Courses focus on themes of sustainability in a multidisciplinary way

The Aalto ARTS Summer School, held for the first time 1–12 August 2022 brought together around 50 professors and students from different fields: product design, industrial design, architecture, fashion, art education and engineering.Professor Kirsi Niinimäki from Department of Design led the academic content planning. The aim of the course was to increase understanding of the biggest challenges of our time and how change can be achieved through cross-disciplinary collaboration. 

Over two weeks, the course focusing on the circular economy and collaborative design produced visions, concepts and solutions for the future. International and multidisciplinary workshops and lectures were organized to help understand the kind of change needed to transform the current linear economy towards a circular economy. The workshops and lectures covered topics such as materials and products in the circular economy, systemic concepts of the circular economy and the role of future scenarios.

Co-design was a way of bringing together skills and interests, solving burning problems and creating shared visions and concepts for the future. Students emphasized the importance to use imagination and look to the future in their own design work.  The work was conceptual, yet practical: participants were able to experiment and prototype in a number of workshops at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

Theme for the summer of 2023 is exploring forests and wood in its varying appearances and in scales of landscape architecture, urban design, building design and interior architecture. It studies the importance of forest with wide scope from biodiversity and production of ecosystem services to economically managed forests and wood building processes.

The mission is to look sustainable ways to use forests both in their natural form and as industrial resource and create living environments built in wood and in balance with surrounding nature.  We’ll also study the importance of forest with a wide scope from biodiversity and production of ecosystem services to economically managed forests and wood building processes and the ethics related to it. The course introduces you to the different viewpoints of forest and uses of forest
and wood. The aim is to give an understanding of the role of forest in:

• preserving biodiversity
• as natural habitat
• water, nutrient and carbon cycle
• climate and erosion regulation
• industrial use of wood
• building with wood
• wellbeing and recreation

In the immersive landscape of the digital frontier, Summer School of 2024 aims to harness the power of art and technology to address water-related societal challenges. Focused on interdisciplinary collaboration, the program will explore water issues through the lenses of data visualization, game design, film, and AR-VR Mixed-Reality, all integrated with AI.

Collective objective is to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration and proficiency in data visualization, game design, film production, and AR-VR mixed-reality exploring emerging role of AI in these cross-discipline mix.

Expected Outcomes:

• Holistic understanding where participants will gain a holistic perspective on water issues, merging scientific knowledge with artistic expression.
• Creative Solutions and expression: The interdisciplinary approach will encourage innovative solutions and artistic expression to water-related challenges.
• Advocacy Through Art: Artistic creations will serve as powerful tools for advocacy, sparking conversations and driving societal change.

Summer School is open to undergraduate and graduate students, early-career professionals, and enthusiasts interested in the intersection of technology and creative arts. We expect applicants to have core abilities in conceptual thinking, reading, writing and presenting. We also require some hand on skills on some of the following: game design, data visualization, filmmaking, storytelling, AR/VR or MR and AI tools.

Application period open in January 2024.