Designs for a Cooler Planet

Designs for a Cooler Planet throughout the times

Familiarise yourself with previous themes, subthemes and exhibitions of all previous Designs for a Cooler Planet festivals.

Designs for a Cooler Planet logo

Every year Designs for a Cooler Planet celebrates change, creativity and multidisciplinarity and highlights their importance through every exhibition, proving that sustainable choice might as well be the most attractive one.

Get to know themes and projects from previous years below to get a glimpse from the better, wiser and more sustainable future.

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2023 hero image. Graphic design Veera Kemppainen.
Graphic design: Veera Kemppainen

Invisible – Designs for a Cooler Planet 2023

Like an iceberg, we only see a fraction of reality at first glance, and we often operate with limited knowledge. But what if we could see below the surface? Would we make different choices?

In 2023, Designs for a Cooler Planet projects aimed to shed light on the hidden and noteworthy. Fascinating prototypes, experiments, and perspectives that on display have the potential to transform the way we see, think and act.

Visitors had the opportunity to explore the Invisible through over twenty creative and experimental research-based projects that encourage us to look beyond the surface and consider what lies beneath.

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2023 main visual with Events title.

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2023 – Events programme

Welcome and participate in Designs for a Cooler Planet 2023 through a variety of different events, from live talk shows to webinars, workshops and guided exhibition tours.

Events

More about the Invisible

Life 1.5 in black font and Designs for a Cooler Planet logo on a white, fragmented background.
Graphic design: Milja Komulainen & Hares Bassil

Life 1.5 – Designs for a Cooler Planet 2022

Imagine a life where everything we use is recycled, upcycled and wisely produced and global warming is capped at 1.5 degrees. A gentler life – for you, for future generations and for the planet.  

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2022 highlighted that each tree, building, garment or even a portion of food has a life of its own, an own individual footprint and a life story. We should relearn to respect our belongings and surroundings. We should treat resources with care, not as disposables.

Life 1.5 refers to the 1.5-degree lifestyle – a science-based approach to recommend concrete actions to meet the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement. Every year, we use 1.7 times more ecological resources than our planet provides. We have to take action to reduce further global warming and decrease the threat to biodiversity.

Life 1.5 in black font and Designs for a Cooler Planet logo on a white, fragmented background.

Life 1.5 – an exhibition of planet-friendly materials, fashion and food

Designs for a Cooler Planet is a five-week-long festival celebrating experiments in planet-friendly materials, fashion, and food.

Events

Life 1.5 – Subthemes and virtual exhibition

The three subthemes celebrate experiments in planet-friendly materials, fashion and food that could take us towards Life 1.5.

Explore the virtual exhibition to get a taste of Life 1.5 and see the 2022 exhibition's highlights.

What's the future made of?

Planet-friendly alternatives for materials, mindsets and architecture.

Black font stating "What's the future made of?" and Designs for a Cooler Planet logo on a white, fragmented background.

What's on the menu?

Better alternatives for food, food systems and packaging.

Black font stating "What's on the menu?" and Designs for a Cooler Planet logo on a white, fragmented background.

Wear the future!

Slow and more sustainable textiles, clothing and fashion systems.

Black font stating "Wear the future." and Designs for a Cooler Planet logo on a white, fragmented background.

Life 1.5 | Aalto Virtual Exhibitions (external link)

Get a taste of what Designs for a Cooler Planet 2022 is all about.

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2022 virtual exhibition cover.

More about Life 1.5

Resource Wisdom Designs for a Cooler_Planet heroimage design Aino Salonen and Oona Raadelma
Graphic design: Aino Salonen & Oona Raadelma

Resource Wisdom – Designs for a Cooler Planet 2021

What is wise to design for future generations in a world of plenty?

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2021 showcased radical ideas and creative prototypes contributing to a resource-wise future. It offered glimpses to that future with thirty of Aalto's research-based projects under three subthemes: Better to WearInfinite Materials and Loving Environments.

Resource wisdom means using raw materials, energy, products, time, and facilities with care. Wise design respects our common future. It advances wellbeing and carefully considers the impacts of our choices on future generations, society and biodiversity.

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2021 was a success, engaging over 2,000 people. It was also covered by both domestic and global media (e.g., Dezeen, Kauppalehti and Tekniikka&Talous).

Resource Wisdom - Designs for a Cooler Planet 2021

Helsinki Design Week 2021 has landed in Otaniemi, showcasing three paths to resource wisdom

Radical ideas and prototypes contributing to a resource-wise future. The exhibitions and online lectures are open to everyone, and they belong to the official Helsinki Design Week programme.

