Last week Kaitlyn Debiasse came to speak us about how product design is one tool to make our society a more inclusive place for everyone. Her first point was that the world has been designed, that means everything from buildings to medicine, for the 50th percentile white, male. For instance, a woman is 47% more likely to be injured in a car accident than a man due to the interior dimensions and safety features. I think there is a growing awareness within the design community, in my generation particularly, that the industry was previously run by this demographic and that designers need to design for more than just themselves. However, more needs to be done and Kaitlyn went on to explain some of the exciting projects on the front line of this new advance into inclusive design.
Kaitlyn read a quote by Stella Young, an Australian comedian and disability rights activist (1982-2014), that read: “we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies”. Stella was born with Osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, and became a famous spokesperson on issues that disabled people face. A lot of her work centres around the idea that people’s perceptions of disability need to change; they’re not inspirations for getting out of bed, they’re not exceptions, disabled people do not deserve lower expectations. Stella’s Ted Talk that this quote was taken from is absolutely fantastic (there’s a link below to check it out) and it points out several meaningful questions about how society shouldn’t view disabilities. But that quote made me think about my own situation, I am extremely fortunate and don’t consider myself disabled but I am short sited and wear glasses everywhere. I live in the narrow window of human existence in which, society has provided direct solutions to my disability and allowed me to forget about it entirely. Disposable contact lenses and designer eyewear allow me and millions of others to choose whether to use their mildly misshapen eyes as a fashion statement or hide the disability completely. However, this isn’t the case for many, many other visible or hidden disabilities.
I was really interested in Kaitlyn’s explanation of the work of other designers, scientists and artists that are trying to change this. One such man is Hugh Herr, an engineer working at MIT who used to be a professional rock climber who know specialises in functional prosthetics design and biomechanics. The idea of augmenting human bodies is interesting, it was once science fiction to imagine human bodies being improved by prosthetics but that is now a very real proposition. Gone are the golden Hollywood days of Tee Hee’s metal prosthetic pincers (Live and Let Die, 1973) or Luke Skywalker’s rebuilt hand (The Empire Strikes Back 1980), audiences will always have a fascination with deadly prosthetics. Hugh Herr’s work and similar have created amazing bionic limbs, so good that climbing competitors started complaining they were too good.
Sophie de Oliveira Barata, another designer, founded The Alternative Limb Project. The project explores how prosthetics are more than functional pieces and should represents peoples personalities. This particularly design was a collaboration with Kelly Knox (pictured) who models and is an advocate for body diversity within fashion. This prosthetic recognises her heart beat and sends an electronic pulse to the wrist. The use of clear plastics and gold plated carbon fibre create such a strong visual impact and really portray a sense of power and within the beauty. This is clearly a million miles from the standard beige we have grown to associate with prosthetic limbs and hearing aids.
Other interesting designers from the past were also mention by Kaitlyn; Rebecca Horn the German artist who’s most famous for her wearable sculptures work, and Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) the Finnish architect who was also responsible for some furniture design. One chair in particular, the Paimio, used bent plywood to better support people suffering from TB, it helped to open up there breathing and aid in recovery.
But why was Kaitlyn explaining all of this to us? Well, her latest project in Jordan was probably the most exciting, meaningful and accessible example of designing for inclusivity that was discussed. The project involved walking 3-D printers into Jordan to help with the World’s largest humanitarian crisis and fallout from the Syrian conflict. Amputees could be scanned in Jordan and the information sent around the world for designers to model prosthetics that could be 3-D printed at the hospital in Jordan. The figures on civilian casualties due to the conflict are absolutely astounding and a design team hellbent on trying to help should be commended. It’s particularly helpful with children as they grow out of prosthetics every 6 months and 3-D printing is an incredibly cheap and quick way to make new, unique ones. Even though the photos below aren’t of Kaitlyn’s project, they are of a similar one by the e-Nable community. This project and others like it, as Kaitlyn explained, could be dropped anywhere in the World to help those needing prosthetics particularly in less developed regions. The scope of this methodology is clearly huge, remote designers sharing 3-D printing files using open source technologies could be open to many applications. Similarly, as 3-D printing improves the quality, range of materials, speed and price will only make it more accessible.
I left the talk feeling positively encouraged that inclusive design is a thriving area and one that deserves more attention from myself and others. How could I become involved in it? What areas haven’t been looked into as much as prosthetics? These are the questions I want to know the answers to and I look forward to learning more about it in the future.
For more information on some of the people mentioned:
Stella Young’s Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K9Gg164Bsw
Autodesk Article on 3-D Printed Prosthetics: https://www.autodesk.com/redshift/3d-printed-prosthetics/
Hugh Herr's Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_how_we_ll_become_cyborgs_and_extend_human_potential
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