Funded by Tinker Hatfield Innovation in Design Award
The U.S. population of people over the age of 65 is a growing demographic. In the winter of 2020 the lab was involved in developing a new senior/graduate level course for design students at the UO College of Design to investigate ways to enhance the health of this population through a collaboration between product, architecture, interior architecture and art to address the concept of “mobility, memory and metrics” through a Universal Design lens and cross-disciplinary perspective.
The intention of the course was to use new data streams coupled with direct interaction and feedback from aging users and industry to innovate new products and environments that are synergistic to support health through a Universal Design approach. Students were given the challenge of creating products that every user on the aging spectrum (all of us) would find beautiful and compelling to use without the need for any adaptation or specialized design. The course was taught across two campuses in Eugene and Portland in order to invite a wide-range of students, faculty, industry and community members to participate. Finally, the course was structured around the themes of “memory, mobility and metrics” and investigated these across three realms: that which is worn close to the body (e.g. footwear, apparel, medical device); that which temporarily touches the body (e.g. tools, furniture, home goods); and that which surrounds the body (e.g. landscape, architectural space, lighting, thermal, color or texture).
Susan L. Sokolowski is the PI of the Universal Design for Healthy Aging project, funded through the 2019-2020 UO Tinker Hatfield Innovation in Design Award. Project partners include Mark Fretz – UO Research Assistant Professor/Associate Director of Outreach, Institute for Health in the Built Environment and Esther Hagenlocher – UO Associate Professor of Architecture and Interior Architecture. Research and student critique support wad provided by the Eugene/Springfield Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). 3D body scans were provided by Human Solutions of North America.
