This year’s theme, MAXIMAL I MINIMAL, is an appeal on behalf of high-quality design! Alvar Aalto Design Seminar has been organized in Jyväskylä since 1995 every three years. The seminar is recognized as a leading, international event and a forum for discussion in the field of design. Together with the Alvar Aalto Symposiums and the research-focused seminars, these events have attracted thousands of architects, designers, researchers, teachers and representatives of media during the past years.

The 8th International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar 2016 will be organised in Jyväskylä, Finland, in August 2016. The chair of the event is professor, interior architect Simo Heikkilä. The theme of the seminar ‘MAXIMAL | MINIMAL’, brings into the stage the topical phenomenon from arts & crafts to the lighting of cities and ecologically sustainable manufacturing.

Simo Heikkilä, Chair of Alvar Aalto Design Seminar 2016. Simo Heikkilä was the founder of the first Alvar Aalto Design Seminar in 1995 and has continued developing it together with his wide international network of designers. Image courtesy of Alvar Aalto design Seminar

The event will be chaired by designer and interior architect Simo Heikkilä, who challenges participants and the twelve speakers to consider the choices made in design work and the sustainability of those choices:

''The words ‘maximal’ and ‘minimal’ are in every designer’s vocabulary, at least in spirit. In their day-to-day work designers have to choose between two options: Does the task require a minimal approach or would a maximal one be attractive? Will people be happy or downright unhappy when using my design? Is there still a place for art in my design, or should I give in to the WOW factor and commercialism? Does my design have a long lifespan or will it simply become yet more unwieldy waste? Do I work globally or locally, in a maximal or minimal manner?

My critique applies to much of the design that short-sightedly and unsustainably goes solely for maximum visibility. In their own work all the invited speakers at the Seminar aim at uncompromising quality. To me, quality refers to the technical, the artistic and the ecologically sustainable.''

Image courtesy of Alvar Aalto design Seminar

Speakers at the Alvar Aalto Design Seminar will be Milano Design Award 2016 winner Hans Lensvelt, the Japanese lighting guru Kaoru Mende, and Johanna Vuorio, who is CEO of Nikari, known for its skill and expertise with wood. Also appearing are Jonas Bohlin, Richard Hutten, Jouko Järvisalo, Max Lamb, Cecilie Manz, Päivi Meuronen and Aimo Katajamäki, and Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen. 

Read more about the speakers here

Make sure of your place at the year’s most eagerly awaited design and architecture event, and buy your advance ticket now. This year, AADS 2016 has also taken students into account with inexpensive tickets.

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