[article-cris] Taiteiden ja suunnittelun korkeakoulu / ARTS

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  • Designing Together in Multi-Crisis Times : Effects of Mundane and Strategic Work with Indigenous Communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon
    (2025-02-28) Pinto Torres, Nathaly; Nango, Efrén
     A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
    This article explores the effects of committing to collectivity when considering the role of mundane and strategic work in cultivating a powerful action space for design research, particularly design for social change, with indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We reflect on the process and advanced results of an ongoing design intervention that aims to collaboratively design a system of pictograms for popular education processes, supporting the strengthening of identity and the creation of politicized spaces for education and action with and for the youth of indigenous nationalities, their communities and organizations, part of a regional indigenous movement. The project began by joining efforts with young student representatives from different Amazonian nationalities who were motivated by their need to make visible and denounce how the COVID-19 pandemic harshly deepened historical structural restrictions on access to higher education for indigenous peoples. The impact of COVID-19 on indigenous nationalities in the Amazon helps us address the way in which historical intertwined inequalities reflect in socio-environmental multi-crises in the region. The focus of this article is the histories of collective effort that underpin the design intervention. Through this focus, we argue that spaces for mundane and strategic work, explored before with citizen-designer or user-designer communities, hold vital potential for tangible, practical effects in grappling with the immediate and long-term needs of historically marginalized communities facing multi-crises and occupying contexts of oppression. Thus, we explore experiences where sustaining transitions between designing together and taking roles across levels of involvement with the latter, allow all of us to try out various forms of knowledge and skills building, critical understanding, and connection to reality. We then weave together the experiences outlined with reflections on two effects of committing to collectivity in collaborative design with indigenous communities: (1) more-than-academic encounters with communities and (2) redistribution of participation related to knowledge, production, and burdens.
  • Mapping the structure of the global maker laboratories community through Twitter connections
    (2016) Menichinelli, Massimo
     A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
    The Maker Movement is currently considered an interesting and promising phenomenon with social and economic implications, especially through a series of locally implemented but globally connected labo
  • How Can We Design with a Multi-Species Mindset Towards Regenerative Practices?
    (2024-11-29) Lohmann, Julia
     A3 Kirjan tai muun kokoomateoksen osa
    In this chapter Julia Lohmann introduces key insights she gained through her practice and practice-led research in multi-species design over the past twenty years, illustrated by auto-ethnographic case studies. They range from context sensitivity, process led immersion, reflection and enabling discourses to rethinking our bodies as eco-systems. Lohmann encourages thinking further at the fringes of disciplines and beyond anthropocentric comfort zones, introduces how materials may enable time-based reflections, the importance of bodily engagements, transdisciplinary ruminations and co-speculation, her view of materials as muses and methods, and her framework on fostering knowing, caring and acting. Each of these aspects, she hopes, can nudge us to reflect more, connect further, instil care in ourselves and others and help us embrace a multispecies mindset and a widened understanding of our multispecies selves.
  • The changing typology of urban apartment buildings in Aurinkolahti
    (2025-02-11) Meriläinen, Sanna; Tervo, Anne
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    This case study examines changes in apartment building layouts in the Aurinkolahti neighbourhood of metropolitan Helsinki, Finland, against the backdrop of rapid urban growth and shrinking apartment sizes. The typological analysis of 99 apartment buildings constructed between 2000 and 2023 identifies three phases of development in morphology and spatial organisation. Key findings highlight a substantial shift towards greater building depths, building layouts with a growing number of units, and increasing typological complexity, resulting in more single-aspect and narrowly spaced apartments. Providing insight into the interplay between typology and housing design quality, the study demonstrates how the conditions for quality have become increasingly difficult with the observed typological shift facilitating urban growth. It raises critical questions about the mechanisms and priorities in housing policy and practices to meet rising housing demand and calls for further research into the drivers shaping these practices. The study stresses the need to reconsider design preconditions at various scales of the built environment to ensure sustainable, high-quality living spaces in rapidly growing urban areas.
