Design Practice in Social Context at Kristineberg Marine Research Station, Sweden

How can design build bridges between disciplines? How can designers help address the complex challenges of a world in climate crisis? How do we make science relevant to people's lives? How do we design for both human and non-human stakeholders?

Since 2019, Aalto MA Contemporary Design (CoDe) students have explored these questions through collaborative, transdisciplinary projects with scientists at Kristineberg Marine Research Station, the local Seafarm seaweed farm and students and staff of KTH Stockholm. The project enables students to frame their design practice in a marine socio-ecological context, in terms of science communication, the development of biomaterials, processes and social and artistic activities and interventions – always linked to UN Sustainable Development Goals. Specific projects have addressed ocean pollution and acidification, using seaweed as a design material, empathy with non-human stakeholders and proposals for a residency project for Kristineberg Marine Research Station. Outcomes have been realised as research and concepts, materials and designed objects, films, communication design and performative interventions.

Student work from the Kristineberg Project has been exhibited as part of the international group exhibition Critical Tide on critical design and the ocean at the Design Museum Helsinki and the EU Committee of the Regions in Brussels, Belgium, and at Aalto University.

The project is an ongoing collaboration led by Aalto Professor of Practice in Contemporary Design Julia Lohmann and Professor Frederik Gröndahl of KTH Stockholm.