In a post published in October we looked at Tommy Adaptive, a line of men's and women's wear designs created by Tommy Hilfiger for adults with disabilities. There are different brands currently exploring new and more inclusive possibilities, but there are also a few institutions trying to develop a discourse in this field. Among them there's New York's Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum that recently opened an exhibition entitled "Access+Ability" (through September 3, 2018).
The event focuses on products, projects and services developed by and with people with physical, cognitive and sensory disabilities, exploring how innovative devices can radically change and improve the lives of people in different situations from everyday activities to competitive sports and recreative events.
"Access+Ability" includes more than 70 works, among them adaptive clothing and eating implements, accessories such as functional canes, customized prosthetic leg covers, shirts with magnetic closures and shoes with a wrap-around zipper system, and includes items developed with the latest and most innovative technologies and fabrication methods.
The designs are divided in three categories - Mobility, Connecting and Daily Routines - and they are the result of a selection cleverly carried out by co-curators Cara McCarty, Director of Curatorial at Cooper Hewitt, and Rochelle Steiner, Curator and Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Southern California, in collaboration with users, designers, caregivers, activists, occupational therapists and neuroscientists.
A section on wheelchairs looks at devices with folding and collapsible wheels, and features the Motivation Rough Terrain Wheelchair, that can move on rough, unpaved or uneven terrain, specifically in the developing world where the ground may be muddy or sandy.
This part of the event also includes the Racing Wheelchair, designed by BMW Designworks, in collaboration with athletes Tatyana McFadden and Chelsea McClammer. These customised wheelchairs in carbon fiber, aluminum and titanium with added 3D-printed parts offer improved aerodynamics, safety, and ergonomics, and led McFadden and McClammer to win gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Some designs are still at the prototype level, we will indeed have to wait till the 2020 US elections to see people using the Los Angeles County Voting Booth. Designed by IDEO, Digital Foundry and Cambridge Consultants, the booth will address all types of voters, including people unfamiliar with technology and who speak languages other than English, who are hard of hearing or have limited vision, in wheelchairs, and with learning disabilities.
Other projects are already a reality instead, among them the PillPack (2013), designed by Gen Suzuki and collaborators at IDEO, a service that assists people with managing multiple daily medications, pre-sorting and organizing medication into pouches.
New technologies have definitely helped improving the life of people with disabilities: inspired by Emma Lawton, a graphic designer given a diagnosis of Parkinson's in 2013, the Emma Watch (2016), developed by Microsoft researchers Haiyan Zhang and Nicolas Villar, is a wearable device that uses haptic vibration technology to allow users with active tremors to regain the use of their hand.
The stretch microfiber fabric with laser-cut decoration SoundShirt (2015-16), designed by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz for CuteCircuit, translates the experience of listening to music for the deaf and hard of hearing via 16 sensors corresponding to each part of the orchestra (strings, woodwinds, percussion and so on) embedded into the fabric.
"Access+Ability" also tackles the fashionable design of some of these pieces: the Prosthetic Leg Covers (ca. 2011), designed and manufactured by McCauley Wanner and Ryan Palibroda for ALLELES Design Studio, offer people the chance to choose among various colours and patterns.
The arm cover by Evan Kuester and manufactured by 3D Systems was instead designed for a specific user and created to blur the boundary between jewellery and prosthesis, to compliment an outfit rather than be used as a functioning hand. The intention is to look beautiful and perform simple functions, such as holding a wineglass at dinner.
Modern necklaces looking like minimalist jewellery are actually navigation systems for people who are blind and can be connected to a voice-controlled iPhone app and GPS. Hearing aids can be sleek and minimalist or covered in bedazzling Swarovski crystals like the ones designed by Elana Langer. But there are also cool compression socks with bold graphics by Matthew Kroeker and Ben Grynol, manufactured by Top & Derby. All these designs can be seen as functional pieces, but they can also be interpreted as fashion statements.
The event also offers an insight on a series of useful apps such as Blindways, designed and developed by Perkins School for the Blind to guide pedestrians who are blind to bus stops using community crowdsourced clues; the eye-tracking, speech-generating devices of Tobii Dynavox, which enable hands-free communication and computer access, and LOLA (Laugh Out Loud Aid, 2015), developed by Tech Kids Unlimited, an app that engages youth on the autism spectrum to learn digital tools and collaborate through technology.
A gallery next to the exhibition includes new work as well as crowd-sourced suggestions of innovative, accessible objects and services and, from a partnership between Cooper Hewitt and Pratt Institute, there is also a selection of six products that students designed in 2016 in collaboration with CaringKind, a nonprofit dedicated to Alzheimer's caregiving, to meet the needs of the community with empathy and care.
"Access+Ability" prompts visitors to think on different levels: first it shows how today's technology could be used to really improve people's lives rather than to create just frivolous designs and apps and takes stock of the latest innovative systems such as 3-D printing that have offered in the last few years new solutions to designers; second, it invites people to look at the future with optimism, demolishing stereotypes about disabilities. Last but not least, "Access+Ability" raises consciouness: ordinary gestures for some of us like getting dressed every morning can indeed be extremely difficult for a person with a physical disability and understanding this point is the first step towards finding real solutions.
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of collateral events, conversations, activities and workshops such as Cooper Hewitt Lab: Design Access (Feb. 2–17, 2018), tackling topics of accessibility and inclusion. Some of the programs included have an architectural twist about them, one is indeed entitled "Designing Accessible Cities Symposium" and may prove inspiring for different professionals and students alike (you can check out the rest of the events here).
Hopefully universities will also be inspired by "Access + Ability": new design courses could indeed be launched to create the objects, projects and services that may guarantee a better and more inclusive future.
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