All bloggers
Aino Huhtaniemi
My Name is Aino Huhtaniemi. I am a photographer. I recently published a book of photographs on Finnish schools called Autuas aina. For the series I travelled around Finland with a bulky medium format film camera and a tripod. Now, I'm going to spend the rest o 2012 travelling around the world and to keep things more light and mobile I'll be using a Nokia Pureview 808 mobile phone to record what I see.
I'll be posting my photos in pairs because even pictures are better off with a little company.
For other stuff go and see www.ainohuhtaniemi.com
Anna Broberg
I’m a PhD student doing research on urban environments that promote children’s active lifestyles. We have a wonderful Internet-based mapping method that let’s respondents tell about their living environment (sneak peek). On top of my research endeavours, I work a s a CEO in an Aalto Startup called Mapita. In Mapita we create platforms for public participation in urban and regional planning and help cities in their participation processes.
CITE Madera
The IDBM CITEMadera project aims at finding tools to utilize design in a more versatile manner in Peru's furniture business. The group of five Aalto students, Eero Hintsanen, Oscar Subitras Kärkkäinen, Pekka Sihvola, Sun Huangying and Tiina Vitikkala, will be visiting Peru in February to attend workshops with their Peruvian partners. CITEMadera is part of the Inclusive Innovation for Poverty Alleviation project.
"Our team will travel in week and a half to Peru to meet the hard working people of CITE Madera. We will also visit lot of SME’s working with wood furniture, designers, stores and other places that help us to gain understanding how things work in Peru. Our aim is to introduce tools that help companies to use design as a essential part of their business."
Jesse Itkonen
Our Living+ Web Editor is a columnist, blogger, critic and all around smartypants. Before writing for Aalto, he's worked for such publications as Helsingin Sanomat, YLE, MTV3 and Metroradio. When he isn't putting together things like nouns, verbs and adjectives here and there, he tries very hard to make a living as a director. Jesse blogs about the observations regarding the city around him and the world around the city. His interests are heavily based on people coming and going from different lives to others, and the impact that makes.
Lei Wang
Lei Wang is a doctoral candidate and researcher at Aalto University. Her dissertation is about residential behavior and dwelling experiences in the high-rise housing. Design can inspire or be inspired by everyday life, and this is represented variously in different cultural contexts.
Her blog will talk about domestic space both in Finland and in China; housing, living space shapes, furniture, indoor arrangement, and some interesting stories which were collected from residents during her in-depth observation.
Michael Lettenmeier
Michael Lettenmeier is the owner and director of D-mat Ltd., where he's currently consulting, researching, teaching and inspiring others on how to use natural resources efficiently and achieve sustainable lifestyles.
Michael's blog will focus on the 4th Sustainable Summer School. From 25th August to 2nd September, when 40 students and 10 teachers from all over the world meet on Suomenlinna Island to work together on ideas and concepts for the transition to a sustainable society.
Naciye Germen
Naciye has a degree in Interior Design from ITU, 2010. She worked for 2 years in architecture offices and now studies Industrial Product Design at ITU in Turkey, with an emphasis on the history of use. Her blog covers the output of a recent project to study objects designed by craftspeople and designers around the Grand Bazaar and local khans in Turkey, analyzing and mapping the relationships, problems, and alliances between designers, their objects, and the craftspeople who create them.
There are 4 groups researching around Grand Bazaar and khans in that area. The first group is studying the encoding of addresses on the local map. The second group carries out their research on craftsman and the production process (a kind of life story) of a sword. The third group researches the same with a 'hamam tası' (a water cup used in a hamam).The final group (Germen's group) is trying to analyse the relationship between designers and craftsmen in that realm.
Sujil Kodathoor
Sujil Kodathoor is a design student at the Aalto University. In his thesis work he is developing a mobile nutrition platform, GloCal targeting at improving the infant health in the rural India. GloCal is part of the larger Inclusive Innovation for Poverty Alleviation project, aiming at reducing poverty and creating new wealth by innovative business models in the so-called "base of the pyramid" markets.
Sujil is of Indian origin. He became interested in studying at Aalto University because of the Creative Sustainability program offering unique opportunities in studying sustainability in an interdisciplinary manner. He is currently in India doing a field study for a Glocal pilot project. With a team of researchers he is studying nutrition practices in a village in Selam in Tamil Nadu in southeastern India. From India Sujil will be posting about his findings and experiences during his field trip.
Thomas Hutton
Thomas Hutton is a Master of Industrial and Strategic design graduate from Aalto University.He works for ThingLink, a web based service provider of image interaction tools.
