TAMK builds an energy efficient house into a metropolis

TAMK has taken Finnish wooden house construction knowledge into China. Last year, TAMK build a two-storey, 230 square meter single family house into the university city of Shenyang, which has 8 million inhabitants.



Finnish and Chinese students of Building Construction Engineering designed the building, which has living and meeting spaces and even a sauna, into the Shenyang university campus. The house was built as an example of energy efficiency. The house is also more durable against earthquakes than the stone or concrete buildings usually built in the area.



The wooden house project is a part of TAMK’s research and development activities. The house also provides excellent opportunities for exporting education into China. The idea is to first export more know-how, and at the same time to open up channels to export Finnish wooden house structures and fittings.


Exporting TAMK’s knowledge of wooden house construction and the Finnish wooden house products may even lead to the export of Finnish wooden house factory knowledge into China: as the country has become wealthier, a demand for wooden house regions has arisen.

TAMK and the Shenyang Jianzhu University (SJZU) which specialises in construction engineering began collaborating 15 years ago. In addition to TAMK, the Finnish participants in the wooden house construction project were Late-Rakenteet Oy, Pirkanmaan Ristikko Oy, Starkki Oy and Väärin Puutavara Ky.

IP@CE 2010 Valencia - Advertising Campaign Training

The task for this year’s IP@CE was to come up with an advertising campaign that would promote green issues and make young Europeans aware of responsible energy consumption habits. Students came to work together to Valencia from Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, UK and Spain. From TAMK Virrat students of the option Marketing and International Business Karri Kähärä, Anni Kilpiö, Anu-Eveliina Muuri, Turo Ristolainen and Jussi Virtanen participated in the IP hosted by CEU Universidad Cardenal Herrera.

Before arriving to Valencia, every country had to deliver a research report about the target group of 13-25 year-old youngsters of their own country. The research included their thoughts about climate change, their media usage, internet habits and their actions concerning climate change. These researches offered background information for the actual advertising campaign that was conducted in Valencia.

In Valencia students were divided into eight groups that would be advertising agencies and every agency had to come up with the campaign for our client, The European Commission. The only challenge in the task was not about being the most creative but also to work successfully in an international group.

Two weeks is a very short time and each team had to determine their target group and understand it in order to come up with a strong and creative idea that wouldn’t cost too much and would be easily adoptable for young Europeans.

As usual, the two weeks of IP was not just about working together but also about having fun and getting to know other students. The Spanish organization had planned us something for almost every evening. We got to taste typical Spanish tapas, see the night life in Valencia and also go to a local football match. We also got to taste typical food from each participant country as we organized an intercultural dinner with all the other students where every country would prepare something from their own countries.

In the last evening they had organized a farewell party where all the students and teachers came to eat, drink and dance all together to celebrate the successful IP. A DJ was playing everyone’s favorite songs that had been collected beforehand.

Working in an international group and expanding your knowledge as well as learning from other students and having fun ended up being a priceless experience that all the students participated in the program would remember long after this.

Story & pictures: Anu-Eveliina Muuri

UNIPOLI Aasia trip to Bangalore India

Experimental field in Doddaballapur near Bangalore

TAMK representatives, Director of education Ms. Riitta Hanhijärvi and Senior Lecturer Eeva-Liisa Viskari, spent one week in Bangalore India on a UNIPOLI Asia –network trip in late February 2010. The network is formed by the universities of Tampere under the theme “Enhancing well-being through biotechnology and environmental technology - cooperation with higher education institutions in Tampere, China, India and Korea”. The network is financed by CIMO Finland.

During the trip we visited two universities. First target was University of Agricultural Sciences Bangalore and especially the Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, and Department of Biotechnology, which were of special interest of the project. We were introduced the research of the departments. In the department of Agricultural Sciences the research is focused on the use of anthropogenic waste as a fertilizer as well as maintaining the soil fertility, which is also one focus in TAMK R&D activities at present. The field studies were quite impressive. At the campus there is quite a wide land area reserved for experiments using cow and human urine, among other organic substances, as fertilizers and studying the crop and soil quality. The annual open-day for introducing this research to local farmers, accumulated about 100 000 interested farmers to visit the experimental sites of the UAS Bangalore. This kind of activity is in fact an excellent way of university serving the community.

