Transcription
[Ellen] Thank you all
for coming tonight.
I'm Ellen Lupton. I'm senior
curator of Contemporary Design
here at Cooper
Hewitt's Smithsonian
design museum
and we are
so happy to welcome you.
We have been closed. Now we are
open. We have
brand new exhibitions for you
to see.
And amazing programs. Check our
website every week.
We have just amazing things
happening and I'm so
glad to share with you tonight
what we're doing.
I curated an exhibition
upstairs called Beautiful Users.
Which introduces the public to
the idea of design
as a human-centered activity.
And we look at
a range of projects and how
designers have transformed
from looking at an idea or
normative user
to a more inclusive and
individual approach
to who it is that uses this
stuff that designers make.
So, tonight we're gonna talk
about universal design.
And what I'm gonna do is
briefly introduce our panelist.
And I'm gonna turn it over then
to Amy Hamraie, who will be our
moderator tonight.
So, Amy Hamraie is
assistant professor
of medicine, health,
and society.
At Vanderbilt University where
they study the inner sections
of design, disability, and
knowledge production.
The current
book project
'Building Access"
Universal design
techno-science and the
politics of knowledge.
Studies the history of
universal design in the US
through the lenses of
feminist disability theories
and philosophies of technology
so, cool. Amy works in the
inter-disciplinary fields of
disability studies, feminist
science studies and
the history and philosophy of
science and technology.
So, great. Amy is going to start
our events with an overview
of universal design. Looking at
where it came from
and how the conversation is
changing today.
And then each of our
panelists will come up
and talk for 10 minutes about
what they're doing
in this field. New stuff
happening in this field.
So, the first of those
panelists is Jon Marshall.
He is co-founder and design
director at MAP
a London based creative
consultancy whose clients
include some
of the most
innovative companies
in the world.
Including Virgin Atlantic,
Google, and Panasonic.
Jon graduated from the Royal
College of Art
in 1996, and then worked at
leading design firms Pentagram
and Ross Lovegrove. He joined
Barber Osgerbe as
studio director in 2003 and he
co-founded MAP in 2012.
And his work with
[unclear] is
included in beautiful
users, in fact...
all of our panelists have
projects on view upstairs.
Gianfranco Zaccai is president
and chief design officer
of Continuum. The global design
innovation
consultancy behind some
products you may have heard of
like the Reebok pump and P&G's
Swiffer.
Continuum has worked with
Herman Miller company.
To develop new
patient care rooms
exam rooms, and the
Nala patient chair.
The metaform trans-generational
personal hygiene system which
has been featured
here at Cooper Hewitt
and other places.
Facilities independence for
people with disabilities
and their extended families.
Reed Norigard recently became
director at Quirky
the community powered
innovation company.
Previously, Reed launched
Umhoom, a boutique
designer and manufacturer of
award winning mobility books
She also served as creative
director at Frog, Organic
Arnell Group and Smart Design
in New York City.
And finally, Scott Summit
founded the Spoke Innovations
in 2010 based on 20 years of
experience and research
in design and additive
fabrication, which you may
also call 3D printing. Bespoke
believes that an
integrated approach
connecting design
medicine and
technology stands to
offer meaningful
and above all
individualized solutions to
address a wide variety
of human needs. Bespoke was
acquired by 3D Systems
in May of 2012 and Summit now
leads the company's
industrial design efforts. And
he has many products
on view here at Cooper Hewitt
right now, as do
all of you great designers. So,
with no further adieu
I'm going to pass the event on
to Amy to get things started.
[applause]
[Amy] How's my volume? Good?
[audience] Perfect.
Ok, well welcome everyone.
Thank you all for coming.
And thanks to Alan and the
Cooper Hewitt for organizing
this amazing panel. I'm just
gonna talk, a little bit
about the history of Universal
Design in the United States
today. Universal Design
is typically something
that we talk about as
the idea that buildings
and products should be
accessible by design for as
many people as possible.
I won't be talking today about
any specific examples
of objects or spaces.
If you would like to
see some of them, there are
many in this museum.
There's also very good
historical work that you
read about this. What
I'm gonna talk about
instead, is the concept
of Universal Design.
The methods that come out
of it and communities of
of practice that have
formed around it.
So groups of people who, over a
period of time, came together
to kind of come up with this
idea and to innovate it.
It's especially exciting
that this is happening
here at the Cooper Hewitt
because this has really been
a place that has driven the
concept and theory of
Universal Design in
very interesting and
innovative ways. Primarily
under the leadership
of a previous director,
Diane Pilgrim.
Who did a lot of
work, both to make
the museum building itself
accessible and to deepen
the collections to
include more objects
and a kind of human centered
design. The types of adtracks
that you would see upstairs in
the beautiful user's exhibit.
Which I hope that
everyone will go to.
In 1998 this museum
actually had the first
exhibit of Universal
Design products.
And it was kind of part of
asking questions about what
Universal Design should
mean moving forward.
And so, what I'm gonna do is,
kind of, go backwards in history
Tell you a little bit
about how we got to 1998
And then talk about, kind of
where we can go from here.
One other thing I want to
mention really briefly
is that the Smithsonian
Institution
itself, of which
this museam
is a part,
is a Federal
Institution that
has been bound by
disability access laws
since the late 1960's.
And because of that, it has
actually innovated the movement
towards Universal Design in
really significant ways,
because it has so many museums
and so many visitors.
And so, beginning in the 1990's
the Smithsonian actually worked
to implement Universal Design
principals into a, kind of,
set of guidelines for all of
it's museums, and I think
there are like 15 or
18 museums maybe.
And so, this place is, kind of,
part of the largest network of
the places where you can
actually observe and interact
with Universal Design features.
And you probably wouldn't
know that they're there
because they're all built in.
The people who
were in charge of
that, Jan Majuski
and Beth Zebarth.
Are people who have run the
accessibility office and
and have done a lot
of work in this.
And I just want to read
something from a letter in 1993.
That Jan Maguski wrote to
David McFadden who was
then at the Cooper
Hewitt as a curator.
And he was the one
who was helping to carry
the unlimited by design
exhibit that came
up in in '98
She wrote, "I think that 2
important points to convey
in the Smithsonian
access guidelines
are that accessible universal
design is not inherently ugly
and the people with
disabilities should be first
not last, in the audiences
that designers consider
in designing environments,
programs, and publications.
If it works for people
with disabilities
it'll work for many others.
But the reverse is
not always true.
It might also be interesting
to look at instances of
design developed for
people with disabilities
becoming design for everyone.
And the reason I read this is I
think it really reveals
a lot of the
experimentation around
the concept of
universal design
that has taken place in our very
recent history
that this isn't always
a stable concept
It's always changing
and it includes
a lot of different
components.
And so I'll talk
about what some of
those are and where
they've come from.
The first time the
term universal
design appeared in
print was in 1985.
When the disabled North
carolinian architect
and industrial designer, Ron
Mace
wrote an article entitled
"Universal Design Barrier Free
Environment for Everyone"
in which he argued that design
should keep all users in mind
not just the average
and not just
users that are labeled
as exeptional.
And so the ideas that came out
of this were
1, that design should have
multiple use.
That there should be multiple
users for an object or a space
but also that things should be
flexible
and be able to be used in
different ways.
That these designs should have
access built into them
rather than needing changes
later.
And that this has added value
kind of, for everyone who's
invovled.
But, words like universal design
and phrases like all users or
everyone
should also give us a little bit
of pause
because, so often, these ways of
talking about users
actually flatten the differences
betrween them
instead of appreciating the
differences
that are significant
or that would
require different
access needs.
