LEADING WOMEN 71
All images The Somatic Playground in Helsinki was co-created with children’s author Linda Liukas, whose books help children find the fun in technology. One of Harris’s proudest achievements is helping to conceive and then deliver this new kind of playground
indoor. Some will be tested this autumn during our Flow music festival.’ Harris is also closely involved in the
creation of a new combined design and architecture museum, to replace the two existing, separate museums that have outgrown their current buildings. Tere were five finalists to the initial design competition (out of a field of 600 entries). Te winning scheme will be announced in September. On top of steering projects of both national
and regional importance, Harris’s job entails having to navigate political shifts with every four-year mayoral election cycle. It’s just as well she decided at a young age – and her father is an architect, so she had every encouragement down that route – that she’d like a role ‘more in the bigger picture of society and mediation and facilitation; bringing production and policy together.’ She completed an urban studies degree at what is now Aalto University, then spent time
‘I have been really fortunate in having mentors – clever, wise women – as my bosses, who have challenged me and given me space’
living in Paris and also Milan, before arriving in London in 2008, where she spent five years at the Finnish Institute, fostering dialogue between Finnish and UK design and cultural communities. She returned to Helsinki in 2013 to start a family and worked at Archinfo Finland, in charge of ‘architecture information promotion’, which included commissioning Finland’s pavilions for the Venice Architecture Biennales and ‘devising a national architecture policy for Finland. I got one approved for Helsinki.’ Has she ever experienced pushback or
discrimination due to her gender? ‘Personally, I haven’t felt that. Or if there have been instances, I haven’t let them hinder what I’ve tried to do. But I have also been really fortunate in having mentors – clever, wise women – as my bosses, who have challenged me and given me space. I am really grateful for that. And I try to the best of my ability to give some of that spirit back to people who I work with.’
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