Hella Hernberg is an architect and scholar based in Helsinki, Finland. She is specialised in resource wisdom, participation and multi-stakeholder collaboration in the transformation towards sustainable cities and societies. The participatory revitalisation and reuse of vacant properties and spaces is one of her key areas of expertise in both reuse and practice.
Hella holds a Doctor of Arts degree (2022) from Aalto University, Department of Design, in which she conducted her research as part of the sustainable design research group NODUS. Her doctoral thesis, titled Architects as ‘Mediators’ – Socio-political roles in mediating the ‘temporary use’ of vacant spaces, investigated the roles of mediators in the temporary use of vacant spaces, seen more broadly as part of urban sustainability transformations. Her doctoral research was funded by the Kone Foundation and by Aalto University. The thesis was awarded the Aalto ARTS dissertation award 2022.
Currently, Hella works as a postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University, Department of Design, focusing on intermediation in urban sustainability transitions and the care and revitalisation of existing building stock. Her current research project, Capabilities of Care – Mediating the regenerative use of vacant spaces, is funded by the Kone Foundation. Since 2010, she has also run her own urban consultancy, Urban Dream Management. In 2012-13, she worked as a strategic designer at the Ministry of the Environment, through Sitra’s Design Exchange Programme, where she led the Vacant Spaces project. She has also edited and published Helsinki Beyond Dreams (2012), a book about emerging local initiatives and urban activism in Helsinki.
At Aalto University, Hella has been teaching and lecturing part-time since 2008. She is a co-founder of the Design for Government course, founded under the Creative Sustainability master programme in 2014. She graduated as an architect in 2008 at the Helsinki University of Technology.
>> Hella Hernberg’s research publications
>> Contact: hella.hernberg(a)aalto.fi