IFI FORUM ETHICS IN INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE
DATE: 07.02.2026
VENUE: Aalto-University, Seminar space D, Otakaari 1, ESPOO, FINLAND
PROGRAM
10:00 OPENING WORDS BY THE IFI DELEGATE: The role and responsibility of interior architecture and design in the changing world
10:30 TALK: DESIGN
Andrea Botero, Associate Professor (New Frontiers in Design), Department of Design, Aalto-University
Never neutral
Design work is never neutral; it occurs in specific historical contexts shaped by socio-economic and political forces that make possible certain “designs” and not others. These designs in turn shape and affect the historical-social and-economical contexts in which they come to be. Design practices are thus both quite irrelevant and at the same time vital pieces of the puzzle to achieve more liveable conditions for our world.
11:00 TALK: ARCHITECTURE
Iris Andersson, Architect, teacher and PhD researcher
Architecture as a Mediator of Values – The Experience of Safety at the Intersection of Physical and Social Space
Transportation nodes can simultaneously enable inclusion and exclusion, safety and fear. Drawing on fieldwork at Helsinki Central Railway Station, my ongoing PhD research in architecture explores how safety and insecurity are experienced, perceived, and negotiated. What factors and perspectives define safety in public spaces?
11:30 BREAK: Refreshments and exhibition of Secto Design lightning
12:15 SIO INTERIOR OF THE YEAR 2026: Award announcement and presentation by the winner
12:45 TALK: INTERIORS
Professor Graeme Brooker, Head of Programme Interior Design, Royal College of Art
Fellow of IFI
Materialising Ethics: Interior Dispositions
Ethics represent the principles, values and character of a subject and its agents. Interiors entwines material with morals, processes with practices.
This talk will explore these ideas in relation to what it describes as Interior Dispositions.
13:20 PANEL: Dogmas and ideals as tools in the world of design
With Greame Brooker, Tarmo Piirmets, Matias Saresvuo and Raisa Mäkinen, moderator: Tatu Ahlroos
Interior architect Tarmo Piirmets is an internationally active interior architect and advocate for the field, with extensive experience in educational buildings, historic structures, and large-scale public architecture, combining hands-on design practice with professional leadership and strategic development of the discipline.
Matias Saresvuo from the Huttunen – Lipasti Architecture office has been recently working on a project that is challenging the norms of the “officially approved” architectural visual styles and practices by adapting historical Jugend / Art Nouveau palette to a new housing block in the Koirasaari area of Helsinki.
Raisa Mäkinen is an architect and visual artist based in Helsinki. Her master’s thesis The Spirit and Matter of Architecture, completed at Aalto University in 2025, examines the materiality and spirit of architecture through essays. She has worked as a research assistant at Aalto University in a project studying the lived experience of smart home technologies in cohousing,
14:00 DRINKS AND MINGLE
After the official program it is time to share thoughts and raise a toast with the whiskey based Helsinki Highball Cocktail by The Helsinki Distilling Company.
14:30 END OF EVENT
Welcome!
Registrations by 2th of February
Registrations by 2th of February
office@sio.fi
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