2019 NOV–DEC
Pirjo Kääriäinen is driven by interdisciplinarity
Designer Pirjo Kääriäinen has a passion for sustainability. As a facilitator for research projects on the development of new materials, she constantly utilizes a design perspective. During her two-month residency in New York, Kääriäinen aims to explore the latest development in biomaterials on this side of the Atlantic. She is also one the speakers in Healthy Materials Lab’s symposium Material Health: Design Frontiers on November 15.
Kääriäinen’s background is in textile design and she worked in the textile industry for almost twenty years before joining academia. She is currently working as a professor of practice in design-driven fiber innovations at Aalto University, and she is one of the founders of CHEMARTS, an interdisciplinary student program focused on the development of new bio-based materials. Kääriäinen also works as a facilitator at Ioncell, where a technology that turns cellulose into fiber has been developed. Combining design with sustainability and preserving nature permeate Kääriäinen’s work.
Kääriäinen stresses that design cannot solve anything on its own. Since the impact of climate change on our society and living environment is so immense, there is an urgent need for tight co-operation across disciplines. Design can be used to make abstract technological developments more comprehensible, for example through the use of prototypes. Design caters to the multisensory aspect of humans and helps create a way of seeing matters from different perspectives.
“The aim is that when something new is created, it would already have been considered from multiple points of view. We do not want to solve one problem only to have created ten more. It is more of a process than a project.”
During her time in New York, Kääriäinen seeks to explore what is going on in the research of biomaterials in the US. She and her CHEMARTS colleague Tapani Vuorinen have been invited to give a talk at the Material Health: Design Frontiers , a symposium organized by The New School’s Healthy Materials Lab. The event takes place on November 14–15 and is free and open to all. Register here. Additionally, Kääriäinen will organize a multisensory workshop dealing with future materials in conjunction with the symposium.
“My background in textile design has given me a sensitivity to foresee trends. The world is moving in an interesting direction and I want to see where it’s going!”