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Peace Circle®
A Scalable Urban Model for Cities Seeking Community, Climate Resilience and Democratic Space
Peace Circle® is a completed civic public space model first implemented in 2024 in Liperi, Finland. It offers cities a scalable and cost-efficient way to transform municipal green areas into visible spaces of spatial equality, ecological care and shared governance.
Co-designed with residents and realised in partnership with the municipality, the circular structure embeds democratic practice directly into the built environment — making participation, biodiversity and community part of everyday urban life.
The Place
Peace Circle® was established in a newly developed residential area in Liperi, where community identity was still emerging. Located along a pedestrian and cycling route near the town centre, it is embedded in daily movement and accessible without barriers.
The project transformed a municipal green area into a circular gathering space structured around equality. Its geometry removes hierarchy — no stage, no front, no back — placing all participants in the same spatial position.
At its centre stands a tree symbolising the community, surrounded by trees dedicated through participatory dialogue to practices that sustain democratic life. Meadow areas enhance biodiversity, while the compact layout ensures both physical and social accessibility.
Co-Designed With the Community
From the outset, Peace Circle® was developed through an open participatory process. Residents, local associations, schools and municipal representatives co-defined the design, purpose and long-term stewardship of the space.
Between 20 and 50 volunteers took part in community work days, contributing directly to its physical realisation. The initial implementation was financed through local crowdfunding (€5,000), establishing civic ownership from the beginning.
Rather than imposing meaning through design, the space emerged through collective decision-making. The surrounding trees were dedicated through dialogue to values and practices that sustain democratic life.
Civic Practice in Everyday Life
Peace Circle® functions as an actively used civic space. In spring 2025, more than 200 local schoolchildren engaged in dialogue within the circle, linking environmental stewardship with democratic responsibility across generations.
The space is regularly used for school dialogues, community meetings and seasonal gatherings. Within walking and cycling distance of the neighbourhood centre, it integrates democratic interaction into everyday routines.
The municipality has formally integrated the space into its maintenance and community structures through a cooperation agreement, ensuring landscape care, watering and seasonal protection. The model is also used in local education, connecting civic practice with learning environments.
Located in Eastern Finland near the EU’s external border, the project operates within a broader geopolitical context where strengthening local trust and participation carries particular relevance.
Digital Extension
An immersive digital twin — a 360° seasonal representation of the site — complements the physical circle. It enables residents, schools and community members to revisit and engage with the space beyond gatherings.
The digital layer lowers participation barriers for those unable to attend in person and sustains dialogue across time and circumstance. Accessible in Finnish and English, it broadens engagement while keeping the physical space as the primary site of encounter.
This digital extension strengthens accessibility, supports educational use and enables international knowledge exchange without additional physical infrastructure.
Sustainable by Design
Peace Circle® integrates ecological thinking into its spatial form. Meadow areas enhance biodiversity and support pollinators, while the compact circular layout minimises material use and land impact.
Situated on clay soil shaped by former lake conditions, the design responds to existing ground realities. Rather than introducing extensive hard surfaces, it prioritises vegetative layers and low-impact materials, allowing the landscape to function within its natural constraints.
Ecological ground materials were introduced in partnership with the municipality, reinforcing long-term environmental responsibility. Trees and vegetation were selected for northern climate conditions, enabling the space to mature alongside the community it serves.
By combining nature-based solutions with spatial restraint, the project demonstrates how small-scale public interventions can measurably enhance biodiversity while limiting material and maintenance intensity.
Shared Governance Model
Peace Circle® operates through a cooperative governance structure balancing civic initiative with municipal responsibility. The initiating association leads community engagement and programming, while the municipality ensures long-term maintenance, including watering and landscape care.
Local companies contribute through modest annual commitments, reinforcing shared responsibility without commercialising the space.
This distributed stewardship model creates a durable framework for democratic practice: citizens shape the space, public authorities secure its continuity, and local actors sustain its everyday care. By distributing responsibility across civic, municipal and local actors, the structure reduces dependency on large-scale funding.
Because the model relies on cooperation rather than infrastructure scale, it can be adapted to rural municipalities and dense urban contexts alike.
A Transferable Structure
Peace Circle® is built on a clear and adaptable framework: circular spatial equality, participatory co-design and shared stewardship between citizens and municipality.
The core spatial structure — a central gathering tree, radial value lines and surrounding civic ring — provides a clear template adaptable to different cultural and environmental contexts.
The model requires modest financial investment and relies on collective agency rather than infrastructure scale. Rather than exporting a fixed design, the approach offers a transferable process through which communities shape their own civic space while embedding sustainability, inclusion and shared responsibility into the built environment.
The model has already been implemented in several European contexts and continues to expand internationally.
How a Peace Circle® Can Be Established
A typical implementation process includes:
• Site selection in collaboration with the municipality
• Participatory co-design with residents and local actors
• Phased landscape realisation (central tree, value lines and surrounding circle)
• Integration into school and community activities
• Long-term maintenance agreement between civic initiative and municipality
Because the model relies on cooperation rather than large infrastructure investment, implementation remains financially accessible and administratively realistic.
The Peace Circle® framework is made available to municipalities without licensing fees. Use of the Peace Circle® name and formal inclusion in the international network are based on cooperation agreements to ensure quality, shared principles and long-term integrity of the model.
Advisory support and facilitation can be agreed separately according to local needs and local context.
What Peace Circle® Offers to Cities
• A compact, cost-efficient urban design model
• A visible symbol of equality and shared space
• A biodiversity-enhancing green intervention
• A structure for citizen co-creation
• A framework connecting schools, communities and climate goals
• A replicable model adaptable to local culture
Interested in exploring a Peace Circle® pilot in your city?
We welcome dialogue with municipalities interested in implementing the Peace Circle® model through cooperative partnership.
Peace Circle shows that democracy is not only governed — it is built and sustained through shared space, collective care and everyday civic practice.
International visit exploring the model’s adaptation to Dongguan, China (Feb 2026)