  • A Systemic Approach and Typology for Identifying Natural Nonhuman Stakeholders When Designing for Sustainability
    (2024-04-15) Veselova, Emilija; Gaziulusoy, İdil
     A3 Kirjan tai muun kokoomateoksen osa
    This chapter introduces and discusses a systemic approach and typology for identifying natural nonhuman stakeholders when designing for sustainability. First, the chapter introduces principles of systemic sustainability, human dependence on nature, and interconnected socio-ecological systems that inform the typology. Second, it introduces the empirical research approach rooted in multispecies ethnography and systemic analysis used to develop the typology. Then, it introduces a typology with seven distinct yet overlapping types of stakeholders: single organisms, single-species collectives, multispecies collectives, life processes, living systems, biogeochemical cycles, and processes of the atmosphere. The chapter continues by presenting and discussing two critical considerations for using the systemic approach and typology: the notion that one observable entity corresponds to several stakeholder types and the notion that not only living but also artificial entities can be linked to natural nonhuman stakeholders through inferable entities and the nonhuman stakeholder can be dispersed across time and space. The chapter concludes with closing remarks and avenues for further research.
  • Evaluating Learning Experiences-Comparison of Two Student Feedback Methods
    (2024-07-01) Larusdottir, Marta; Roto, Virpi
     A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
    Student feedback is crucial for the development of HCI learning experiences. Still, there is little research on how suitable the feedback methods are for gathering learning experiences and especially how the usage of the methods is experienced by the students. Hence, we have collected feedback using two different methods during an international two-week intensive course to understand the students’ experiences and to be able to compare the results. The methods were: the Retrospective Hand method and the Intensive Project Course Evaluation (IPCE) questionnaire method. Feedback was collected both during the course and on the last day of the course. By analyzing the feedback, we were able to iterate the course structure and content accordingly to meet the students’ needs. In this paper we describe the two methods and compare the results from both methods. We analyze the findings, discuss how these methods differ and discuss the usefulness of the feedback. Additionally, we advise how the two methods could be used in other courses for extending the communication between course teachers and students for improving the learning experiences.
  • Social, environmental, and economic value in sustainable fashion business models
    (2024-02-08) Thorisdottir, Thorey S.; Johannsdottir, Lara; Pedersen, Esben Rahbek Gjerdrum; Niinimäki, Kirsi
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    The aim of this paper is to advance research on sustainability within the fashion industry by explaining the combinations of social, environmental, and economic values that form the basis of sustainable business models in the Nordic fashion industry and to identify the main challenges fashion companies face in developing such models, given the limitations in current literature. Through an industry-focused case study of the Nordic fashion industry, recognized for its homogeneity and sustainability leadership, this study investigates how Nordic fashion companies collectively create value through the lens of the value mapping tool. The study adopts an inductive approach through eleven in-depth interviews with experts, managers, and owners. Additionally, it integrates secondary data derived from published information, enhancing the understanding of what sustainable business models in the Nordic fashion industry entail. The analysis enabled the identification of twenty-six elements related to the durability and longevity of products and gender-neutral and timeless design. The results suggest that a more holistic approach to sustainability is needed to facilitate the companies’ move from unsustainable business models to more sustainable ones. This article contributes to the literature by identifying broader patterns of value creation, value delivery, and value capture within the Nordic fashion industry. Furthermore, it enhances knowledge of social and environmental actions surrounding and examines barriers to sustainability activities. The practical contribution arises from the provision of a better understanding of the key elements in sustainable fashion business models of Nordic fashion companies, and thus, it is relevant to academia, practitioners, and policymakers.
  • Kumasi trees – project of the hearts. Decolonial strategies for advancing urban greenery in a Sub-Saharan city
    (2025-02-06) Hollmen, Saija; Marful, Alexander B.; Niskanen, Taru; Duah, Daniel Y. A.; Manful, Esmeranda; Pitkänen, Meeri; Idun, Irene A.
