Cindy Kohtala is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Design, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Her research focuses on grassroots self-organizing communities who explore digital fabrication technologies and processes in devoted spaces – Fab Labs – and how these communities address sustainability issues in their ideologies and practices. She also lectures and writes about sustainable Product-Service-System design, open design, distributed economies and urban activism.
Selected publications
Peer-reviewed articles:
- (2019) Framing Open Design through Theoretical Concepts and Practical Applications: A Systematic Literature Review, Human–Computer Interaction, 34: 5-6, 389-432.
- Kohtala, C., Walls, J., & We-Left Collective. (2019). Designing Care and Commoning into a Code of Conduct. Proceedings of NORDES 2019 Nordic Design Research Society Conference, No 8, 1–5.
- Berglund, E., & Kohtala, C. (2018) Collaborative Confusion among DIY Makers: Ethnography and Expertise in Creating Knowledge for Environmental Sustainability. Science & Technology Studies, forthcoming.
- Kohtala, C. (2018). The Sociomateriality of FabLabs: Configurations of a Printing Service or Counter-Context? Journal of Peer Production, 12, 92–110.
- Kohtala, C. (2017). Making ‘Making’ Critical: How Sustainability is Constituted in Fab Lab Ideology. The Design Journal, 20(3), 375–394.
- Kohtala, C. (2015). Addressing sustainability in research on distributed production: an integrated literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 654–668.
- Kohtala, C., & Hyysalo, S. (2015). Anticipated environmental sustainability of personal fabrication. Journal of Cleaner Production, 99, 333–344.
- Vezzoli, C., Ceschin, F., Diehl, J. C., & Kohtala, C. (2015). New Design Challenges to Widely Implement ‘Sustainable Product-Service Systems’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 97, 1–12.
- Hyysalo, S., Kohtala, C., Helminen, P., Mäkinen, S., Miettinen, V., & Muurinen, L. (2014). Collaborative futuring with and by makers. CoDesign, 10(3–4), 209–228.
- Kohtala, C., & Bosqué, C. (2014). The Story of MIT-Fablab Norway: Community Embedding of Peer Production. Journal of Peer Production, 5.
Books:
- Berglund, E., & Kohtala, C. (Eds.). (2015). Uusi Helsinki? 11 näkökulmaa kaupungin mahdollisuuksiin | Det nya Helsingfors? 11 olika perspektiv på en stads möjligheter | Changing Helsinki? 11 Views on a City Unfolding. Helsinki: Nemo.
- Vezzoli, C., Kohtala, C., Srinivasan, A., Diehl, J. C., Fusakul, S. M., Xin, L., & Sateesh, D. (2014). Product-Service System Design for Sustainability. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing.
Book chapters and essays:
- Kohtala, C. (2019). Makerspaces as free experimental zones. In M. Charter (Ed.), Designing for the Circular Economy (pp. 260–269). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
- Berglund, E., & Kohtala, C. (2015). A New Helsinki? [Mitä Uutta Helsinki? Vilket nytt Helsingfors?]. In E. Berglund & C. Kohtala (Eds.), Changing Helsinki? Eleven Views on a City Unfolding [Uusi Helsinki? Det Nya Helsingfors?] (pp. 30–39). Helsinki: Nemo.
- Kohtala, C. (2015). Systems of Resilience: A dialogue on digital makers, making and their principles of conduct. In A. Fuad-Luke, A.-L. Hirscher, & K. Moebus (Eds.), Agents of Alternatives: Re-designing our Realities (pp. 230–239). Berlin: Agents of Alternatives.
- Kohtala, C., & Paterson, A. G. (2015). Oxygen for Töölönlahti [Happea Töölönlahdelle, Syre för Tölöviken]. In E. Berglund & C. Kohtala (Eds.), Changing Helsinki? Eleven Views on a City Unfolding [Uusi Helsinki? Det Nya Helsingfors?] (pp. 64–70). Helsinki: Nemo.
