Students in Helsinki.
In the last days of September, students in the 2nd year of Industrial and Digital Product Design of EKA went on a study trip to Finland as part of the intensive course named Sustainable Tourism and Mobility. The course was held in cooperation with Aalto University and the Vilnius Academy of Arts.
During the study trip, EKA students carried out qualitative research in 2 groups, focusing on topics such as sustainable tourism and mobility. The sustainable tourism group tried to find answers to the questions of how people on a trip plan their trips and focused their research on tourists. The second group focused on people’s daily routines by interviewing locals in Helsinki and conducting observations to understand the usage of public transport, infrastructure, and the use of bicycles and scooters.
Several exhibitions were also visited in order to go deeper into the topic and gain inspiration. Aalto University’s sustainable future thematic exhibition “Designs for a Cooler Planet: Life 1.5” can certainly be highlighted. It offered an excellent overview of various areas where circular economy principles can be used. Another important exhibition visit took place at the Helsinki Design Museum, where 1 exhibition floor was dedicated to the topics of sustainability and circular economy.
The students gathered a lot of information from the fieldwork (interviews and observations, plus the exhibitions) that they can now use to analyse further and base their solutions on. The research material collected during the 3-day intensive course is a great input and will be applied in future professional cooperation projects with the Tallinn Tourism Information Center and an electric scooter company.
Industrial and Digital Product Design 2- year students taking part in the study trip: Hannah Eliel Allmann, Beata Batejev, Karolin Eks, Mariann Hendrikson, Anette Jaaniso, Anna-Riika Jatsa, Karl-Alder Kuivjõgi, Nils Mattias Mölder, Ilia Rotar, Mai Riin Salumaa, Katrin Selin, Marie Soosaar, Risto Tepper, Kaisa Uik, Mark Uustalu.
The research was supervised by: Paula Koppel and Maria Vous.
EKA’s product design department is supported by the CIRRUS network of art and design higher education in the Nordic and Baltic countries.