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    Rapid expansion in low- and middle-income countries often follows the destructive environmental paths set by wealthier colonial powers. The greatest obstacle is the prevailing mindset: a lack of environmental awareness and continued exploitation of natural and human resources. To achieve sustainable urban planning, it’s vital to avoid colonial practices, raise environmental awareness, and foster local appreciation of the environment as a cultural value. This paper explores decolonial approaches in architecture and urban planning to foster a balanced human-nature relationship and new tools for Sustainability Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the Kumasi Trees – Project of the Hearts as a case study, it shows efforts to re-greening Kumasi, Ghana, through local engagement and knowledge, rediscovering environmental values and cultural identities. The paper examines practices within Decolonial Thought (DT), questioning the universality of Eurocentric thinking, recognizing multiple value systems, and embracing alternative knowledge bases stemming from other cultures.
  • Naturalezas construidas: El conjunto residencial Suvikumpu por Raili y Reima Pietilä
    (2025-01-28) Cortés Sánchez, Luis Miguel; Terrados Cepeda, Javier; Savolainen, Panu
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    The theoretical discourse developed by Raili and Reima Pietilä in the 1960s on the morphological character of architecture was rooted in an interest in natural components and context, with projects strongly linked to the landscape both physically and culturally. This article focuses on the Suvikumpu residential complex (1962-82), which was overshadowed by other contemporary projects that had greater repercussions, but nevertheless serves as a paradigm of these interests. This project reaffirmed the theoretical interests shown in previous projects, making it possible to verify their implementation and constructive reality. In addition to making up for the lack of documentation of the previous studies, this text aims to show the importance of the constructive reality of the architectural detail of the project, usually overlooked in the analyses made of their works, as the tool with which the theoretical reflections that have characterised the Pietilä’s’ architectural trajectory are materialised.
  • Engaging consumers in the textile supply chain’s transition towards a circular economy
    (2025-01-31) Bhatnagar, Anubhuti; Lewe, Elina; Gorniak, Kasia; Niinimäki, Kirsi
     A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
    This paper focuses on the pivotal role of consumers in driving the transition to CE. Our objective was to review factors that may affect change in consumer behaviour such as— engagement with circular activities, change in industrial practices, and a legislative push from policymakers using gray literature, peer-reviewed publications, and desktop studies. In subsequent sections the role and challenges of these factors are discussed.
  • Advancing Integration of CSR and Social Life Cycle Assessment in the Textile and Fashion Industry
    (2024-07-10) Bhatnagar, Anubhuti; Niinimäki, Kirsi
     A3 Kirjan tai muun kokoomateoksen osa
    This chapter shows how Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) could be integrated with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to monitor the challenges emerging from the textile industry’s transition towards a circular economy (CE). While CSR and S-LCA share a common objective of addressing societal challenges resulting from industrial practices, they are distinct tools. CSR outlines a company’s voluntary commitment to mitigate its societal, financial, and environmental impacts. S-LCA enables the identification, measurement, and evaluation of social hotspots throughout a product’s life cycle. Embedding CSR with S-LCA is vital because the CE transition may alter material supply chains, which could significantly impact stakeholders such as suppliers, employees or workers, local communities, and consumers.
  • Gender and the Diversity of the Human Body as Challenges for the Inclusive Design of Wearable Technology
    (2024) Hokka, Jenni
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    Particularly since the 1990s, there has been an active discussion on inclusive design and on the possibility of designing products that would be suitable for every kind of user. Wearable technology products that need to be in close contact with the user’s skin to function must be a good fit for the user’s body. As wearable technology has transitioned from a specialty of the “quantify-yourself” movement to a widespread, everyday item, the companies that create these products compete to appeal to ever-larger user groups. This study investigates how product designers in wearable technology companies interpret the idea of inclusive design when developing their products to fit large and diverse groups of users. Drawing on four case studies, this research shows how the diversity of the human body poses practical challenges for inclusive design. Yet, the findings also show that in addition to the biological differences between human bodies, inclusive design is also influenced by cultural understandings of gender.