Events

Resource Wisdom – subthemes and virtual tours

Look for more information of each subtheme and get to know some of the exhibited projects on event pages. If you would like to dig deeper, virtual tours are also still accessible.

Better to Wear exhibition visual

Better to Wear

We get dressed each and every day: clothes protect us and help us express ourselves. We can dress better when we re-design the whole textile process from manufacturing to use to recycling.

Events
Loving environments visual theme

Loving Environments

Construction gobbles up half of the world’s natural resources. Collaboration between scientists, designers, architects, the public sector and companies generates ideas that can make living environments and the construction industry more sustainable.

Events
Infinite materials theme visual

Infinite Materials

We need to radically cut our consumption of materials and energy by creating materials that are not just renewable but forever reusable.

Events
Loving Environments virtual exhibition. Design: Heljä Nieminen

Loving Environments | Virtual Exhibition (external link)

More sustainable and liveable living environments.

More about Resource Wisdom

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2020: Race for the Future
Graphic design: Olga Elliot & Milja Komulainen

Race for the future – Designs for a Cooler Planet 2020

We are in a race for a cooler planet.

The clock is counting down. Current issues concerning energy production, single-use products and packaging, aggressive urbanisation and unsustainable consumption are alarming and require radical change.

Achieving our goal of a sustainable transition requires focused, novel approaches from all areas of society. Designs for a Cooler Planet 2020 showcased over 30 Aalto-based projects that show how collaboration between designers, researchers and stakeholders can lead to better solutions for people and the environment to help us reach the Sustainable Development Goals.

It’s our future, so there’s everything to play for. The four teams racing for the future in 2020 were: Farewell to fossil fuels, Close the loops, Hack our habitat and Consume consciously.

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2020: Race for the Future

Designs for a Cooler Planet — Helsinki Design Week 2020

Helsinki Design Week at Otaniemi showcases inspiring future designs related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

News

Race for the future – Subthemes

Brave teams in 2020 and their important goals.

Look for more information of each subtheme and get to know some of the exhibited projects on event pages.

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2020 catalogue

Farewell to fossil fuels

More than half of our energy still comes from fossil fuels. No single technology can replace our reliance on them.

Designs for a Cooler Planet Farewell to fossil fuels

Close the loops

Making things and manufacturing processes produce pollution and environmental degradation, draining natural resources.

Designs for a Cooler Planet Close the Loops

Hack our habitat

Aggressive urbanisation is straining our ecosystem. Rising construction volume causes massive demand for energy-intensive construction materials, and construction already accounts for 39 per cent of the global CO2 emissions.

Designs for a Cooler Planet Hack our Habitat

Consume consciously

Household consumption accounts for more than 60 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 50–80 per cent of total land, material and water use.

Designs for a Cooler Planet Consume Consciously

More about the Race for the future

Designs for a Cooler Planet
Graphic design: Babi Brasileiro

Designs for a Cooler Planet 2019

The first Designs for a Cooler Planet was organised on 2019. In eleven exhibitions it introduced over fourty projects providing solutions for more sustainable lifestyles, from future homeware and ecological luxury textiles to a carbon-free city district. It highlighted the fact that sustainability requires substantial changes within the next ten years in how we move, where we live, what we wear and what we eat. But those changes might as well be the most attractive ones.

The core idea has remained the same ever since. Designs for a Cooler Planet showcases interesting and cross-cutting development projects often done in multidisciplinary teams. Whereas research does not automatically create visual outputs, multidisciplinary collaboration often produces concrete prototypes and models, which are highlighted in the exhibitions.

Designs for a Cooler Planet – Helsinki Design Week 2019

During September 2019, Aalto University's exhibition programme for Helsinki Design Week, titled 'Designs for a Cooler Planet' will introduce solutions for more sustainable lifestyles in Otaniemi

To the 2019 main page
Designs for A Cooler Planet

More about the first Designs for a Cooler Planet

Related to Designs for a Cooler Planet

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Aalto's main event in New European Bauhaus concentrates on radically bold questions.

Aalto Everyday Experiments Design for Government Photo: Valentina Casalini

Contribute to the New European Bauhaus initiative this Spring

We all have the possibility to contribute to the EU’s Green Deal pilots and agenda during Spring 2021. 

Aalto New European Bauhaus proposals Photo: Aleksi Poutanen

Aalto is a partner in the New European Bauhaus initiative

The EU initiative imagines future ways of living by combining design, culture, social inclusion, science and technology.

Aalto_University Camilo Cortes' Reina banca Photo_Karoliina_Paappa.jpg
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