Design Meets Cellulose project turns Finnish wood into champagne
27.09.2012
How could a Finnish wood product attain the same luxury status as French champagne on the global market? This question was examined in the Design Meets Cellulose project, in which one of the themes was to develop a brand for Finnish wood products.
The project represented summer employment for three School of Chemical Technology and three School of Arts, Design and Architecture students. They spent the summer visualising what kind of innovations could result from combining cellulose and design in the future.
The ideas were bold and creative.
’Luxury Cellulose Finland’
The students brainstormed a concrete brand for Finnish cellulose – Luxury Cellulose Finland (LCF). This is a future vision for the global marketing of Finnish cellulose.
’The paper and cellulose industry mainly produces faceless bulk products. However, a package of copy paper could include mention that the paper came from a forest in Kajaani, which would give it a certain sense of national romanticism’, outlines Andreas Lindberg, who took part in the project and recently graduated with a master's degree in paper technology.
’We should be able to brand the Finnish forest industry, because it has been left behind by the competition. The project involved brainstorming how the image could be polished and how resources should be allocated’, states Project Co-ordinator Jaakko Paloheimo from the Department of Forest Products Technology.
Reinventing old clothes with a 3D printer
The topic of recycling wood-based products was also considered during the project, and led to an idea related to 3D printing – the Fiberizer.
’This vision involved a device that grinds wood-based fibre into mass and then 3D prints a new object from it. For example, instead of sending old clothing to the landfill, new clothes or even furniture could be printed from them’, says Lindberg.
Bringing the worlds of engineer and designer together
A central theme of the Design Meets Cellulose project was to consider what co-operation between the School of Chemical Technology and the School of Arts, Design and Architecture could be like in 2020. The students produced a presentation entitled CHEMARTS 2020, which illustrated ideas about how the schools could combine their strengths and, for example, the kind of joint courses they could potentially offer.
According to Jaakko Paloheimo, designers and engineers already have a lot of common themes in their studies.
’For example, both engineers and designers deal with fibre, ecology and product lifecycle. We wanted this project to mark the beginning of long-term co-operation between the two schools’, explains Paloheimo.
Andreas Lindberg says that during the summer he noticed how differently engineers and designers work and think. Bringing these two worlds together released creativity.
’I noticed that I have a very deeply rooted engineer-oriented view of the world, but it’s important to break free of my overspecialised working methods.’
The Design Meets Cellulose summer work project employed students of forest product technology, textile design and industrial design: Marjaana Tanttu, Teresa Heiniö, Marianne Huotari, Kristiina Kellokoski, Andreas Lindberg and Kaushik Sriraman. Professors Pirjo Kääriäinen and Tapani Vuorinen were responsible for the project, while Jaakko Paloheimo served as project co-ordinator.
Further iformation
Jaakko Paloheimo
jaakko.paloheimo [at] aalto [dot] fi
+358 (0)50 344 2386
The presentation produced by the students: "ChemArts2020 by Design meets cellulose" (pdf)
See also the video produced by the students: "The World of Cellulose".