  • Design for Sustainability : Reflections on a Dynamically Evolving Field
    (2024-04-15) Ceschin, Fabrizio; Gaziulusoy, İdil
     A3 Kirjan tai muun kokoomateoksen osa
    The discourse on sustainability has reached a point where the present common view is that there is a need for radical transformational change in how human society operates. In parallel with the changes taking place in socio-ecological contexts and increased theoretical understanding of implications of these changes, the response from the broader society in general and from business specifically has also evolved in the past decades with an increasing pace. Design as a primary function for innovation in business, and increasingly in government and in other social organizational units including local communities has been engaged with different aspects of sustainability discourse and practice since mid-twentieth century. This chapter presents a short “evolutionary history” of the Design for Sustainability (DfS) field starting from these early days of systematic engagement and provides insights on the emerging directions in the field. We present the DfS approaches that emerged in the past decades, and propose and discuss a framework that synthesizes the evolution of the DfS field, and finally we reflect on the future research challenges of DfS.
  • Transparency experience in remote teamwork–a sociomaterial approach
    (2024) Simsek Caglar, Pinar; Vainio, Teija; Roto, Virpi
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    Transparency in teamwork and across team members' status is one of the main challenges in remote work, and using online collaborative whiteboards (OCW) is a potential solution for more transparent teamwork. We explore the experience of transparency of three design teams who used an OCW called Miro in remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim was to gain in-depth understanding on what constitutes transparency in this teamwork context. We conducted a qualitative interview study with 11 participants who are user experience and service designers, and who actively use Miro in their daily work. We adopted sociomateriality as our research lens and thematically analysed the data, finding that transparency at work is a dynamic experience ranging between positive and negative. Rather than being merely users' or organisations' choices or the result of the tool affordances, the experience of transparency at work is an outcome of sociomaterial entanglements between the user, tool, and organisation. Furthermore, the occupational and organisational factors not only affect the experience of transparency, but they also actively constitute it.
  • Other than Text : Media Used in Game Studies Publications. A Computational Analysis into 20 Years of Publications of the Game Studies Journal, and an Appeal for Research Through Design
    (2023-06-20) Miltiadis, Constantinos
     A4 Artikkeli konferenssijulkaisussa
    What means are used in communicating game studies research? The article presents an analysis of findings produced through computational web scraping all published material in the 20-year lifetime of the Game Studies Journal, looking for a range of media facilitated by its permissive HTML format and published alongside text. The inquiry intends to provide reflexive data into the 20-year history of the field’s oldest journal and the implicit research tradition cultivated so far. Extending the discussion, it presents the problematic relationship of game studies and design, making a case for the formal inclusion of design-based research methods to the interdiscipline, which while latent in its current ecology are nevertheless foreseeable to manifest in the third decade of the game studies project. Lastly, it advocates for research through design: the production of videogame artifacts as research vehicles for generating new knowledge, advancing discourse, and uniting the research landscape altogether.
  • Awareness of segregation in a welfare state : a Finnish local policy perspective
    (2025) Rosengren, Katriina; Rasinkangas, Jarkko; Ruonavaara, Hannu
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    Segregation is a relatively recent issue in larger Finnish cities. The existence of segregation contradicts the Nordic welfare model, and segregation has been raised to the national policy level in Finland to combat a slowly widening gap between social groups on a spatial level. Local municipalities are central actors in urban policies. Therefore, we look at segregation from a local policy perspective. Our results confirm that segregation has not been seen as a burning issue in Finland on a local level, and recognition depends on the size of the city. Where segregation is acknowledged, it is often named a problem in city strategies but does not translate into anti-segregation policies locally. In mid-size cities, ‘spatial deprivation’ rather than segregation is acknowledged, rendering systematic interventions aimed at segregation even more difficult.
  • LOCAL INITIATIVES IN SHRINKING CITIES: On Normative Framings and Hidden Aspirations in Scholarly Work
    (2025-01) Sandmann, Leona; Gunko, Maria; Shirobokova, Irina; Adams, Ria‐Maria; Lilius, Johanna; Grossmann, Katrin
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    Questions of responsibility for future-making often arise in localities where the withdrawal of capital and state seem to leave tangible voids and a sense of loss. Over the past decade, academic discourse has furthered discussions on the role of civic engagement, local initiatives and their agency under conditions of urban shrinkage. However, scholars (including ourselves) are confronted with their own normative assumptions and aspirations when conceptualizing local initiatives in shrinking cities. Through reviewing the literature on this phenomenon, we identified three main epistemological pitfalls that emerge from the legacies of planning discipline, current neoliberal developments and scholars’ own biases. By drawing from our fieldwork experiences, we conclude that local initiatives should be viewed in the plurality of their essences as extremely variegated in form and motivation. We therefore assert the need to disentangle research on local initiatives in shrinking cities from normative aspirations to avoid neoliberal responsibilization, and instead pay attention to the nuances of their aims and practices, achievements and constraints.