ThingLink technology makes it possible to tag images with video, sound, social media content and links, for example. Images become a platform for rich media turning them from “flat surfaces” into objects of discovery and exploration. Working with image interaction technology has given Thomas a unique perspective on the value of images beyond the rudimentary.
For his blog, he will contemplate the influence images have in shaping our environment.
Aku-Ville Lehtimäki
Aku is a graduate from Aalto University School of Economics. He was a founding member of the Aalto Entrepreneurship Society. In his blog, Aku will be scanning emerging start-ups who have placed the need for creating better living environments as one of their key goals.
Bruce Snaddon and Andrea Grant Broom
Bruce Snaddon and Andrea Grant Broom are both Communication Design Lecturers at graduate and post-grad levels in the Faculty of Informatics and Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town. They both have long history of professional design and teaching experience. What they find most exciting is developing relevant and responsive design curricula through direct contact with communities, networks and ‘real world’ problems. With access to fourteen design disciplines in the faculty, they’re able to take many opportunities to run multi-disciplinary projects that link students, Industry, community and City partners.
Cape Town is full of energy from the Creative Industries and many Student and Design Network projects have been initiated in and around the city. They’re finding that students are engaging with incredible energy, enthusiasm and impressive levels of commitment and look forward to sharing this with you.
Emmi Jormalainen
Emmi Jormalainen is an illustrator and graphic designer from Helsinki. She works with drawing, visual stories and books. Her latest book Koti ("Home") consists of drawings that form a silent story. The book takes you on a journey from a city to another; from a messy teenager's room to student flats, fully packed studio apartments and temporary rooms. Common themes in Emmi's works are change, imperfection and daily life. In her blog Emmi will draw about everyday things that combine life in the city and countryside.
Johanna MacDonald
Our living.aalto.fi editor Johanna takes on Aalto Talk for the month of May, bringing you the Daily MoA blog - a steady flow of observations and information on what's been happening in Jätkäsaari and around town. With interests ranging from performance art to game culture to bike hacking to politics, expect her blog to be an infinitely curious take on all things MoA.
Johanna wears an awful lot of hats: performance artist, stand-up comic, writer, actor, designer, cycling nut, sport lover, cultural hacktivist--a surprising number of them professionally. She believes imagination makes the world go round.
Luca Macri
Luca Macrì is an architect, interior designer and an urban cyclist. He is a graduate from the University of Architecture (Polythecnic of Turin) and he has worked several years in the fields of architecture, interior design and product design. Luca is the founder of interior design agency LAM.
Currently Luca teaches interior design at Naba (Nuova accademia di belle arti Milano), and works as the design project coordinator. At Naba he is responsible for carrying out extra-curricular projects in co-operation with the industry and other universities.
In his blog Luca will contemplate the relationship between private and public spaces. We spend most of our lives in private spaces, eating, working, sleeping, loving etc. Private spaces are often treated as the opposite to the public spaces whereas the design of private spaces often influences the design of urban spaces. The way we design personal spaces, can it enhance democracy and promote new ways of social living?
Miisa Mink
Miisa Mink is design entrepreneur living and working in London. She has a Masters degree from the Helsinki School of Economics, which is now part of Aalto University. She dedicates her time to building and investing in companies where design and branding is an integral part of their strategy and success. She is a co-owner of Nordic Bakery, a London based chain of design cafes and founder of Persona Design, a personal branding company. She believes passionately that great design has the power to transform environments or businesses into commercial success stories.
Nene Tsuboi
Nene Tsuboi is a designer from Japan, based in Helsinki since 1999. Her works include artworks for products and publications, designing graphics and spaces,
organising events and exhibitions. Her projects often relate to architecture and
urbanism, and the making of more interesting and enjoyable places. She is the co-owner/operator of Kulttuurisauna, a new public sauna in Hakaniemenranta in
Helsinki.
Tania Rodriguez
Tania Rodriguez is a Graphic Design doctoral student in the Department of Media at Aalto. She is also a research assistant and producer of the City Sets project. Her posts are about the development of the project in general and of the two workshops they'll host in March, the first one in Helsinki and the second in Paris.
Some posts will reveal deep insight from the participants about the design embedded in the city, and how the perceive the city as a stage, others will just explain themselves through images. Join us for an interesting tour of the city and its design.
citysets.net
Tommi Laitio
Tommi Laitio is a researcher at Finland´s leading independent think tank Demos Helsinki. He is in charge of its World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project Hoas Lab. In his blog, Tommi will look at ways to nudge people towards sustainable and awesome lifestyles. As a political scientist he will also be diving into the deep unknown this spring, as a teacher at the Aalto Department of Architecture.
www.demos.fi
facebook.com/hoaslaboratorio
Alexander Uvarov
Alexander Uvarov is a designer who gives lectures at the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Design and Applied Arts. Alexander has a PhD in arts and he lectures on sustainable development and ecology at the department of industrial design. Alexander is also a member of the Russian Union of Artists as well as a curator of a non-profit ecology and design project at the WE Studio. In his blog Alexander will write about the "two faces" of Russian design. There are two different trends dominating the contemporary Russian design scene. On the one hand there is the strong trend towards luxury products and on the other a genuine ambition of Russian designers to be included amongst the best designers of the world.