There's actually nothing about
terms like universal
or all users that
ensures that
designers will
remain accountable.
To disabled users. And there's
also nothing in these terms
that recognizes the political
demands of
marginalized users. And the way
that marganalized
users, such as disabled
people, have contributed
to the history of desing.
Particularly in the case of
universal design. So, why do we
even
use these terms? This is
something that people have asked
pretty much during the entire
history or universal design
and other terms have been
proposed, such as design
for all or trans-generational
design, design for aging
But the reason why we use
these terms and why the word
universal
is in the title, is because
disabled people
have been denied access to
membership in the universal
historically.
And because these terms
have been ways that designers
and
advocates have talked about the
relationship between
disability and design, for
decades.
Since after world war 2, when
there was kind of an influx of
a lot of disabled veterans
into the US society, as well
as moving out of
institutions and nursing homes
by civilians
with disabilities. Since that
time
designers have been thinking
about users, whether
average or non-average, in
different ways.
In the late 40's there were
actually two competing paradigms
for what today we call
user-centered design.
The first was taking place
within industrial design
and you can see a lot of
examples of this
for users,
actually, but
Industrial designer,
Henry Dryfess
came up with the idea of
human-engineering
or what now we might call
ergonomics.
But it was frequently for he
average person.
And he saw human variation as a
resource
for design but didn't really
have a
consciousness about disability.
And so, disability
was entering into design
elsewhere. In architecture,
of all places, there was a
movement
towards barrier-free design,
which was the idea of removing
architectural barriers for
disabled people
and de-segregating society
to undo the work of
institutionalization.
And things like that. And
barrier-free
design actually saw disability
as a resource
for design, rather
than a deficit.
And it saw
disabled people
as resourceful designers
themselves
and so there are a lot of
examples, and the historian
Bess Williamson, has written
about this
in the 1940's and 50's of
for instance, people with polio
who do these, kinds of like
DIY hacks in their houses or
invent different
technologies themselves. And
their resourcefulless
is part of this process of
removing barriers in
society. It's actually ironic
that these
parallel tracks are happening
at the same time
because today it is industrial
design that pays a lot more
attention to disability.
And in architecture a
disability tends to, kind of
still be marginalized and
associated
with, kind of, minimum
standards and legal codes.
Some of the things that
took place in the early days of
barrier-free design
These are really old scans of
very old pictures
so, I'll try to describe what's
happening in them
Different kinds of wheel chair
ramps, hydraulic lifts for
public transportation
These images from the University
of Illinois, Urbana Champaigne
which was one of the
first accessible
campuses in the
United States
beginning in the late 1940's
and into the
50's and 60's their stall
program down
and in barrier-free design,
as you can see in
these pictures,
buildings and products
were integrated.
So, architecture and product
design had to happen
together because you needed
access
in both for it to be meaningful.
And from the beginning,
the emphasis
was this was beneficial
for all users
not just disabled users.
And so,part of the research
that went into the
first barrier-free design
standards, actually
reported that at the University
of Illinois, Urbana Champagne
they had developed these shower
seats
for people to use
for instance for a wheel chair
user to transfer into the shower
And they were made of really
good materials
but they broke very quickly,
and when they investigated
to see why they were breaking
quickly.
They found out that all
of the non-disabled
students were using these
shower seats, too.
And so it was exceeding the
kind of
amount of use that was
necessary. And so from that
they gleaned that many of these
technologies are actually
beneficial to a wider user base.
The language...
of, kind of, all users
appears again in
1967 when the Rehabilitation
Services Administration
wrote a report in support of a
bill that
came to be know as the
Architectural Barriers Act
of 1968, was the first law that
said
that public buildings,
like Federal
buildings had to
be accessible.
And this report was just called
"Design for All Americans"
It made the argument that
disabled and elderly people
were citizens and so they
deserved access to
de-segregated spaces. What was
interesting about this
though was that even
though it was happening
at the height of the
Civil Rights Movement
there was really no
consideration of racial
integration in a lot of these
laws. And so,
even the way that the user was
constructed and
barrier free design was
very white.
And it was not until much later
that, for instance the
Federal Housing Act was amended
to include disability.
To look at some of those inner
sections between racial
segregation and disability
segregation.
The Architectural Barriers Act
was
poorly enforced and
so was another law, Section 504
of the Federal
Rehabilitation Act, which would
have made
the bill enforceable. And so
disability
activists, famously protested
They conducted some of the
longest Sit-Ins in US history.
And forced Federal Government
to enforce these laws. This is
a sit-in
in Washington DC, there are
also ones in San Francisco.
And, while they were waiting
for those laws to be enforced
what they die was they
invented Curb Cuts.
And this is, kind or a
really good example
of the kind of
resourcefullness
and ingenuity of disabled
people as
Designers. Curb cuts are
the technology that we most
commonly use to
talk about Universal Design.
And the idea is that wheelchair
users can use them, bicyclists
people pushing strollers and
people walking and people
getting around in all sorts of
other ways,.
But, where these come from, and
there's
kind of like a lot of lore
about this. And disability
rights movement history. The
lore is that
disabled people would go out
under dark of night
with sledge hammers and bust up
the
sidewalks and pour cement curb
cuts.
And they're placed just so that
they could get around
So, there's actually a piece of
one of these curb cuts from
a Denver ADAPT protest from 1978
in the Smithsonian in
Washington, D.C.
which is what I'm showing here.
And there are also examples of
this that happened in Berkely
and other places
So that you
kind of get a sense
of this, like
social movement
activity towards
barrier-free design and the
idea that
people were innovating
different ways of having
built environments so that
everyone could use them.
In the 1980's the design
profession started
to kind of catch up with all of
this
Specific organizations that
were kind of integrating more
of the disability
consiousness, the Industrial
Design Society of
America, The Environmental
Assigned Research Association
As well as design schools began
teaching
about disability. So, people
like
Elain Ostroff in Boston, Ray
Lechay in San Francisco at the
University of
California Berkely began to
kind of look to what they
called user experts
or the idea that disabled
users could also be experts in
the design
process. And then communities
began to form around what
would later be called Universal
Design
And these are necessarily
inter-disaplinary communities
And they were kind of
united around a shared
investment in disability
access by bringing different
perspectives together
And so in 1982
there was a conference
called "Designed
Environments for
All People"
that happened at
actually in New York City. And
this was where
Ronald Mace got the idea for
Universal
Design. And it was partially
through
talking to all these peopel.
And I'm about to
list some people who may or may
not
mean anything to some of you,
but I'll just tell you.
So, the disabled politician,
Max Cleland, before he was
a Senator. Hale Zuchis, who was
a leader
of the Independent Living
Movement in Berkely
and allegedly one of the curb
cut smashers.
Victor Propanek, just as he was
finishing his
book, "Design for the Human
Scale"
Architects Lawrence Halprin
Charles Moore and Stanley
Tigerman. Barrier-free design
experts
I already mentioned Ron Mace.
Also other people you may have
heard of
John Salmon, Gunner Debois
James Bostrom, Polly Welch
Ray Lefshay, and Patricia
Mooring
And then some social scientists
who are
kind of leaders in this field
of accesibilty
today. Gary Moore, John Zisel
and Craig Zimmering
This is 1982. It was kind of
like a meeting of the minds.
All these people got together
and said, "How can we make
"How can we actually make
Barrier-free design"
kind of successful in the built
environment
And this is
reportedly where Mace
came up with his
idea which he
wrote about in 1985.
