Best designers from Design Factory
Aalto University Experts and students in different fields come together at Design Factory. The aim is to create something new and innovative.As a unique research and learning environment for product development, Design Factory is an innovation it itself. The factory, which operates as a unit of the new Aalto University, intends creating the best product designers in the world.
The functions of the Helsinki School of Economics, the Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Art and Design will be merged into Aalto University, which will start at the beginning of January 2010. The aim is to enhance the quality of research, improve interdisciplinary cooperation and invest in an enthusiastic learning culture and the development of innovation systems.
Design Factory, which started in the autumn of 2008, is a spearhead project at Aalto University aiming to speed up the change in the teaching and operating culture. Design Factory is a show window for teaching and research that will seek the inspiration to do things together in a new way.
- Our mission is to look into and develop the preconditions for creating the best product designers in the world. In this building different areas of expertise will come face to face with each other, likewise theory with practice. We will teach and we will study, but we will also test and implement, says Professor and Vice Director Kalevi Ekman.
The factory's shared prototype workshops, display facilities and library and social facilities form a multi-purpose meeting place. Its group-work and rooms have been designed for flexible 24/7 use. Companies can also utilize the facilities on the open innovation principle.
The experiences and feedback have been extremely favourable. - We have attained those things that we sought: discoveries that are combinations of planning and chance, interesting meetings and new energy and innovations, says Ekman.
Source: Finnfacts Newsletter 7/2009
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