  • Conceptualizing ‘green' in urban and regional planning – the cases of Oslo and Helsinki
    (2024) Di Marino, Mina; Tiitu, Maija; Saglie, Inger-Lise; Lapintie, Kimmo
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    In recent decades, nature has been increasingly acknowledged in the urban environment for its importance to people's well-being and quality of life, as well as for its role in building sustainable cities. The idea of nature in cities and the conceptualization of ‘green' (e.g. green structure, green fingers, green infrastructure, parks and ecosystem services) are correlated in planning approaches. This study explores the conceptualization of green by analysing the concepts used in the two regions of Oslo and Helsinki, and by investigating their current master and regional plans through quantitative and qualitative analyses. The findings exhibit a variety of green concepts and complementary features (between planning concepts introduced earlier and newer ones). Over the years, and in the light of evolving ideas of nature, the master and regional plans of both regions have set up a multi-functionality framework, more recently influenced by ecosystem services approaches. The study contributes to understanding the evolving conceptualization of green in urban and regional planning approaches. The discussion is linked to place-specific contexts and regulatory practices, and connected – to some extent – to the wider international debate and planning ideas that incorporate nature
  • Utopian Design Space : Practical Concerns and Transformative Ambitions
    (2024-12-13) Engelbutzeder, Philip; Jahn, Leonie; Berns, Katie; Kirschsieper, Dennis; Wulf-Miskati, Daniel; Schäfer, Franka; Randall, Dave; Wulf, Volker
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    Interconnected global crises have emphasised the need for alternative visions of the future, making transformative action urgent. Consequently, Sustainable Human–Computer Interaction (SHCI) has seen growing interest in exploring means to support radical and sustainable change, starting with grassroots, community-driven endeavours. This study explores the concept of Utopian Design Space (UDS) in the context of surplus redistribution in grassroots communities. The objective is to understand how practical concerns and transformative ambitions intersect, creating spaces that foster sharing and caring practices. Through action-oriented research, we examine six local projects, highlighting ICT’s role in these initiatives. Our findings highlight the challenges and opportunities in managing values, scalability, sustainability and inclusivity within UDSs. We discuss how aligning ICT with community practices can foster socio-technical innovation and support transformative change, introducing the notion of prefigurative technology. These insights can help us envisage design spaces that foster utopian ideas like equitable resource distribution and generalised reciprocity.
  • Culture-led Regeneration in Historical and Cultural Areas : The Case of a Historical Quarter in Mashhad, Iran
    (2024-12-06) Afsari Bajestani, Sepideh; Ranjbar, Ehsan
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    Despite extensive current literature confirming the significant contribution of culture to urban regeneration and the rise of culture-led regeneration as a key approach for developing urban areas rich in cultural heritage, a critical question remains: Which specific strategies should be prioritised and adapted within the culture-led regeneration process? This paper examines the role of culture-led regeneration in enhancing the quality of cultural and historical districts in Mashhad, Iran. Based on a critical literature review, it presents a conceptual framework for culture-led regeneration, considering different approaches and their appropriate spatial strategies: competitive-led, community-led, and creative-led. Building upon this conceptual framework and drawing on a case study methodology, the paper qualitatively evaluates the integration of culture into current development initiatives in a cultural and creative area in Mashhad. The findings indicate that current urban regeneration initiatives tend to prioritise profit-driven and competitive-led approaches, often with a limited conceptualisation of arts and culture. Subsequently, using the Delphi technique, the framework is employed to propose an alternative model for culture-led regeneration for the selected area. The findings of the Delphi technique emphasise the importance of prioritising community-led and creative-led strategies for the success of culture-led regeneration in the area. The paper concludes by discussing practical implications for the design of the area based on the proposed model of culture-led regeneration.