So, fast forward a few years to
1990. This is when
the Americans With Disabilities
Act was passed.
And this was landmark
legislation.
Civil Rights
legislation
But one of the things that it
did was
that it made barrier-free
design basically
synonymous with meeting, kind of
mall code standards. And people
started to use
other language to talk about
what barrier-free design
had meant for the, you know the
40 years.
Up until then. And the language
that they
sometimes used for that was
universal design
Sometimes universal design also
meant anything that was outside
of the law
Sometimes it meant anything that
had built-in accessibility.
Sometimes it
meant design for
aging. That's still
a really common
thing. And very frequently
it meant any kind of design
that had nothing to do
with disability at all. Which is
really strange and unfortunate
And the argument was that
disability
design was either what you
enforced through a
code or something
that was
inherently about
quote unquote "Special Needs"
And the universal design was
about good design
for everyone. I think that this
was kind of
where things started to get a
little weird.
Because what that
definition encouraged was this
idea of
disability as a hinderance to
design
rather than a resource. And so
disability kind of became a
liability for
marketing. Or for
Or you know what could be
counted as good design.
And that's still a really
dominant conception of universal
design shape that I think is
very problematic. And that I
think that we should, kind of
like
I do my historical work to show
why this is not the case becasue
I think that it's
more important to
think about disability
as a resource
and to remember the history of
disabled designers and
activists who contributed to
this idea.
So, in 19... between '95
and '97, a group of designers
and experts came up with the 7
principals of universal
design to kind of remedy some
of this problem
with not everyone really knowing
what universal design meant.
Or agreeing. And what they did
was they sort of combined
all of these ideas. So they
emphasized
equity and flexibility, which
are kind of more disability
inclusive.
The also talked about things
like tolerance for error
allowing multiple mediums and
sources of information and
providing adequate space for
users to interact,
which are kind
of things that
come from where
the industrial designer,
human-factor side.
And this is basically the most
often cited document
in universal design. And it's
been contested
a lot but it's
pretty much the one
that everyone
always talks about.
And what it did was it turned
universal
design into a process and a
methodology rather than a single
unified concept by recognizing
that
it was not a unified concept.
And so that is kind of like
the dominate paradigm
of universal
design. And
I'll just show
one last thing, which is where
I think
universal design is going in
some ways
and what is should be doing.
Kind of
going forward. This is a
picture from the
Bluesong Spinal Cord Center in
Vancouver B.C., which is
a completely universally
designed building. Down to
every feature. But it's primary
esthetic and functional feature
is this ramp that goes to every
floor of the building. And it's
decorated and it's in a
glassy tram. And it kind of
proclaims the
existence of disability and
celebrates it as a
resource in the
design of the
building itself
rather than trying to hide it
and trying to distance the
concept from disability.
So, I'll just leave that there
for us to
think about and we'll have our
other speakers now. Thank you.
[applause]
I'm Jeremy.
So my name's Joe Marshall and
I'm
director of a design studio in
London called
Mac and we're in Shoreditch,
which is the
east part of London.
And we do industrial design
with a, I think
user-centered approach. And
based on a lot of research
there's something
quite unique about
our studio. We're
part of a group.
That includes
Bob Oscoby, which is a
furniture studio and also
universal design studio, which
is an Architecture practice/
And the name is really, really
confusing in the context of
today's event.
Formed over 10 years ago,
before the
term was widely used, in the
U.K at least
And so really love about being
in
this studio with all these
different scales of things
going on at the same time is
the kind of focus on user or
people
So, you have furniture
designer, working alongside
product designers. Where product
designers are pushing
millimeters around
on products that you
hold in your hand
next to them you've got
architects with big chunks of
material thinking about
environments
which you pass through. And I
think this
kind of cross-pollination
between the different scales of
product design, furniture
design, and architecture.
Is something that I find very
exciting about our studio, and
very interesting. It brings us
all the time, back to the user.
So the sort of projects that
we do at
Map and things like a meal
tray for
Virgin Atlantic that was a
better experience for the
passanger but also was
lightweight
and therefor saved energy.
An exhibition for Google
which was about the power of
the Internet
So, we created some experiments
which enabled people to
interact with objects
in the museum but also online
over
the Internet. So, a musical
instrument you could paly or
a robot which could draw your
face in sand
and is actually one of these
robots here in the museum.
We also went with a lot of
technology companies. So, for
instance working with Yamaha
on flexible speaker technology.
And so we've found
quite a number
of projects
with Panasonic
and Panasonic have a very melted
generational approach to design
A good example is this
induiction hub
which in order to kind of
communicate the new
technology of induction
cooking, uses these lights
which, just around the area
where
the pans are put. And that is
sort of symbolic of
the flame on a gas hub.
And so that's a really good
communication method.
To get across kind of a new
technology.
The process we use as
I said, I think it's very user
focused.
There are sort of 4 pillars to
it, in my opinion. First of all
research. So we like our
designers to go
out and do the
research and largly
speaking that means
going into people's
homes and talking to people
about the products they use.
The second thing is that
before we start design, we
actually build stories or
strategies which articulate
in written form,
what we intend to do
and what a measure
of success would be. And sort of
true to the sterotype it
involves a lot of post-it notes.
The third thing is that we...
although we're a consultantcy
we tend to procreate most of our
work with our clients
in the room together.
So, there's a lot of
meetings and workshops
And the fourth thing is
that
we are always prototyping and
making models of our work. And
we use those to test
the design with users as part
of the process.
So, I've actually picked out
two projects which I think are
good examples of
that process that I've just
articulated. And also I think
there are elements of universal
design in both
of them. The first one is the
Cano
Computer Kit. So this is
computer kit aimed at
kids and you can build a
computer and learn to code
using this kit.
So, the process
was very much as I
described earlier.
So, there's a lot
of meetings with
the client. And
this was a start-up
so we were
actually starting
from scratch really. And
we also spend a lot of time
observing
the target group, who were kids
in this case.
And we also tried in this
instance to
combine together the product
design and the packaging as a
single unified experience.
We're using models
and mock-ups to try
to refine the design
and test those
with the user. So, a couple of
things
that I think came out of it
that were quite interesting or
insights, they're interesting.
One was when we were watching
the kids playing with the kit.
We noticed how much they
used color to organize what
they were doing.
So, in the final design we used
a lot of colored cables, and we
kind of codified what the
cables did. And that runs
right through the product and
the packaging and also into
the instructions.
And the second thing is that it
was really interesting watching
kids as young as 6 using
a track pad. So
they didn't seem to be able to
do click and drag. Which
I don't know if you're familiar
with new track-pad pad.
It's something that you use a
lot to sort of drag
and drop things in the computer
environment. So
Since kids were not able to do
that. We actually designed
the keyboard with these
seperate... These 2 grey buttons
on he bottom left. Seperate
left and right mouse buttons.
So that enabled kids really
young, even those without
much dexterity to manipulate
things in the computer
So I think those
kind of points on
this project were
quite interesting
for us and they are, I think
quite universal
design processes. The second
project I want to talk about
and Ellen mentioned this.
There's some pieces from
this in the exhibition here.
It's Sabe Space. Sabe's
actually an interesting band
set-up called SF1
took about 3
years ago,
specifically to
target baby boomers
On first range that was
created with these really sort
of super slick
organizers.
