Ira Nääppä

Ira works at the heart of city innovation, bringing design thinking into the complex, collaborative work of shaping future cities. As a designer, she believes design isn’t just about how things look – it’s a strategic tool for creating systematic and meaningful societal change.

At Demos Helsinki, her work centres on city innovation and impact, exploring how cities can develop in ways that are more participatory, sustainable, and future-ready. Alongside this, she works across foresight, design, and robotics, asking what it means to build urban futures that are both technologically capable and socially grounded.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Design from LAB Institute of Design, specialising in service design. Her thesis explored the role of the designer as an activist actor in urban spaces, arguing that shaping public life can inevitably be an activist act. The research combined design activism principles and urban theory into practical guidelines for the field.

Before joining Demos Helsinki, she worked in public sector city planning, coordinating co-design processes and vision work in zoning to bring residents’ voices into planning decisions. She is currently deepening this foundation by pursuing a Master’s degree in Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Helsinki.

Outside the office, you’ll likely find Ira at the cinema or lifting heavy weights (yes, for fun) and lately she has started a new hobby as a beekeeper.