Topic outline

  • General Information & Timetable

    Welcome to the Summer School - Circular Economy and Co-design! Our main focus here is to help you ‘learn how can circular economy and co-design come together to promote real positive change!’. This is a unique chance to learn and develop your ideas in an international, multidisciplinary context and experience hands-on work in high-quality workshops of Aalto University.​

    The Summer School will help you construct a systemic understanding of the change needed for transforming the current linear economy towards circular economy. Circular economy is a powerful way to address climate change, resource scarcity and biodiversity loss while also meeting critical social aspects of sustainable development. The focus of these learning activities will be on how to prevent waste and pollution, how to keep products and materials in use longer and how to regenerate the whole system towards a better balance.

    The content of the summer school courses was created in collaboration with academics from this year’s partner universities: Singapore University of Technology and Design, Tecnológico de Monterrey,  Parsons School of Design (the New School), The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Milano and Delft University of Technology. ​

    The initiative’s aim is to invite international students to the Aalto University in order to build capacity for collaboratively solving the big challenges of our time. Teaching will be implemented through co-teaching both on-site at the Otaniemi campus and online. ​

    The content of the course was designed around three core themes: the MATERIALS AND PRODUCTS in circular economy, the SYSTEM UNDERSTANDINGS of the circular economy and the role of future SCENARIOS. The Summer School aims to increase students' understanding of the importance of the transition to a circular economy, and the crucial role of design, designers and consumers in this change. 

    LEARNING ACTIVITIES ​
    Credits: 6 ECTS = 162 study hours  
    • Pre-learning Task: the summer school was kicked off with a pre-learning task. Your statement posters will be exhibited at the Väre lobby.​
    • Face-to-face teaching sessions: the mornings will be dedicated to lectures, workshops and seminars led by academics from the world’s leading design and technology universities.​
    • Individual studies: individual studies are composed of course material such as video lectures, reading packages and offline activities to be carried out at you own speed and time.​
    • Group Task - The Circular Economy Project: the main assignment of this course is a group project on circular economy. Most afternoons are dedicated to group work, production work at the ARTS workshops, tutoring and feedback sessions, which will finally lead to an exhibition at the Väre building lobby on the last day of the summer school. 

    For the     TIMETABLE, please see the Course Handbook.
    P.S.:  there will only be one Zoom link for all activities - https://aalto.zoom.us/j/65270409557