Friction is a valuable but at times frustrating part of urban life. Studio Laitio helps cities, foundations, and civic institutions discover the potential in friction and design inspiring yet pragmatic solutions to coexistence. Our work is grounded in city leadership experience and research. We specialize in public innovation, public life, youth engagement, civic participation, and public sector leadership.
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[ CLIENT COLLABORATIONS ]Featured Projects
Design Competition, Architecture & Design Museum
Co-creation in an anonymous & publicly-procured architectural competition.
Finland is internationally recognized for its architecture and design. In 2022, the Government of Finland and the City of Helsinki, together with philanthropic partners wanted to merge the country’s architecture and design museums into a flagship institution. Studio Laitio designed and facilitated a unique process that brought future users of the museum (staff, teachers, skateboarders, people with disabilities) and international museum professionals together to support the five finalists. In addition, our process ensured the anonymity of the jury and competing teams.
Architecture & Design Museum Foundation
Helsinki, Finland
2024-2025
Participatory Design & Civic Engagement
Public Life
Arts and Culture
Convivencia at Edmonton Public Library (with Conic Group)
Edmonton Public Library
Edmonton, Canada
2023 - 2025
Increasing Edmonton Public Library’s capacity to navigate friction.
Edmonton Public Library is an award-winning public library system, which expressed interest in our approach to coexistence. Together with the library’s leadership and staff, we ran a participatory design process, which was included in customer experience planning and resulted in a policy framework written with staff, team rituals and practices, leadership performance goals and recruitment guidelines.
Organizational Strategy & Culture Change
Public Life
Libraries
World Cities Culture Fellows
World Cities Culture Forum
UK/Global
2025 - Present
A fellowship program for cultural leaders in cities around the world.
Cultural leaders in city governments operate at the complicated crux of art and politics. WCCF is the leading global network of city leaders from over 45 cities from all continents, representing a total population of 245 million. We designed the structure and curriculum of a global fellowship program for mid-career professionals leading a cultural priority in city government. We continue as advisors and contributors to the program.
Program Design & Leadership
Innovation & Capacity Building Programs
Public Sector Leadership
Arts and Culture
Strategic & Capital Plan, Chicago Public Library (with Gensler)
Chicago Public Library
Chicago. IL, USA
2025-Present
The future direction of Chicago Public Library.
Chicago Public Library, with its 82 branches, is one of the largest public library systems in North America. In collaboration with Gensler, library leadership, staff and other partners we are designing the library's five-year strategic plan (vision, mission, values, strategic priorities) and its ten-year capital master plan.
Organizational Strategy & Culture Change
Public Life
Public Sector Leadership
Libraries
Urban Libraries Council
Fellows
The Gambrell Foundation
Charlotte, NC, USA
2026 - 2027
Innovation Training for library leaders.
The Urban Libraries Fellows program was a year-long training and networking program for library leaders across North America. Using online workshops, design exercises and an in-person convening, the program increased the capacity of the 17 participating library systems to understand challenges from patrons’ point of view, experiment new approaches and learn from colleagues across the continent.
Innovation & Capacity Building Programs
Public Innovation
Public Life
Public Sector Leadership
Libraries
City of Hobbies (with Gehl and local partners)
Urban Libraries Council
United States & Canada
2025 - 2026
Building a coalition so that everyone in Charlotte can find a hobby.
We lead a local public-private-people coalition centering hobbies as a key ingredient of great life in Charlotte. We focus first on the importance of hobbies to children and youth. Our work is inspired by lessons from Helsinki. We combine academic research, youth engagement and experimentation. We gather county-wide data from young people on their hobby interests, empower high school fellows to enrich and analyze the data, provide small grants to fund local hobby talents and activate public spaces with events and physical improvements.
Participatory Design & Civic Engagement
Program Design & Leadership
Public Life
Youth Engagement
“I am not here to tell you that if you do these six things, all your problems will go away. What I want to say is that if we understand the reasons behind friction and invest in skills and confidence to navigate it, we can create public spaces that are inviting, inspiring and equitable places to visit and work. I am not claiming that friction is easy. It is often frustrating, scary, uncomfortable and even harmful. But it can also be joyful, creative and playful. If we feel confident, capable and inspired, we can be at ease with the unpredictability of public life.”
— Tommi Laitio
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