Exp3: Lahti Market Hall

Ideate

The preliminary idea was to work with Lahti Market Hall, which is a traditional and existing indoor marketplace in the center of Lahti city, The work started with exploration of Lahti Market Hall and other market halls in Finland e.g. Turku, Tampere, Pori. The exploration covered both desk work and trips to see with own eyes what is the reality in market halls. Totally there are 13 operating market halls in Finland. https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kauppahalli https://lahdenkauppahalli.fi/, 16.6.20221 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porin_kauppahalli, 10.6.2022 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turun_kauppahalli, 15.11.2021 In addition, SLEAN visited open air market places in Hollola 9.6.2022, Vierumäki 30.5.2022, Heinola 1.10.2022, Mäntyharju, Voikoski and Jaala 30.5.

Despite explorations, readings, site visits, and discussions with e.g. staff of the regional council, an insight into the experiment challenge didn’t emerge. It came obvious that the viability of the market halls has problems. Halls don't attract sellers or customers. The competition with 2 major retailers is too hard. The structural changes were needed, and in the given time frame ( 1/2023 - 6/2023) and person months (about 1 PM), it was pointless to proceed.

SLEAN aborted the experiment in October. 

Learn

Market Halls are shrinking and vanishing one by one. They are struggling to continue, but empty halls prove otherwise. The renovation and facelift of market hall brands, businesses, and facilities need powerful partners and a policy makers' vision and act to keep city centers lively and small local producers in the business. Lahti Living Lab can be an open innovation platform to develop the market hall concepts, but not driven by SLEAN.

Full text

WP5_Lahti Living Lab - Experiment 3_ experiments results (1).pdf