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Aino Leskinen’s Master’s thesis City through the eyes of the children: children experiencing the walking, public transit and car zones in the city of Lahti is not only an excellent study but it also has a current topic. The thesis focuses on the possibilities to use urban and regional planning in supporting physical activity among children and explores the topic on the scale of an entire city.

The object of research in this thesis was the city of Lahti, in whose strategy a child-friendly approach plays a key role. A wide range of material was collected for the study from fifth and sixth-graders. The results obtained on community features that support children’s everyday mobility, opportunities for children to carry out activities they find important and facilities for leisure-time hobbies have already been utilised in the currently ongoing master plan work in Lahti.

The Lappset Group awards an annual stipend as a recognition of the best master's thesis work in the field of landscape architecture. This tradition already goes back more than a decade.

‘It is a pleasure to support a versatile and creative thesis that also produces new ideas. Our aim is to increase mobility and the time people spend together in outdoor facilities, which can best be achieved by good, sustainable environmental planning,’ says Erkki Ikäheimo, Director of Domestic Division at Lappset Group.

Leskinen’s thesis advisors were Professor of Land Use Planning Marketta Kyttä from Aalto University and Master Plan Architect Johanna Palomäki from the City of Lahti.

Aino Leskinen’s Master’s thesis in the field of landscape architecture in the