Every design for Oulu

In front of the statue Kalasääski ja lohi, an osprey and a salmon cast together, it is easy to see what Oulu was built on: the river, the sea and what came out of them. The city stands at the mouth of the River Oulu on Finland's north-western coast, where the river empties into the Bothnian Bay. Wood tar and salmon once made its fortune, and the land here is so low and flat that it rises out of the sea a little more every year.

What people who grew up in Oulu tend to remember is the light and the air: the sea wind off the bay, and air recently measured as the cleanest of any European city. Hailuoto, Ii and Kempele are among the neighbours, and the river delta spreads out right at the edge of the centre. Tiedekeskus Tietomaa, the science centre, and the ruins of Oulun linna are fixtures of school trips, and among cities of over a hundred thousand people only Murmansk and Norilsk lie further north.

Then there is Ruskotunturi, an old landfill turned into a ski slope, a hill that stands out in a landscape that otherwise barely leaves sea level.