Events
Love Letters to Our Clothes
Love letters to our clothes brings together the stories of garments and their wearers, exploring the complex and deeply personal ways we form attachments to our clothing.
Cloth dyeing workshop with cyanotype – A sun-powered printing method
Join us for a sun-powered cloth dyeing workshop where you’ll explore the beautiful cyanotype printing process—a historical photographic technique that uses sunlight and chemistry to create dreamy blue designs on fabric.
Fungal fibers feed on paper waste – and build the future
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: A composite of mycelium and cardboard challenges not only traditional, unsustainable materials—but also our preconceptions.
Canopy map reveals whether your neighbourhood has enough trees
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: Aalto University researchers’ canopy cover map highlights the striking differences in tree coverage across the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025 exhibition
Aalto University’s biggest annual exhibition presents visionary cross-disciplinary work. Come explore prototypes, experiments and solutions.
A unique protein-based adhesive that works even underwater
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: Inspired by mussels and barnacles, this adhesive challenges toxic, petroleum-based alternatives—and thanks to its biocompatibility, it could have medical applications too.
AI accelerates seamless knitwear design
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: Technology brings new inspiration to creative textile design processes.
The world's most common element is helping solve the climate crisis
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: Aalto University’s Hydrogen Innovation Centre is accelerating the transition to a sustainable hydrogen economy.
Living Panels: Reimagining Materials with Nature
The exhibition showcases design artefacts that reimagine how we work with living and post-living systems, offering new ways to think about sustainability through partnerships with the more-than-human world. These student-led projects explore how design objects can evolve, adapt, and participate in ecological processes beyond human needs.
These projects are a result of "BioMakerStudio Summer Course" - a cross-institutional collaboration between Aalto University and IAAC (Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia) - supported by the EU-funded COCOON Project.
These projects are a result of "BioMakerStudio Summer Course" - a cross-institutional collaboration between Aalto University and IAAC (Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia) - supported by the EU-funded COCOON Project.
A gem of a building made from demolition waste
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: Closing Loops is top-tier architecture that respects nature - most of the materials are salvaged from demolished buildings.
Tiny House Shadow: Living within planetary boundaries
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: The 34-square-metre Shadow incorporates fossil-free steel, old windows, and recycled car tires. And when the residents move, the home moves with them.
Heartfelt Kasvu shows how a small space can hold a good life
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: This compact living unit, just under 10 square meters in size, arrives at the construction site as flat-packed components and requires no crane for assembly.
Changing the world through crafting
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: The Marvelous Materials book encourages children and young people to experiment creatively using nothing more than nature’s resources and household biowaste.
Looking back to think ahead
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: The Nokia Design Archive reveals the time, thinking and human effort behind everyday technology—challenging us to reflect on the past and consider the acts that will lead to a future we want to live in.
Nature’s wonder materials are entering everyday life
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: What happens when material experiments move from the lab to stores and homes?
Turning research into sustainable business
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: Growth companies from Aalto University are shaping a healthier and more resource-wise world by commercialising cutting-edge research.
Waste-based eco-concrete saves energy and resources
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: A super-strong alternative to traditional concrete works in both ceramic art and construction.
Mobile imaging technology reveals dementia risk
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: A wearable EEG cap and body sensors monitor brain and physical activity in everyday life—researchers analyze extensive data using artificial intelligence.
Real stories reveal absurdities in construction and circular economy
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: Demolition and new construction accelerate biodiversity loss and climate change. So why are recycling targets still so far out of reach?
A fusion of architecture, chemistry, and biotechnology gives rise to ultra-ecological yeast construction
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2025: Yeast biomass can be shaped using a 3D printer into desired forms — even directly at the construction site.
