Insights

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Floris van der Marel

Floris is design researcher skilled in creative facilitation and design coaching combining Participatory Design and research practices to contribute to political activism by amplifying unheard voices and challenging power imbalances and normative hierarchies.

Based on data collected in the Design+ project Floris is contributing to our understanding of designers’ experiences in large tech organizations as they attempt to challenge the status quo in engineering-heavy organizational cultures and in DesignBites he’s diving into the creative responses of entrepreneurs and their communities tackling the pandemic. He’s also continuing working with participatory design in hospital settings based on a 2019-20 visit in Design Factory Melbourne.

Floris draws from a MSc degree in design research from Delft University of Technology and Middle East Technical University, as well as a BSc degree in industrial design engineering. Prior to joining Aalto Design Factory, he worked at the Frisian Design Factory in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.

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JoelFloris van der Marel
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Tua Björklund

Connecting theory and practice

Tua is the director of the Design Factory, an assistant professor in leading for creativity in the School of Engineering and the teacher-in-charge of the master’s level product development major and minor in Aalto. Her work revolves around understanding, teaching and developing co-creation efforts, turning ideas into improvements in organizations and education.

Tua heads research at the Design Factory, looking into sustainable design practices, innovation in organisations, co-creation and the impact of the Design Factory. In addition, she manages the research projects CREATNet, Design Plus, Design+Sustainability, and ATTRACT, investigating how design thinking can change the way companies organise for innovation and how collaborative experimentation can give rise to new opportunities. She is also a deputy editor at the Journal of Engineering Education.

On the teaching front, Tua is a part of Design Factory efforts to promote developing university teaching. She teaches responsible innovation and human-centered design in courses such as the Product Development Project, Mechanical Engineering in Society, Prototyping for Innovation, and Design thinking for innovation, as well as design innovation in executive and professional education.

Tua has a DSc degree in work psychology from the Aalto University School of Science, and an MA degree in cognitive science from the University of Helsinki.

Publications on the Design Factory

Recent journal publications

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adminTua Björklund