Estonian Academy of Arts
Specialisms: Product Design
Location: Tallinn, Estonia
First Name: Katariina
Last Name: Kivi
Specialisms: Product Design
Sectors:
My Location: Tallinn, Estonia
University / College: Estonian Academy of Arts
Course / Program Title: Industrial Design BDes
I´m Katariina Kivi and I recently graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts, industrial design. During my studies I developed an interest in making better cities. I try to find ways of how I as an industrial designer can contribute in making cities more vibrant, green and pedestrian friendly.
Lately, there has been a lot of discussion about Tallinn’s urban space and how to make the city more livable for its residents. This bachelor’s thesis focuses on the search for the meaning of a lively city and tries to find ways to achieve it. In my research, I came to the conclusion that the most important characteristic of a lively city is to focus on pedestrians and their needs. This is a good way a city can become more vibrant, healthy, sustainable, and safe. I started to look into ways in which I, as a product designer and a Tallinn citizen, could contribute to positive changes. I discovered that a suitable method for this would be tactical urbanism, which is based on the idea of making big changes with small steps. As a practical part of my work, I designed an instruction to build a bench using scrap material. The bench is designed to be placed on peoples’ home streets to make them more lively and perhaps encourage people to make new friends. The playful design makset it fun to make and use. If each of us practices a little bit of tactical urbanism, then we could make big changes together.