So we were approached to do a
follow-up
range, which is called Sabe
Space
and really the only restriction
on us, with any brief was to do
something that still appeal to
this core demographic of baby
boomers but, it was just for
the home
Anywhere in the home. And we
have quite a young
team at Map. So, one of the
first things we did was we
dug into all the available desk
research on
baby boomes and try to kind of
understand what the issue
were for this target group.
We also did a lot of workshops
with the client, and we also
spoke to a lot of experts in
this field
And we sort of... What we
arrived at was an idea
around agility. So, the things
that seem to be
issues where reaching,
eyesight, memory.
So,
a typical product
that we thought
we might design
would be a
sort of reaching stick to help
grab things
from a high book shelf.
From a high book shelf.
When we actually spoke to the
users as part of our
home visit research. We found
that they didn't really like
that
informational connection with
these agility and
answers like these reaching
sticks. And
instead what we found is that
these
baby boomers. They
just thought they
were young, so
they didn't really
realize they were aging. Why
not, so we just thought however
well we
we can design something that
kind of agility enhancer
they're not gonna buy it, so
Instead the themes that came up
were around organization,
neatness
and solving simple problems.
And very much in the bathroom
actually so, we
re-focused our attention onto
the bathroom. And we
took these 3 sort of
key ideas. One was to design
things that were
not stigmatizing.
So it didn't
look like
they were for aging people.
Second one was to hire people
to use products
to change simple things in
their daily life. And the third
one was just around quick fixes.
Simple things. So, there's
kind of no better quick fix
than sticky tape.
And actually the
range that we
came up with is
all based on this
3M tape, which is on a little
peg
that you can stick onto the wall
and then you can use that to
put on the wall really
quickly, in any
room but primarily
in the bathroom
a range of functional devices.
So
it thinks it quite decorative
in a way, like
a rail for, a hook rail
or things that are about self,
so mirrors
Things that are about
organization like a shower caddy
And some things that were
more about
function, for instance
moving a toilet paper if it's
in the wrong position and you
have to twist around is really
hard in the bathroom
with the tiled wall.
But with this adhesive
part it could be
done really easily.
So, the range looks really nice
and kind of
universal and appeals to
old and young alike. But one of
the things that we wanted
is we wanted to include at
least one of these
agility enhancer type products
in the range, so
this round kind of
halo like blue thing that on
the wall is actually
it's a grab rail to help people
get in and out fast. So one
thing we noticed
with the bathroom
is that a lot of
accidents when
people step in and
out of the bath. We wanted to
solve that as well as solving
all the other things that I
mentioned
So, we were searching for
a kind of format that
was non-stigmatizing. But
also worked really
well for it's core
functionality of
being able to grab
or lean on. And we did that
through
a range of models.
Pretty models. I'm just testing
them and
I'm using video to kind of
communicate
this back to the client
So we went with in the end was
the round shape.
And it was mostly because
it offers different ways to
grab around it
so if you are a couple and
one's tall and one's short
you can grab it in two
different places. And also that
the curved shape itself is
quite easy to grab if
you have arthritis. And so
partly
this was done through
testing and partly
it was done through
discussion
with experts. And I think above
all
it meets the sort of no stigma
approach
that we wanted. So
you can throw a
towel on it and
it doesn't really
look like a grab rail.
So, one final thing I just
wanted to mention
And it's a kind of personal
passion of mine is
about how packaging
can significantly
improve product
so you can design
a great product but
if you can't get
into the packaging,
it's massivley
frustrating. So, in this range
in particular we
took care of the packaging to
create very clear
simple packaging that was easy
to open.
And we even added things like a
template to help you
put in on the wall
with a little spirit
level to make sure
you got those beautiful
hanging rails straight.
And we also took a
lot of care on the
instructions so,
instructions for products
typically are not
instructions so
typically they're not
done by the core
design team but in
this case we put
them into our scope. And took a
lot of CADS to make sure
that they were very clear.
So, that's the Sabe Space range
and I think, just as a final
note
with those two projects which
are for growth companies
Universal design is not any
good for the
user but I think for our
clients it's a kind of
business imperitive. So, with
that
I'll had over to John Franco.
[applause]
Thank you. Nice work.
Well thank you very much.
So, I took the theme very
litterally.
About whether it's myth or
reality anmd I really think
that it's a little bit of both.
Right?
That it's really about
design for all
And all is a very broad
distribution of people.
And in some cases we've made
things better for many more
people. And in some cases
making things better for
making more people creates
problems for others. A friend
of mine
Jane Thompson once said. I love
to quote her.
She said that most problems are
caused by solutions..
And I remember
meeting an individual that was
part of
that was part of the drafting
of the
American's with Disabilities
Aid.
Who is blind.
And he mentioned that curb cuts
actually create a
problem for blind people.
Because they can't detect
where the sidewalk ends and the
where the street begins. Of
course that's been taken care of
with some, you
know, textures and
so forth that
allows people to
understand that transition. But
I think
But I think there are a lot of
It's a very broad brush that we
talked about when we talk about
design for a universal
design, right. And there are
many kinds of
disabilities. There
are physical
disabilities. There
are intelectual
disabilities, right? And in
some ways there are also
cultural and racial
disabilities because
we create them. So,
I think that the idea of
looking at
areas of common
desires for mobility, for
example.
Among a very broad and diverse
group of people, is absolutely
valid
But, I think it's also important
to think about designing for
one.
Right? Because the needs of
people
at the extreme ends of the
ability spectrum are very, very
different.
So, I think we have to be
nuanced in what we do.
Now, I think designing
things that are easier for all,
just makes
sense, right? And
A number of years ago, it's now
16 or 17 years ago, we came up
with the
Swiffer for Proctor and Gamble,
so
that's just about cleaning,
right?
Using a lot of water and
detergent
to clean a floor. It was both
messay and unproductive
because most of what's on the
floor is dust
And the best way to pick it up
is with static electricity.
And a simple disposable piece
of paper.
And that's easier for everybody
and when I
When the product was
introduced, my sister who
small grandchild at the time,
was delighted because
her grandchild started
cleaning the floor
for her. Because it
was kind of fun.
It was kind of fun, right? So
doing things that are
non-stigmatizing and fun
actually, is really good
objectivbe. Removing barries is
also a good objective, so
27 years ago
we started a project for Herman
Miller called Metaform.
And part of that... And
Metaform, for us, was all about
personal hygiene. How people
can be independent.
In their own homes and
personal hygiene becomes
really important.
And that's really where
we learned what the
previous speaker spoke about.
The importance
of not stigmatizing people.
Because we were looking at a
broad
range of older users.
And we realized that even
though they needed help
many of the tools were available
like grab bars and
so forth, were
not present in
their bathrooms
Right? And my own father at the
time was
aging and his ability
was decreasing rapidly. And he
didn't want
hear about any of that, right?
But he would love to go
to a supermarket and push a
shopping cart around because
there was no stigma to that.
Never would us a walker
however. So, anyway
so we designed a number of
components to a bathroom
you know, including this
barrier free drain that
would remove water without
requiring any kind if a curb.
And where the covers could go
into the dishwasher because that
would be easier to maintain.
But we also wanted to think
about mass optimization, right?
Because we have the
technology allows us to do
things that
can adjust themselves for
individual needs.
And that also allows us to
overcome
some of the stigma issues.
Because we're thinking about
you know, older people with
grandchildren.
Right? Why should we stigmatize
either one of those?
So, as part of the metaform
we designed things like these
modules
that would fit into a wall,
where for example a sink
with storage, lighting
mirrors would all adjust at the
touch of a button, or better
yet would adjust because
a steeling as you entered the
room
measured you. And with
everything would appear
at the proper height.
