New Urbanism, the public realm in neighborhood planning in Liminka, Finland:the street, the block and the building

This thesis is structured in two parts. The first part is an explanation of New Urbanism, its sister organizations in Europe, and their planning philosophies, followed by three examples of projects which embody the philosophy. The second part is a new design for a neighborhood core in Liminka, Northern Finland. The design follows the basic planning philosophies of the New Urbanist movement and intends to re-establish the pedestrian as the foremost consideration in urban planning. Liminka has experienced a great deal of growth in the past 15 years and is beginning to suffer from suburban sprawl and is developing an auto-dependent population and was thus chosen as the location for the implementation of this design concept. The design focuses on the three main physical elements of a neighborhood: the block, the street and the building, and uses definitions of these elements laid out by the New Urbanism to guide their design