DBA Inclusive Design Challenge 2009

I popped down to the RCA last night for the award ceremony of this prestigious competition, in which 5 of the country's leading design consultancies pitched their response to the brief: Sedentary Lives - enabling people who are inactive through difficult circumstances or pure laziness to be more active. Rodd Design (met Ben Davies, one of their designers at the Tokyo Challenge) were one of the consultancies, but the eventual winner was a collaboration between Matter and Herman Miller to create an ingenious reinvention of the cushion. Internal polymer springs spread the weight of the sitter, while being breathable, washable and lightweight.

Until Japan I thought inclusive design was about making products accessible to those impaired by age or disability. But at the Tokyo Challenge I realised that it's more than that, by working with impaired users who are failed by day-to-day design, it is possible to identify ways of making simpler products that are widely appealing and commercially viable. I think the cushion is a great example of this: it is not only useful to the elderly or wheelchair-bound, it has uses in schools, outdoors, in gardens, for kids etc.