And a toilet that
would also adjust to different
heights. And why is that
important? Well, because
we're really
designed, as human
beings to go in
the bushes and squat.
And when we do that, it
requires less effort.
But it's not very decorous.
And most Westerns
are not comfortable
doing that,
right? But also
we have a problem
because men miss the mark, so
you'd like to have a toilet
much higher for certain
functions
Right? And children who were
just learning to potty train
would like to have a
toilet that's much
lower so that they
don't have to fear
falling in. So we designed this
toilet that would
rotate into the wall, where it
would be cleaned
because nobody likes to clean
the toilet.
But you could sit on it at any
height. You could transfer
from a wheelchair.
You could sit at
a very high height
and ride it down
to a semi-squat position to
facilitate elimination.
But we also realized
as we develop more solutions
that sometimes, solutions that
disappear
are the very best. Because
there's stigma
even in overcoming diseases,
like
diabetes.
So this is a wearable,
disposable
insulin pump which was developed
about 7 or 8 years ago for
a start-up company in
Massachusits and the whole idea
And the whole idea was to be
able to dispense insulin
over a constant period.
Controllable
based on someone's activity and
based on what they've eaten.
With a remote controller
so you clean a part on the
body and
apply the pump and then it
automatically
inserts a cannula and then
dispenses insulin.
Over a 3 day period. And
the great thing about this was
that up until this time
a lot of type 1 diabetics, that
tend to be children, would not
be using insulin pumps. And
the reason
for not using it was thought to
be because they would often
have infections because of the
exterior lines
would get snagged as they
play and
you know what, the area
would get dirty and an
infection would ensue.
But, we really felt that, that
was only part of the problem.
Part of the problem, yes,
children want to play.
But they also want to look just
like other children.
So, they don't want to be
stigmatized. So the idea
of a pump that you could
wear under your clothes
you could wear when you're
sleeping
and it would just go away,
seemed like a natural
and very desirable solution.
So, this product was developed.
We developed
it over a 2 or 3 year period.
In 3 years
it got FDA approval. And
I got an email from a girl
a 14 year old girl in India
saying how the pump really
had made
diabetes not be a very
important part of her life.
So, that was extremely rewarding
Sometimes I think
designing for everybody,
doesn't mean
reducing effort, or eliminating
effort.
Sometimes it means
calibrating effort.
So, this is a chair that we did
for Herman Miller for
healthcare. And it's a chair
that's designed
for patient rooms
And what we realized it was
that the function
of a chair in a patient room is
not just for people to sit in
and maybe sleep in. But it's to
facilitate them getting in and
out of the chair as easily
and as frequently as
possible. But
also with some effort. Because
that ability to regain
mobility after you've had an
operation or
any kind of a
medical procedure, is extremely
important
So the chair seat is
slightly higher when you
approach it
You have room to put
your feet behind
your knees, which
give a mechanical
advantage.
Because we want people to use
their own muscle power
at that point. The arms are
forward so you can feel where
they are, and
you can sit down, because we
also wanted to
not make necessary calling a
nurse to guide
you into the chair. And then
when you sit down
and you release a lever
in the arms, the arm rest, which
prior to that was actually up
leaning forward to greet you.
Let you know
that you're in the right
position.
Would guide you in a
semi-reclined position
where you can very
comfortably sleep
But when you wanted to get up
it would
put a little bit
of pressure moving
forward, the seat would
rise a little bit
and would help you to get up
But I think there's also
another dimension of
accessibility, which is
economic accessibility.
Right? So we tend to think
about solutions that are
wonderful solutions but they
require a tremendous
amount of financial capital to
access. And
this wheelchair that you see
on the
the lower image, was actually
designed
by a post-graduate student
at MIT to help people like you
see
in the left picture in
developing world in
areas that are very difficult
to traverse if you
are in a wheelchair.
And the whole
idea of the
wheelchair is that
it uses bicycle components that
are very inexpensive
It eliminates the
derailure, which
is the most
expensive part of
a bicycle. And it uses these
levers
so that if you put your hands
up high on the lever
you can exert a lot of force.
Down low
you get a lot of speed. So that
a local
artisan can weld frame
apply the bicycle compenents
And you have a
wheelchair that would
allow someone to
actually get to work.
The only problem is that this
wheelchair costs about
two hundred dollars. And for
many people
two hundred dollars is a
year's income.
So, we designed the wheelchair
at the top
which is exactly the same
principle
but it really leverages
the leverage of the arms.
To create an off-road
wheelchair that
out-performs almost any
other wheelchair
out there, potentially for a
fraction of the cost
But it's priced competitively
with the idea
that the sale of each one of
those would pay for three
ones below, right? Again, to
provide
accessibility to more people
that would
not have the financial
wherewithall to
have it.
And sometimes we also, I think,
need to design
things that will change
constantly.
Because new abilities and
new disabilities are happening
all the time.
This is a small example of
that, but this is
another project for Herman
Miller. Which is
patient room, an exam room. And
it's all
based on components
that can be mounted
to a wall and can
be re-positioned
and adjusted as new technology
presents itself
or different levels of acuity
in a community presents
themselves. I think the same
notion in the design
of a home can also have a
great deal
of merit. And
I think there are
many realities.
One thing that
I'm thinking
a lot about these days is
intellectual disability. And
the interserting thing about
intellectual disability
is that it's
not just about
people who have a
very, very low IQ. But, if we
look at manufacturing jobs
they often require skill sets
that require being able to
program a computer, for example
So, if half of the population
in the world has an IQ of a
hundred or below
there gonna have a very hard
time
finding gainful employment.
Now, how can
we make an
environment to
society workplaces
that engage people productively
give them the kind of dignity
that they want to be able
to work productively
and navigate
a community
productively.
You know, even though they may
have an IQ of
90, 95, 80
85,. that's part of the
spectrum of disability. So,
thank you.
[applause]
Thank you.
Hello. So, I took the
universal design in the future
part to
heart and in order to do that
I'm just gonna go back
a little bit first.
I was very lucky to start my
career working
on the then small team
with Smart Design, designed
the original
line of products for a now
well-known
It was a formative company
called Oxo
Experience for me and the team
what we learned and then
acted upon
was that by looking at the
outer edges
of ability, we can make
a much better experience for
everyone in the middle.
Which is sort of another way
of looking
at universal design.
If you're familiar with a
product
that it's now a very extensive
line of products
in the market and some of the
prototypes from that
original line are available for
view also
here in the museum. So that's
what I took with me when
I many years later launched
with two other women, a company
that set out to change
the way we think and feel about
disability
and aging through design,
nothing less
And we did that by
launching with a cane
A cane is obvious because no
one wants one
Yet it's a very useful object
for many people who
use one and need it and
the fabulous item for a number
of people who could use it
but would not for all the
reasons that
we discussed earlier.
So, that was our mission.
We made a
design
deliberately based on
modes of transportation and
feelings that
we knew we all had positive
feelings
about, namely using the
bicycle as a material
and a skate board and a hiking
boot and
put them back together in the
cane, so that
the feeling and the joy of
movement would still be there
in an object although a person
has a very
different view of the world.
Walking with a cane.
On the other side you see a
cane power user. I don't know
this one, it's a photograph
on the streets of New York and
you can
what happens when you
actually enjoy
using an object
for moving around.
