Floris van der Marel

Floris van der Marel is Researcher at the Aalto Design Factory, a multidisciplinary experimentation platform in Aalto University and 29 institutions abroad.

His research focuses on unheard voices in design initiatives. He is interested in how certain perspectives are included, heard, respected, and equally responded to, whereas others are more ignored, or forgotten.

Passionate about exploring tensions between bringing people with different ways of thinking and doing together, he has amassed considerable practical experience in designing, facilitating and researching Participatory Design practice in several contexts, e.g. for the European Union in Vietnam, for MIT’s International Design Centre in Singapore, for Future Design Factory in the Netherlands and for Aalto University Design Factory in Finland.

Floris van der Marel holds a MSc in Design Research for Interaction from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Middle East Technical University in Turkey with a project studying the sociological impact of a small wood stove in a tribal area in India. Currently he is doing his double degree doctoral studies at Aalto and Design Factory Melbourne combining Participatory Design and research practices to amplify unheard voices and challenging power imbalances in a hospital context in rural Victoria, Australia.