We also visited Doddaballapur, about 40 km from Bangalore, to see an experimental site, where one farmer is cultivating his crops, in this case millet, with anthropogenic fertilizers. This kind of implementation is also a good way to take the scientific research into practice in a very demonstrative way. In addition to these agricultural research activities the university has also Departments of Forestry and Department of Biotechnology which both might be interesting as cooperation partners also from TAMK point of view.

The second institution in our programme was a private university in Bangalore, Dayananda Sagar Institutions (DSI). All Finnish universities of applied sciences have undersigned a MOU with DSI, thus allowing also us a good start in the bilateral cooperation between TAMK and DSI. DSI is a multidisciplinary university. The fields of education include for example: Technology and architecture (civil, mechanical, electrical, computer and chemical engineering, IT, dental sciences, pharmacy, nursing, biotechnology, business, education, natural sciences and arts. Thus there are many similarities between DSI and TAMK. There are about 12 thousand students at DSI. During our visit at DSI we had very fruitful discussion with the Senior Executive Vice President, Mr. Janardhan. We also met the representatives of the Department of Biotechnology.

We invited representatives from both universities to visit TAMK. Hopefully after these visit we can get into action of student and teacher’s exchange between our institutions and you would hear more about this cooperation with Indian universities a lot more in the future.

For more information please see:
http://www.dayanandasagar.edu/
http://www.uasbangalore.edu.in/

Text and photo: Senior lecturer Eeva-Liisa Viskari, Environmental Engineering

Visitors from Hokkaido University

Professor Naoyuki Funamizu is giving a lecture at TAMK about composting toilet studies.

On March 15 TAMK got special visitors from Hokkaido University. Professor Naoyuki Funamizu representing the School of Engineering, Division of Build Environment and there Water System Research Group and Professor Kozo Yoshikawa, who is responsible of the International Affairs in the School of Engineering and especially developing international engineering education.

The day started with a guest lecture by Professor Funamizu. His research group is focusing on sanitation issues. The audience consisted mostly on Environmental Engineering students and staff heard most interesting lecture about Composting toilets and sanitation research in Hokkaido University.

Hokkaido University is located in Sapporo, a city known to us Finns from the Winter Olympics. The university was founded in 1876 and at that time it was called Sapporo Agricultural College. It was Japan’s first university to award bachelor's degrees. Today the university is one of the leading academic centers in Japan. The visit was not the first one for either of the guests. Professor Naoyuki Funamizu has visited Tampere several times and participating all three Dry Toilet conferences. Professor Yoshikawa in turn has been at TAMK two years ago discussing TAMK-Hokkaido University cooperation.

In the afternoon we had discussions about cooperation between TAMK and Hokkaido University. Vice President Marja Sutela considered the work in developing the internship program of the university most interesting. Based on the afternoon discussions it was obvious that the cooperation between TAMK and Hokkaido University will be expanded from Environmental Engineering to all fields of Engineering. The idea is to start both student exchange for studying and doing practical training periods. So hopefully there will be new exchange opportunities for our students in the future.

For more information about Hokkaido University please see: http://www.hokudai.ac.jp/en

Text and photo: Senior lecturer Eeva-Liisa Viskari, Environmental Engineering

"Connection Lost" Victorius in the Languages Through Lenses 2010 Competition

Outi Hartikainen directs actor Pertti Hokkanen at the demo video shoots

The film competition Languages Through Lenses 2010 organized by European Commission, ELIA in partnership with PRIX EUROPA and in cooperation with CILECT brought victory to "Connection Lost", a short film script written by Hannu Koivuranta and Outi Hartikainen.

An international jury chose 15 best scripts from over a 100 participants from 18 EU-countries. Each script will be given a 5000 EUR grant for the production. The main themes of the scripts are about motivating people to learn languages and raising interest in different cultures.

A demo video was produced for "Connection Lost" and it was presented to the international jury. You can watch the video at http://vimeo.com/9813376. The video was made at the school studio in front of a greenscreen, but the final short film will be shot on location. Plans for using a motion capture -suit with live action filming are underway.

2nd year film students Hannu and Outi - together with scriptwriting lecturer Arto Koskinen - are headed to Amsterdam on the 15th and 16th of April to develop the script to its final version with international professionals. The competition itself is far from over since the short films to be produced from the scripts will compete at Prix Europa next October as a part of the Berlin Film Festival.

Story: Hannu Koivuranta

TAMK is ELIA and CILECT member
ELIA (The European League of Institutes of the Arts)
CILECT ( International Association of Film and Television Schools)
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Prix Europa
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"Connection Lost"-demo video from Hannu Koivuranta on Vimeo.