It's a very safe, comfortable
product. But, it's also
in this case, a personal
accessory
and it's something that, people
still write to me
and say to me, I could not get
my mom
to use a cane or I ddin't want
one when I was
recovering but if I could have
one of those ones
and the nice turquoise one,
then I would do it and
design has ability to change
how we think
and feel about a certain
situation in life
or about a whole category of
products
and this one, Durable Medical
Equipment is one
where there's lots
of opportunity
in those. Exciting
to work in.
Then I managed to
talk a little bit about the
opportunities
of what universal design can
mean in the future as
we're entering a time when
we can customize
equipment things
that are close to
the body as we can
3D print them
we can scan, we can make
better fits
and we can design for the one.
But I think that
the area of shared spaces and
public spaces
is still an enormous opportunity
and this is a
project that I
didn't have anything
to do with it
but I thought you would enjoy
seeing it. It is
the world's most accesible
office building is what they
call it, it is
the headquarters
of the Association
of People with
Disabilities
It's in Copenhage. It's
about 2 years old.
I got a fabulous tour from the
director of that association
She's still in an
electric wheelchair
with very limited
mobility
And she's able to get anywhere
in that building by herself
without any help. So, you
can see just by paying
attention to acoustics
creating open spaces
where you can have intimate
conversations providing
guidance using color as
coding that's very bright both
on the floor
and in the walls around
you can make it really easy for
people to move around
The indication that you reach
door is included.
Into the hand rail and you can
get the elevator by using
your foot and not your hands,
which is
seems very obvious, right?
It's actually
kind of handy if you have your
arms full, as well
and as the day
progressed in that
building, I started
doing the same thing.
If you use your foot, the
elevator
knows to go local because it
knows that you
obviously pushed a button when
you go on the inside, so
things like that,
we keep seeing
them, they seem
obvious when there
all put together. When a group
of people work
to get together on requirements
that actually fulfill
the needs of, in this case
a very large group of people
with various kinds of
disabilities then you have,
again you have
yourselves that are beneficial
and really super
pleasant to use for everyone
else.
Ok
Fast forward to
I followed quirky for a
number of years
and I'm very interested in how
the process
of design can evolve and I
joined them recently
and I'm working with them now.
So, Quirky is a
community powered invention
company. A platform if you will.
You can submit an idea
for an invention, for a new
product
most of the ideas that we get
are based on real life
problems that people have.
We vote
as a community we have
over a million members. Every
week
tonight, actually, and if a
product is voted in
then, Quirky, the company,
will work with the
inventor to design, develop
produce and market this product.
So, it changes how
designers and users can work
together
And I find that fascinating, so
an inventor will have access to
a community
of potential
like-minded people
or users that can give
feedback along
the process and they have
access to design and engineering
resources and we, on the
inside have access to a
community
of people that we can work with
in real time on the designs
that we're developing, so this
notion of designing
For versus with, really comes
to life in this setting.
And it's pretty exciting.
It also means that
invention can happen anywhere
This is one of our inventors.
Her name is Maria
She has 4 kids under the age
of 6.
And with shopping for a while
Didn't find anything she liked.
Submitted an idea
to us and became an inventor
with a product on the market
This is her product
And these are the ladders.
One of the things that happened
at Quirky was
that the ratio of concepts
ideas for smart products
App-enabled products
To, let's say home and
gardening products
really changed in the past
couple of years
So, in response to that. Wink
a company was established. So
that all of the inventions
all the products that people
make, that are app-enable
can play together. Link is an
App
and a platform that allows
your nest
GE and
other products
to work together
seamlessly, so
that's another rule
that I think of
access to design is kind of
like the universal
kit that's shown upstairs
is like link is
this part that
allows all these
different types of
inventions to work together.
And that's another rule
for designers and people that
are interested in
accessabilty to really focus on
those two
make systems, hats
and environments that are
usable for people.
Imagine that in Healthcare
That would be amazing, right?
So, amazing right?
Is to make home automation
accessible to as many people as
possible and in doing
that we've made a series of
small movies with
people who you may not expect on
the forefront of home
automation then here
are the Lauders
[The Lauders] We
have Wink and we
love it. And we're
the beginning of
[The Lauders] some things.
[[violin music]
[The Lauders] Wink
found we two to be.
[The Lauders] Eight, he turns
it up, to make it warmer.
[The Lauders] I turn it down
when he's not looking.
They left the sprinkler system.
It goes on automatically.
Where you work it
with the Up phone.
That's wonderful, because
we could be sitting
and watching television.
Forgot to turn out the lights.
So they won't yell at
me.
We want the 43 years
to be 44 years.
Keep your hands off
my favorite stock.
I'll do all the
investing with Wink.
I'm Irving.
I'm Maxine
We're the Lauders.
We live in Del Rey Beach Florida
Enough of that.
[applause]
Hi. So, my area of
interest is in those
in betweener parts
of design
where you can't really
detect if a product is
mass produced or
custom made.
If it's craft, if it's fine
art, just where it falls.
If it starts defying the silos,
and defying the
categorization, I think
that where things
really start to get
interesting with design.
And I think especially
this holds true
when you're talking
about a medical
product, because these
are the ones that we
interact with when we are
at our most vulnerable.
When we actually have
to use something
because we
don't want to.
We don't have a choice
and we would love it if
that product actually
respected us in return.
Also the bar is very low there.
Because it's traditionally been
designed by medical personel
without regard for design or
fashion or the human beyond
the most utilitarian
perspective very often, and so
those are very limited by the
means of
means of creation, in this case
the traditional fiberglass
wrap for external stablization.
All of a sudden you change up
some of the tools that you
can use to fabricate these.
And you change everything, so
for example when you throw in
in 3D scanning, fairly
new but now made
very convenient, and
Haptic manipulation.
It's a tool that
traditionally was beyond
the realm of most people.
Now it's very
easy. All of a sudden the cast
can
look like a very different
thing. In this case
Aniese here refused to
give us the cast back
long after she'd
been healed, because
she kind of fell
in love with it.
We actually made her
two so she could
put one in the
dishwasher every night
and wake to a somewhat hygenic
clean warm fresh cast. That
doesn't happen
in fracture civilations. She
had a broken arm.
Or these two girls who both
broke their tibias
falling down the stairs. They
played in the sand every day
and they took a bath in the
sand evacuated.
Fiberglass cast where the
first rule is it can never
get wet. So all of a sudden
this changes up the rules
in the quality of life for
everybody.
I was hit about October
with the diagnosis
that I had a torn
TFCC ligamint.
in my wrist. This would have
been a real pain otherwise
except we did what any
self-respecting nerd would do
which is you 3D scan my arm.
Design the parts
based on not getting
in the way of circulation or
muscles or bony prominences
design it, modify it a few times
And then 3D print the brace.
And we can probably safely say
that this is the best brace
that any human has
ever received
for post-operative
stabilization.
I'm able to... the first thing I
did when I came
out of the surgery
was I took a shower.
You can't do that
with a normal brace.
I go in for regular
accupuncture
I apply heat and cold directly
to the surgical site
I can... I have a quality of
life that's
never been given to
somebody going through
post-operative surgery recovery.
Same applies to carpal tunnel.
A major
problem with the
data world.
Most people think that if you
buy the brace, you
will be healed and that's
actually not, in fact, true.
You actually have
to wear the brace
and that's what
people don't do.
They don't wear it because it's
an awful miserable
experience, the human being
was never
considered in the process.
But what happens
if you 3D scan the
arm, design it,
let the person
choose the type of brace and
the fenestration patern
that best suits there fashion
sense and their lifestyle
And 3D print something that is
tactically transparent to them
It's invisible to the lifestyle
and comfortable.
