Design is in

The Ironing Board Mirror

Enabled by Design is a site that’s “all about people powered products”. Enabled by Design is a community concerned with finding ways to transform equipment for people with disabilities, by making it more useful, aesthetically pleasing, and funky. Why should the image of assistive equipment be boring and drab?

Enabled by Design was started by Denise Stephens, a 30 year-old who suffered from multiple sclerosis. "It's about removing the stigmatising image of assistive equipment and encouraging designers to adopt the concept of inclusive design," she explains. "I feel very much that the disabled community are put in a box. Things are designed and produced, and then you get the disabled community saying: 'We can't use it.' They try to retrofit the equipment to people. Why not take that into consideration during the design process?"  It is also an attempt to turn on its head, "the uninspiring one-size-fits-all approach to assistive equipment.

When Denise was in her early twenties, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This condition would alter the whole course of her life, as she says, “You almost feel like an alien in your own life.” You can’t do the things you once did. With multiple sclerosis, came periodic relapses, extreme pain, constant visits to the hospital and fatigue. She could no longer hold a full-time, or even a part-time job, though she struggled to for a long time. 

She was given assistive equipment, which she says was great as it helped her do things around the house and function normally. However, every time friends came over she would hide the equipment, and she realized this wasn’t right. Her growing concern was that people with disabilities were missing out on good design aesthetics. She felt that the designs for the disabled look 50 years outdated, and unchanged. The equipment could be fun and inspiring, besides being practical. She started Enabled by Design with the help of a friend, Dominic Campbell, who later became a partner. 

Enabled by Design has three section, Loves and Hates, where you can rate products, Ideas Factory, where you can say how you would like to improve things, and Product Reviews. Some things featured on the site, such as the Etac Relieve Angled Carving Knife are amazing simple innovations, where slight changes in the product can result in major improvements in a person’s life. Similar are the Electric Heat Pads which are like hot water bottles that wrap around painful joints. The Ironing Board Mirror is space saving, and useful to anyone. The Lifestyle Bath makes bathing much easier for the disabled, or the elderly. The website encourages a sort of ‘open-source’ design, where users can rate the designs, and post suggestions and ideas.

Enabled by Design is a winner at the Social Innovation Camp 2008. As the founder Denise says: "I would love it to be the case where inclusive design becomes the basic design for all products that are manufactured, because that would completely mainstream disability."

By Armeen Kapadia

Dumper, designed by Sam Johnson

“We talk about design and sustainability.” This is how ten.blog describes its intention. Ten is a group of designers who have got together for the last three years to create products based on responsible design. The designers are Tomoko Azumi, Stephen Bretland, Carl Clerkin, Gitta Gschwendtner, Chris Jackson, Sam Johnson, Michael Marriott, Hector Serrano, Onkar Singh Kular and Nina Tolstrup. Last year’s collection wood is a series of practical, affordable, and sustainable objects for the home. 

One of the designers, Chris Jackson, was frustrated with the general low level of social awareness in the design industry. In 2005 he took a year off to research sustainable and ethical design. He came up with a project called ‘Ten’, where he grouped together ten London-based designers, and then asked them to source materials for new products within a 10 km radius of their homes, and within a budget of ten pounds each. 

Jackson feels this was a great chance for designers to get back to their most basic skill, ingenuity. More than aesthetics, the design of an object was dictated by its function, resulting in some pretty interesting outcomes. Constraints and limited resources produce fantastic pieces of design, often created by users and non-designers. 

Ethical living is one of the main issues Ten addresses. As Jackson explains, we now live in a use-and-throw society, people don’t think of repairing every day objects, but just replace them without a thought. It is this issue that these designers strive to resolve, which is apparent on each of their sites. They create, re-use products, and re-invent products. Their strong focus on functionality does not mean that aesthetic considerations suffer, in fact, far from it. Their products have instant likeability, and many have that ‘wow’ factor, besides being sustainable, affordable and usable. 

Some of the products I really liked were this wedge racer, designed by Gitta Gschwendtner, which also doubles up as a door-wedge, and can be enjoyed by adults and children.  

The extreme flexibility of Nina Tolstrup’s designs makes them ideal multi-purpose prodcuts. The 1 X 1 Trestles are pieces of wood that can form a range of interior objects, including lamps, a chair, a ruler, and hooks, all made in the same 1 x 1 wood sections. The 2-hanger utilizes the parts that generally go waste in manufacture, to create another unique product. The on/off alarm is the easiest thing to switch on and off, just tilt it one way or the other.

Do check out each designer’s site, as they all feature really some unique and intriguing products. 

By Armeen Kapadia

A huge problem for disabled people in the developing world is the lack of a suitable means to get around. A team of designers in the USA and Guatemala have created wheelchairs from old bicycles. 

At the California Institute of Technology, two students of the product design class Rudy Roy and Ben Sexson, built a prototype of a wheelchair that could be made using the parts of a bicycle. The design uses normal bicycles as well as mountain bikes, which can navigate rural terrain. They continued the project after the semester ended and teamed up with Charlie Pyott, another student from the Art Centre College of Design, to form a non-profit organization called Intelligent Mobility International. 