Cindy Kohtala
Cindy Kohtala is a doctoral researcher in the NODUS Sustainable Design Research Group in Aalto ARTS. Her doctoral research focuses on distributed production and personal fabrication as a possible paradigm shift and alternative to mass production/consumption. Her fieldwork therefore centres on Fab Labs and maker communities, especially the new Aalto Fab Lab in Media Factory, but she has also been following the diverse and very active maker communities in the Helsinki area. She has even been able to practice what she's researching by occasionally making stuff with her hands instead of always just typing at the computer.
Her blog will discuss the various events and issues connected to the Maker Movement and attempt to identify some of the key sustainability (and unsustainability) issues surrounding the Fab Lab model of operation.
Janne Salovaara
Creative Sustainability MA Student.
On a trip to South-Africa; Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Meeting, greeting and creating.
Kasper Strömman
Kasper Strömman is a design genius who's method of research includes taking lots of random pictures and making stuff up about them. He runs the Kasper Stromman Design Blog which with it's deep insight and profound wisdom has been a great influence for many others, including this one. Kasper has never attended Aalto University, but has at times been known to sneak in at midnight to do some stealthy screen printing. He hopes the Aalto security has improved from those days.
Meri Louekari
Architect Meri Louekari works in the temporary urban context, in particular for the Helsinki City Planning Department as coordinator of the "Kaupunkiluotsi" (Urban Pilot) project. Her blog will include interesting things, big and small, which improve the quality of everyday life. It also introduces different ways how architects, designers and city dwellers can do good - sometimes just by participating.
Mika Aaltonen
Mika Aaltonen is a Ph.D. (Econ.), Adjunct Professor (Foresight & Complexity), Fellow of The Kenos Circle in Vienna, Board Member of The TimeAdventurers' Club in Copenhagen, Editorial Board Member of E:CO (Emergence: Complexity and Organizations) journal, Editorial Board Member of European Journal of Futures Studies, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London, Senior Associate Researcher London School of Economics, Faculty Member Master's Programme in Foresight and Innovation Université Angers/France, Member of The Millennium Project in Washington, and Confirmed Speaker of the World Future Society.
He is also Head and Chairman of the Board of StraX (the research unit for strategic intelligence and exploration of futures) at Aalto University, and the CEO of Research and Analysis Corporation (RAC) of Finland.
Mika's blog will focus on the kind of future today's design is heading for.
Scott Andrew Elliott
Scott Andrew Elliott is a teacher in the Environmental Art program in the School of Art, Design and Architecture, and graduated from the same program in 2008. He works as an artist, creating architectural interventions and installations. His research is on the topic of the interdependence between an individual and his or her surroundings, particularly architectural surroundings, and is seeking to find what mechanisms of perception are employed in the understanding of space.
The focus of his blog will be on how different built environments affect us, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and on how we can shape our environment to change who we are, and perhaps what we are.
Tatu Marttila
Tatu Marttila is a researcher and a doctoral candidate, who is interested in how to change unsustainable aspects of design practice. With a background in industrial design and in new media design, he is working as a teacher, design researcher and a post-graduate student in NODUS Sustainable Design Research Group at Department of Design, in Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.
Tatu is currently carrying out a research exchange in Brisbane, Australia. He is blogging about design education for sustainability, and aims to cover insights on the differences and similarities in design teaching, in Aalto University and Down Under. The overall focus is to reflect on how designers can pursue deeper understanding about their practice, and how the academia can support this challenge.
Tuuli Kassi
Tuuli Kassi is a student of architecture taking part in a project targeted at designing and building a youth center in Cambodia. Tuuli will be blogging straight from the construction site about her observations concerning the building process itself as well as the people she comes across in Cambodia.
The project is all about finding good design solutions while dealing with scarce financial recourses but plenty of helping hands. How does this all affect the creative minds of the architects?
Kouk Khleang Youth Center is a project coordinated by Finnish KOMITU architects for two Cambodian NGOs. The fruitful collaboration originates from an Aalto University Public Buildings course held in Cambodia in 2010. Join Tuuli Kassi from KOMITU for a month on the building site in a Phnom Penh suburb.
Also see:
www.komituarchitects.org