If they will wear it more they
will be healed
Now you scale that up to
scoliosis, which is
especially difficult because
the means of production
this mentality that is devoid
of fashion and
that squishy human
component leads to this
This is state of the art.
This is the
best money can buy in
scolosis treatment
This is treatment today. The
entire
treatment hinges
on the idea that
you can get an 8
year old girl
to do something she's
absolutely determined not
to do, which is to wear this
horrible thing.
What could possibly go wrong?
So we did instead
was to attack the real problem
which is the
desireability of the product.
We made it something
that was invisible
under clothing so we could
afford her some discretion
We made a 40 percent open area
so her skin would breathe
so that she had,
had her creature
comforts during
recovery
Most importantly,
we let her
choose from a library
of patterns.
That turned it into a fashion
item that she chose instead
of a medical object that was
imposed upon her
That little switch
meant that she
was going to wear
the brace more.
If she wears it more, she will
be healed
That's the way this compliance
based medicine works
We actually debut'd
these in Paris
a few months ago
at the Louvre
and we had some interest
in the medicine
value of scoliosis treatment.
But we had far, far more
we had far more
interest in the
fashion. And we had
many request for
people asking for
if we could make
them corsets and
bodices this way
We haven't gone down that path,
we're just not set up to.
Or the next
generation that we're
working on here
which is fully
dynamic, which allows the body
full range of motion during
treatment. We
haven't proven this
out yet. But, if
we can it means
that scolios treatment will be
a slight inconvenience.
But not the kind of miserable
condition that it currently is.
My main focus has, for many
years, been
on prostetic limbs in a sense
that it's this odd
hybrid of a collection of
assembled mass produced
metal products and this
carbon and fiberglass
socket, which is very ill
juxtaposed
against the grace and the
beauty of the human form
it's a prostetic
device but there
are prostetic devices
around us all the time.
We just don't see them that way
because they were designed
and now it's
simply engineered.
So, when you start
thinking about this
perch and you can
3D scan the person
and capture their unique form.
Their uniqueness
Their sense of flow
of their body.
What their shape
is, their contours
The lifestyle. You
can start creating
something that
really captures
a lot more
about them and
represents who they
are as a person
What is their lifestyle? How
they outwardly
project themselves, how they
describe themselves
It becomes something
that is much
more a part of
their life than
simply something that keeps
them from falling over.,
This woman asked if we could do
chrome fishnet stockings
And we did, she's
an actress in
Hollywood. Now she
buys her clothes
to match her leg.
Boston bombing victim
was asking if we could
do something that
was akin to jewelry
That's exactly what we're
hoping to do.
We're hoping to start bluring
those distinctions between
what is a medical product and
what is something that has more
of the connotation of fashion
and beauty and that really
augments the body
and accentuates
it. It really
showcases
it as a thing. It celebrates
the condition instead of either
trying to hide it or disguise
it or treat it as anything else.
Now in developing countries
it's especially
big challenge because
access to medicine
is really the gating factor. So
what we're hoping to do
is one day transform this
into something that is
entirely designed by
script and by algorythm
where the doctor's
removed from the
equation because that
doctor will not exist
in much of the world where
there most needed.
We can create this
by 3D scanning.
We all have a 3D
scanner in our
pocket now with the smart
phone running the script
up into the cloud where
it gets parsed and
created a 3 dimensional light
can be printed.
And something that is
not only body symetric
So it relieves the stigma.
It's
also something that
looks beautiful
is again to reduce some
of the social stigma
that is sometimes
as debilitating as
anything else for
people who have lost
limbs in much of the world. The
leg can be fully
functional, if not
more functional,
than your typical
leg and the
dividend here is
that you can take
advantage of all
of the different
opportunities now. Which
is you can create an
application which scales has
rapidly
around the world as a video game
with very, very minimal
upfront equipment
because your smart
phone becomes
essentially your
hospital in your pocket
And the 3D printing allows
the kind of versitility
that lets you create something
that's otherwise very custom
very complex,
very nueanced
but the 3D printer doesn't care.
It simply
prints any data that
comes it's way.
So, I can create a very
sophisticated otherwise
price prohibitive leg
in significantly less cost that
the traditional leg might be
Now this is still in
development. It has years to go
But I see this as ultimately
the way
we will see pressed out
egglooms in the future
to much of the world
And one final project that
we've worked on
has been where the group called
Exobionics that one day we see
that this will be augmented or
replaced
in many cases for some
by this, which is an
exoskeletal robot which
helps people who are
hemi paregic to walk.
Right now it's in
it's nascent stages but
we can see the pathway
on this is fairly clear.
Ultimately Amanda here
who is paraplegic
from the L6 down
She was asking us, well can we
end up with something that was
more like this.
Something that was
an intelligent
active robotic
fabric. And that itself is not
too far
fetched of an idea, because
you could actually create
a cellular
matrix of distributed power
on essentially swarming robots
that become our secondary skin
skin and power her through
walking. Short of that
which we can't do immediately.
We were able to
begin with a 3D scan of her body
that essentially co-created
her into the equation
we captured her standing
and sitting and then
the idea was to really downplay
the military component of
that robot. Half
of that company
is for military,
half is civilian
And really accentuate the
fluiiidity
And the flow of her lines and
how that robot worked
We actually added 3D printed
sterling silver
as a little bit of robot bling
We really wanted
to capture her
form. She's an
athlete and she said
she just wants to
feel beautiful when
she's wearing the
robot around town
And so we also tried to
give a suggestion of
not only the breathability
that it offers but the
but the musculature that the
robot is replacing
With her's that's no longer
active.
This is the final result, a
year and a half ago
We debuted it on stage in
Budapesh
in front of the
government and a number
of other people.
Absolutely unsure
of whether or not it would work
or whether she would tumble
with her on stage,
but she was able
to walk and she fell in love
with the new variations of this
robot and we're now
looking at how
the next generations
of this robot may work.
Now remember, she's
paralyzed from the waist down
She has no sensation from her
navel downward
And so when you're talking about
the combination and the
opportunities offered by the
combineing 3D scanning, heptic
manipualtion, 3D printing
It's pretty boundless
and we can
see that there's a
pretty exciting
trajectory ahead and
it really doesn't
just relate to people
in trajectory ahead
Like Amanda here it
relates to all of us
because we really have to
consider that everyone here is
was, or will be disabled
Thanks
[applause]
Is this one on? Ok, yes
So, we're gonna
take questions from
the audience now
Simi, is there someone to
Oh, there you go. Thank you.
Hi, thank you all for this
I'd like to take just a moment
to tell
any powers that be here at the
Cooper Hewitt
that as a wheelchair user I
encountered
3 or 4 obstacles
between entering the
museum and, at this moment
which I would like to share
with you some of them
by design and some
of them in practice
that I was disappointed to see
in this museum so at some point
maybe we can convey that
Thank you for your presentation
and Amy, thank you so much
for centering disability. It is
so rarely
centered in these
conversations
Architecture and spaces
\the other presenters and one
of the things
you pointed out is that there
is a disconnect between
both the process
and the focus of
the designers of
objects and that of architects
I experience a great deal of
what I label as aggression
from the design of buildings
and public spaces
The segregation and the
seperation
disabled people from
the general public
and I wonder if the
powers and you
as well might respond to
what I see in your process
you talk about collaboration
and that's fantastic
I don't see that happening in
architecture
And I wonder if any of you
designers might address
what the difference might be
berween
you and what architects do?
