor widows lived on the island known as Busholmen. These residents lived modest lives in small cabins that were something of a crossing between cardboard boxes and real houses. Their summer villas were, to put it nicely, “rustic”, but deeply loved for their charm.
The era of industrialization is coming
The winds of industry arrived on the island at the beginning of the 20th century. The beautiful red granite boulders were excavated from the cliffs of Uttern and they ended up decorating St. John’s Church and Pitkäsilta bridge both in Helsinki, which are still in place and a visible part of the urban landscape. However, the fishermen’s smokehouses had to be handed over to the construction of factory halls and port operations. This was like an engineer’s playground, where every new project was an opportunity to show off their masterful design skills.
From port to city dweller
In 1911, a significant decision was made: Jätkäsaari would become a port. The area expanded rapidly when the sea was filled and the island was connected to the mainland. The construction work was huge, and the port area grew at least three times its original size. It seemed like there was always room for a new project in Jätkäsaari.
In the 1930s, West Harbor located in Jätkäsaari became Helsinki’s largest port, which functions as a busy port to this day. The world wars brought their own challenges, but also a revival of port operations, construction continued, and in the 1950s the city of Helsinki bought the area for itself, continuing to develop it with storage areas and cranes. For this reason, you may hear the area referred also to as ‘the crane harbor’.
In the 1960s, West Harbor was already the largest port in Helsinki in terms of traffic. In the 1970s, it grew even more when container traffic was concentrated in the Jätkäsaari area. Large cranes and efficient warehouses made Jätkäsaari a logistical hub where storage facilities continued to grow, and the harbor area had almost six large storage shelters and a giant storage warehouse.
Change to a residential area
At the beginning of the 2000s, Jätkäsaari’s port operations began to move to Vuosaari, and the island was preparing for a new phase in its life. In 2008, port operations in terms of logistics ceased, and Jätkäsaari began to transform into a modern residential area. The huge construction works will continue long into the future as the continent continues to be built on the sea side, expanding living and commercial space little by little.
Over the decades, Jätkäsaari has experienced considerable changes, of which industrialization and the expansion of port operations have been the most significant. These changes have shaped the identity of the area, whose traces of development and change can still be seen in the area, and they tell the story of how a remote island turned into a lively city district.
The transition to the digital age has brought with it new ways to study and understand the development of places like Jätkäsaari and, with this project, the history. In this sense, the Zeitmaps web application provides valuable insights into how to coordinate the schedules of earthmoving and construction activities in the area. In this project we have created in Zeitmaps, we can follow the transformation of Jätkäsaari, see when and where the different work phases have taken place, and get an idea of the scope and complexity of the area’s development.
Monitoring urban progress with Zeitmaps
Jätkäsaari’s transformation process is not only on the pages of history books, but continues to this day. Monitoring continuous development requires tools that are able to reflect the complexity and extent of change in the area. In this case, we brought Jätkäsaari’s earthworks to Zeitmaps. It makes it easy to follow and understand how the area was developed from the ground up and changed over the years.
In Zeitmaps, dredging works, excavation of various earth materials and finally filling works are planned for the task window by area and overlapping time spans, so that the progress of the work would be smooth. Each task has its own work area drawn on the map, for which task-specific colors have also been defined to describe the workflow. Turquoise means dredging works, quarry filling in blue, fillings in orange and finally the completion of the workflow ends in green. Adding styling features to different types of work areas helps all project parties visually understand what work in the area is starting, in progress, or completed.
Our Jätkäsaari Zeitmaps story is an example of how we can shape the future and work methods. Zeitmaps offers us the opportunity to monitor the progress of workflows in real locations, which emphasizes its value not only as a planning tool, but also as an archive of completed work tasks and assists in projects as a means of communication. In the future, the development of Jätkäsaari offers exciting opportunities for urban planners and builders alike, and Zeitmaps is involved in the development curve by building steps towards a new urban life one location based plan at a time.
Find out more about the use of Zeitmaps and the possibilities it offers in planning and scheduling infrastructure projects. Effective scheduling is the key to successful project implementation. Leave us a comment or contact us for more info.
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