News

What's Life 1.5 like? – Apply now for Designs for a Cooler Planet 2022 to showcase a sustainable future

The climate crisis and biodiversity loss call for radical new ideas. How does your work contribute to wiser consumption, climate solutions or a more sustainable working life? Designs for a Cooler Planet 2022 will present Aalto's most interesting projects to support sustainability – apply now!
Designs for a Cooler Planet 2022 – Open call
Photos: Mikko Raskinen, Annen Kinnunen & Aivan

There's no time to waste: the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and the depleting stock and uneven distribution of critical resources threaten to make our everyday life unsafe. The UN and hundreds of countries have set a goal of limiting the increase of global warming to 1.5 degrees, but that goal is slipping out of reach because of insufficient climate action.

Together, we can make big changes. That requires imagination, a holistic mindset and new systemic solutions.

The theme for Designs for a Cooler Planet 2022 is Life 1.5. We want to present our community’s solutions and visions of a more meaningful life in the future. How do we support diversity, curb over-consumption, slow down global warming and build a better working life?

We present research projects, prototypes and student work 
 

We are looking for inspiring research projects, prototypes, research-based companies and student work that we can showcase to the general public, stakeholders and our own Aalto community.

How does your work contribute to designing a better future? You can suggest an on-going research project or a ready-made solution, a research-based company, a conceptual experiment, an artistic work or an academic model of a process.

We're also open to suggestions for an exhibition, a seminar, a sightseeing tour or other event. The final projects will be selected in February 2022. The Designs For a Cooler Planet event will be held in Otaniemi in September 2022 for the fourth time.

The 2021 event was a success, engaging over 2,000 people. More than 260 people took part in the guided exhibition tours, and over 800 people from 29 countries participated in the virtual events. Approximately 1,500 students, faculty and staff members from Aalto came to see the live exhibition, which was covered by both domestic and international media (e.g. Dezeen, Kauppalehti and Tekniikka&Talous).

Want to know more what 1.5 degree lifestyle could mean? See the report from 2019 by Sitra.

Collaboration

Designs for a Cooler Planet | Virtual exhibitions 2021

Loving Environments virtual exhibition. Design: Heljä Nieminen

Loving Environments | Virtual Exhibition (external link)

More sustainable and liveable living environments.

  • Published:
  • Updated:

Read more news

A man and a woman looking up in a room
Research & Art Published:

How to educate for innovation? New report sheds light on the best practices

The report by Aalto Design Factory dives into the core elements of creating a collaborative learning environment that prioritizes student-centered, real-world problem-solving.
Valkoinen kukka edessä, ihmisiä taustalla
Press releases, Research & Art Published:

Men, Swedish speakers and Master's degree holders most likely to own shares in unlisted companies

The first comprehensive study of Finnish owners of privately held firms found, among other things, that only three per cent of the population own shares in these companies.
Nautakarjaa laitumella.
Press releases Published:

Small reductions to meat production in wealthier countries may help fight climate change, new analysis concludes

Eliminating even a small fraction of current beef production could remove three years’ worth of global fossil fuel emissions
View of UN climate change conference COP29 event venue
Cooperation Published:

COP29: Aalto University offers new solutions for sustainable construction and calls for better alignment of policy with science

An international team of researchers coordinated by Aalto University calls on world leaders: achieving climate goals requires completely new ways of combining science and policy.