Can I answer? So, I'm
both and architect and
although most of what
I do is products
I think part of the problem
is that architecture and the
way architecture is planned
and developed is usually not
at really at the human scale
It's, you know
historically it was plan and
elevation
and sections, right? And until
it was
built it couldn't be experienced
Now increasingly with, and I"m
gonna be very critical about it
so I hope no one is offended
but with the advent of computer
aided design and the
technologies
associated with
that, you can build
almost anything
that you can design
That doesn't mean you build
good things
It means you build things that
the iconic, that may
brand a city or
a site but
it very little attention is paid
to the way
moving through that space
And I think that's a valid
criticism of architecture
And they're many architects that
you know, that don't want to
do that, but they're often
are forced to do that
also by the economic realities
of
the developers, right? I think
what we tried
to do as product designers is
try to look at how we can create
kits and parts that help to
facilitate dealing with those
points of contact or develop
solutions
that allow people to overcome
barriers that can't be
designed away, such
as, I don't know
sand on a beach, right?
But, I do think that a lot more
collaboration needs to happen.
Not just beween
industrial designers, interior
designers, and architects
but city planners and
politicians and
people who design
legislation, right?
Any other questions?
I see...
Picking up on your point about
Not just legislators and policy
because
I think that
going across disciplines
Ok, let me put it a different
way. I'm a parent of
26 year old who's
always used a wheelchair.
And there's an assumption
that there's curb cuts
But they're not there, 90
percent of the time.
And
There's also the funding
issue and there's also
the design and planning of
entitlements and budgets
And what I think happens
that's very discouraging,
is we know they're good
products out there. We can't
get them
We can't get the budgets
and the people in the field
that should be making
modifications
more
easily obtained
because insurance
policy center of goods have
reduced and
it seems to me harder
than ever before
to do what you've
explained.
And that's with a lot of
advocacy.
And I have wanted to bring
attention to the fact that
the plans that states
are offering which
supposedly are customized
and individualized,
the design of that
plan I think is gone
back in time and
does not reflect
inclusion, it's all in the
rhetoric
But very difficult to implement
So, I just wanted
to pick up on that
I did have a
specific question on
the wheelchair
that's in the museum
I was curious about the
front wheel and the position of
that because the radius of how
that turns takes up a great
deal of space
Obviously
for what you've
designed it for it's probably
less of an issue
but if a person had a
wheelchair similar to that
here, getting through
a doorway turning
in the space, the bathrooms,
or whatever would be
very difficult and I wonder if
you've addressed that at all
because
the motion of not having
for many people with
physical disabilities
who can't manipulate the wheels
that's a marvelous advantage.
But the long frontal
wheel is a problem
So...
If that makes sense. The
wheelchair was designed
primarily to overcome obstacles
in the environment and
general environment
It also does navigate in tight
spaces
in fact the levers come off
and it's quite narrow to allow
it to
fairly narrow spaces
because the objective
was to allow people
to be able to work
in any environment, right?
It does turn
in a surprisingly tight way.
The wheelchair
that we designed,
so the higher end
wheelchaire was really
designed for outdoor use.
It's really for people want to
go out
into the wild in difficult
terrain
Ok, we'll take the next two
questions
together and then open
it up to the panel
to answer. i'd like
to thank all of you. I think
all of your
designs are tremendous and thank
you for coming this evening
and shariing your products with
is. The gentleman in the middle
What's your name, I'm sorry.
Scott Summit
I think what you're doing is
tremendous as we had talked
about is, as Amy had talked
about in the beginning
a lot of stigmatism regarding
their disability
And that happens with every
generation you know
people might look at someone in
a wheelchair and that's
already fading now, but
maybe 10, 20 years ago
you would say well you
belong in a nursing
home or something, because
they had a wheelchair
So, a lot of times
people would almost
wish that their wheelchair
would vanish
That they could
still be the same
person, obviously
they didn't to use a
wheelchair but that people
wouldn't see that in them
A lot of the products
that you've created
or that you've
shown this evening
allow a lot of people to heal
without feeling
embarresed because they're
injured, so I definately commend
you for what you're doing. Amy
I thank you for explaining
about the concept of
the ADA and universal
design in general
and how it helps people.
I want to go to
Ms Cindy Linton's
question in regards
to architecture
When it comes to designing I
don't think we
I don't think we should
allow a computer to design
for humans. Obviously it's a
human who is controlling
the computer to design,
similar to all of what
you've created.
You created your
designs with the
aid of a computer
and it helped assist you
But, I think if we have
modern invention currently
such as a beach. If a wheelchair
user wants to go to a
beach, there are inventions
now such as Matt's
Or beach wheelchairs
that allow people to
across the beach, be with their
families. It's about inclusion
So, I think when it comes to
architectural design
if they follow the basic rules
of the ADA, it allows for
everyone to use it,
so when we're talking
about universal design,
everyone can use it
I think it comes to the
designer to kind of think
outside the box, to say hey
if this is universally
designed and we followed
the rules that had been
use it. Wheelchair
users especially
because of
their mobility
impairments, but I think that
a lot of times, going forward
when we have new construction
everyone should follow that
universal design guideline
Because no one would lose,
similar to all of the products
that you've created. It's for
use for everyone
so that everyone can enjoy.
And it even
comes down to some
of the buildings
that we go to, and
I think we need to
We need to raise above the
level of
Oh well, it's not that
accessible. We couldn't do that
Yeah, you can do that. It's
just behind the person
who is putting it
together to do it.
But I definately
want to commend
all of you for your designs
and your inventions
I hope that you continue to
invent more and to help people.
To be themselves
Thank you for that.
And then we have
one more question and then
we'll answer
and then, unfortunately
we have to wrap up
also because we... the
interpreter
need to leave in a couple of
minutes
But thank you all so much for
your questions, so
All right, here.
The previous people,
I want to say this
is a really excellent
presentation
I didn't know what to expect
but you've
covered quite a great area
I do a blog on older woman's
issues
and that's because I'm
having older woman's
issues myself.
Several years ago, I
had foot surgery. And
I needed a cane. And
it was so boring
I went to Staples and
I bought polka dots
Adhesive polka dots
included on my cane
And 2 years ago, I broke my
wrist
And then the
brace was so boring
that I bought a sock with
Marilyn Monroe on it
and I cut off the end and
I put that over the brace
so that while looking at it
So, all this really resonates
with me and I appreciate what
you're doing. I have one
further issue
which is scoliosis. I was
diagnosed as a kid
but I didn't have it
treated so I still have it
today anjd most of my life it
hasn't really been an issue
But as you get
older, you lose your
bone density and you start
to get Dowager's hump
bla bla bla
And thinkng the
reason I came
here tonight
actually was because
of Scott Summit's design for
the young people
with scoliosis. I understand
that braces don't work
for people of my age, but I
just want to
everybody's ear. I don't
know if anything is
being done in this area but
I don't know. Could I be a
guinia pig?
Could I be a consultant, if
anybody plans
on doing anything about this.
We don't have an age
limit, one way or another
For corrective idiopathic
scolosis, it really is only
effective during the
pubescent period of
skeletal maturity. But for an
overall
comfort or to come [inaudible]
That can be done at any
age to improve comfort
And then we have been working
with people of all ages for that
So, it's certainly is not a
age defined treatment
All right, thank you.
Thanks everyone
[applause]
And thanks again to Allen for
organizing the panel
And We'll all be here
if folks want to talk
to us individually, I think
so...
Thanks for coming.
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