Topic outline

  • Course home

    Link to class on 18.2.2022: https://aalto.zoom.us/j/63947469293


    Teaching in 2022

    Welcome to the 2022 edition of the Material for a World in Transition course. We are still in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic so, regrettably, we will once again have to conduct the course in online mode. Despite this, I very much hope that you will find the course engaging and inspiring!

    Enrollment   

    The course is limited to a maximum of 60 participants. The course is mandatory for students of Creative Sustainability. If fewer than 60 places are taken by students on the Creative Sustainability program, the remaining places will be allocated to students from other programs. These students will be selected on the basis of their backgrounds, to ensure that we are able to create multidisciplinary teams for group working.

    About the course

    As the song by Madonna goes, we are “living in a material world” – literally! Our culture and economy is intimately linked to the transformation of materials into products for our use – for construction, for transportation and for the host of other artefacts deemed necessary by current society. With our use of raw materials, and the energy used in their transformation, we are now irrevocably changing our environment, to such an extent that a new geological epoch has been espoused – the Anthropocene.

    Historically, we learned to use the natural materials around us, or those derived from the animals hunted for food - stone, wood, vegetable fibers, leather, bone, horn, sinew etc. Later, we learned to produce metals from ores, and in the past century or so to synthesize polymers and resins from fossil oil. Through the scientific study of materials, we have become adept at creating new materials with radically new properties – properties never before seen, nor even dreamed of.

    Despite our undoubted ingenuity at developing new materials and producing new products from them, we still take little account of the impact that our materials’ use has on the environment and, in many cases, on our fellow humans. This paradigm needs to change. Recognizing this, new policy, at national and EU level has been developed, embodied in the concepts of the Circular Economy and the Bioeconomy, the aim of which is to change the current situation to a (more) sustainable use of materials. Even with these intentions, a gulf remains between the status quo and a sustainable materials economy.

    In this course, we will explore the nexus between materials and sustainability, adopting a systems thinking approach to materials cycles.  We will look at how the use of material and the choices we make in their selection, and the design of materials and products, affect sustainability. We will look at how we can improve resource efficiency and will explore the limits to this. We will look at material flows and the stakeholders involved in often highly complex value chains.

    Schedule:

    Week #

    Date

    Time

    Topic

    Teacher

    2

    12.1

    10-12

    Introduction: Living in the material world

    Mark & Anna

    14.1

    10-12

    Materials and their properties

    Mark & Anna

    3

    19.1

    10-12

    Materials, flows and systems 

    Mark & Anna

    21.1

    10-12

    Impacts and strategies

    Mark & Anna

    4

    26.1

    10-12

    The ‘S’ Word

    Prof. Callum Hill

    28.1

    10-12

    Thermodynamics

    Prof. Callum Hill

    5

    2.2

    10-12

    Materials and systems thinking

    Prof. Deniz Koca

    4.2

    10-12

    Systems modelling

    Prof. Deniz Koca

    6

    9.2

    10-12

    Metals, flows and systems

    Anna

    11.2

    10-12

    Resource efficiency & circular economy

    Mark

    7

    16.2

    10-12

    Material properties and the circular- and bio-economies 

    Anna and Mark

    18.2

    10-12

    Materials and the bioeconomy

    Mark