Creative Sustainability Graduation Show 2025

As biodiversity declines, urban green spaces can offer surprisingly effective remedies – if we co-design with more-than-human perspectives in mind. Bat-Man and the Modern Smart Neighbourhood explored this through two participatory workshops in Helsinki’s smart neighbourhood of Kalasatama. Participants imagined life as a northern bat seeking a home, prompting shifts in how they viewed urban spaces. Bat knowledge, role-play, and a sense of urgency helped participants envision positive human – bat coexistence. This exhibit presents their expressions, ideas, and roosting site proposals, showing how participatory design tools can inspire neighbourhoods that support both human and more-than-human life.

The Ciénegas del Lerma is a wetland in Mexico of which 89% has been lost due to human activities. Industrial pollution and water extraction have threatened local species as well as centuries-old traditions of bulrush weaving. Local artisans consider bulrush (Typha latifolia) unsuitable for weaving, as the deterioration of the ecosystem has affected these aquatic plants, but they continue to expand, becoming an invasive species.

Reductio ad lermaense is a collection of three bags that evidences the decline in the Lerma wetlands from 1870 to 2025, inspired by the region's traditional crafts by creating a bio-based material derived from bulrush. Typha's material presence seeks to contextualise its invasive behaviour in the lagoon while serving as an opportunity to open imaginaries of how this plant can lose its "useless" perception in San Pedro Tultepec.

As our food systems keep changing, we as the consumers, are growing further disconnected from nature and our understanding of how our food is grown – and namely by who. This project aimed to explore participatory photography as a method of understanding the perspectives, motivations, and struggles of Finnish farmers as well as to communicate rural everyday lives. Each participant farmer completed a photovoice series about a week in their life, which they were interviewed about. The exhibit showcases not only the findings from the farmer experiences and photo series, but a selection of art prints curated and screen printed by the researcher.

This installation invites the audience to reflect and share their emotions, priorities and thoughts, regarding the effects of climate change on the built environment. The work is a continuation of the master’s thesis; The Roof Is on Fire: Housing Companies Motivation for Adapting to Climate Change. The results will be utilized by the Energy Experts within the city of Helsinki, in the development of their current and future services.

From one village to the next along the southern coastline of Bali, Indonesia, tourism-driven development is rapidly transforming the coastal areas into tourist hotspots. With this pattern, the future appears to be predetermined, framed by a dominant narrative that equates tourism with progress. This masks coastal communities’ lived realities, even with climate change pressures growing. Based on 3 weeks of fieldwork, this project challenges the dominant narrative by centring the lived realities of coastal communities, traces how the colonial past is intertwined with the present and lays a foundation for alternative futures. It invites reflection on our roles, as researchers/designers/tourists in shaping coastal futures that do not reproduce colonial legacies.

While Venice’s future as an inhabited city is under threat, opportunities for citizens to participate meaningfully in envisioning and shaping its trajectory remain limited. This lack of involvement reflects a widespread challenge in many cities. With 68% of the global population expected to live in cities by 2050, exploring how urban futures are envisioned and how diverse stakeholders are engaged becomes crucial. This research investigates collaborative urban visioning processes, using the city of Venice as an empirical case to develop locally relevant and transferable insights. The installation showcases quotes from interviewees and questionnaire participants and includes an interactive activity for visitors, reflecting the participatory approach central to the thesis.

Reusing wood is problematic for several reasons, including unsustainable consumption, strict regulations, inflexible waste management, and so forth. This project inspects the repurposing of particleboards: a commonly used and easily discarded wood product. The project explores used and damaged particleboards as a creative crafting medium, in the form of three-dimensional tiles. Instead of hiding their previous lives, the design explores the most frequent defect that was found in them: erupted edges. The pieces propose a way to prolong the material life of wood and reduce waste. Through there, it also helps to manifest a sustainable future for our forests.

Climate data is collected frequently for scientific research but often this data is not used in the area where it can have the most impact: in the development of policy to mitigate climate change. Visual emissions: Communicating city climate data explores to use of design to make climate data more accessible to policymakers. Visualisations were developed through interviews and workshops with scientists and policymakers. The visualisations developed were then integrated in a prototype website that could be accessed by policymakers. This work was done in collaboration with the research project Integrated Carbon Observation System and NODUS Sustainable Design Research Group.

Urban furniture acts as the interface for public outdoor spaces, and among the most important pieces are benches and chairs. They enable people to spend time, socialise, eat, drink, and rest. Often, seating options in cities are limited, and city dwellers aren't given the chance to customise their lounging spots with movable furniture. In this project, six movable urban chairs were designed and built, and they were used in a placemaking design intervention in the square next to the Metro station of Aalto University. During the intervention that lasted from March to July 2025, people moved the chairs and created a place for themselves and others in the square. The design, especially its mobility, ergonomics, colours and side table, was appreciated. No chairs were stolen or vandalised during the intervention.

Remake explores novelty in fashion through deconstruction and creation. In a world of material excess, it offers a quiet rebellion rooted in care, use, and transformation. The project empowers people to engage more deeply with their clothes, asking: How can instructional materials for remaking be designed?

Through participatory research, it developed accessible, visual, and flexible guides to transform unused garments. By opening seams, cutting fabric, and reshaping forms, users gain skills and confidence—reconsidering what was once unused.