The class worked closely with students of Rafael Landivar University in Guatemala to gain important insights into the lives, needs and culture of the local people. Made in a Guatemala City workshop, the wheelchair can be easily made from ready-made bicycle parts, and bicycles are widely available in Guatemala. A standard wheelchair in Guatemala costs around $400, which is twice the average monthly household income. This wheelchair costs around $40 to $150, and could last up to ten years, much more than other wheelchairs. Opportunities for disabled people are often scarce, especially in Guatemala, as the government does not offer many opportunities. It is estimated that at least 55,000 people in Guatemala are disabled, with at least half of them in rural areas. Intelligent Mobility International employs disabled people in their factory for the manufacture of the wheelchair. 

The primary goal of the company is to improve the lives of the immobile through transportation. The idea is for the wheelchair to be locally made, by the disabled people there. There are an estimated 300 million people with disabilities in the developing world, with 20 million in need of new chairs. 

Innovations for the developing world need to fulfill many criteria, including providing much needed employment and encouraging local talent. What started as a classroom project became a passion for these students, and they took academics far beyond the classroom to actually impact lives. 

By Armeen Kapadia

MobilEdu on iPhone

MobilEdu is a mobile application that allows students to perform a variety of tasks that is otherwise only accessible through secure networks such as adding and dropping courses, tracking on-campus shuttle bus and reviewing their grades. A nascent stage of MobilEdu called iStanford was launched on October 1, 2008.

The idea of powering campuses with mobile application was an idea of Kayvon Beykpour, a student at Stanford. He co-founded Terriblyclever Design with his boyhood friend Aaron Wasserman without any angel or venture capital funding. It is already profitable. Initially they focussed on managing web presence of brands such as Comcast and Sprint on Facebook. Later on they pitched to several other brands based on the strategy that they were youngsters and that they understood how youngsters used facebook. But their idea of powering the education system with a mobile application MobilEdu seems to me their future. It is a brilliant example of bridging today's education and technology.  The success of iStanford has led Terriblyclever to focus on MobilEdu.

In a Time magazine article, Tom Black, Stanford's registrar says "The key is they're integrating [the iPhone app] with our central system. Usually student apps aren't allowed to go anywhere near that. We're breaking some ground here."

Such a move reflects on the quality and value that iStanford offers to students and faculty members at Stanford. During implementation of such a system, security and privacy of the information was a concern. Apparently these concerns are taken care by the Stanford information systems. Such an application also challenges administrators in higher education to rethink their strategies of sharing information.

Such a system works in Stanford because 2500 of the school's 8000 students have an iPhone; another 1,500 have iPod Touch which can run the app. Many schools have been reaching out for MobilEdu. It is believed that the future of MobilEdu is to connect every campus that is interested in adopting it. With many campuses interconnecting, it can take on Facebook Mobile. As of now Duke University is also powered by MobilEdu. They call it Mobile Web.

It all began with the launch of iStanford and this video (which Steve Jobs liked it). You can download iStanford for free. But we now await the next release, which forays into social networking.

By Sanjay Basavaraju

P.S:  The Terriblyclever website is witty. Love it.

Jan Wampler (Left)

Jan Wampler is an architect with a difference. He believes architecture can help uplift the poor, and those whose lives are ripped apart by disasters. He knows that architecture is not just building new structures, but creating a better life for communities.

Wampler received his B.S. in Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1963 and a M.A.U.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1964. Though he belongs to a profession sometimes known for its excess, ego and 'unsustainability', not for him are buildings which are purely style statements, consuming thousands of megawatts of power and other resources. He has always held a strong belief in democratic, equitable and sustainable architecture. The way buildings are designed greatly affects community life, livelihood, culture and economy. In this sense, architects can make or break suitable and pleasing living spaces. Buildings and homes are much more than just windows and doors and walls, but are almost organisms in their own right, with a symbiotic relationship with humankind.

As a student in the 1960s, he had to choose a final thesis project, and the normal course was to design a museum, embassy, or other such large public spaces. He had read about some struggling boat-builders being housed in government trailers, as they lacked their own housing. With very little money, he went there to see what he could do for them. As he says, “I wanted to help.” Since then he has never looked back, and continued to work for people and communities most in need of sustainable architecture.

He is building a model for a sustainable village in Haiti, along with Gerthy Lahens, a local Haitian activist. He has also designed the Street Children's Center in Pascuales, Ecuador with students from MIT's Department of Architecture.

He teams with local workers and makes an optimum use of limited resources. He looks not just at buildings, but also at how the whole space will function as a system. Being there and being a part of the community is essential to putting pencil to paper he feels, as they are bringing ‘hope’ for a better life to the community.

Jan Wampler wants to provide the underserved with a quality that usually only the rich can avail of. As he puts it, "The poor have only one house, they should have the best architecture, not makeshift architecture."

By Armeen Kapadia

writesomething.net

Epics are generally massive pieces of literature, usually covering the entire gamut of human emotions, written by one inspired soul. There is an online epic in the making, though some may call it senseless, it does talk about thousands of human emotions, as thousands, or millions of people have written it. Writesomething.net is where the action is.

Some may call it crazy, and it is definitely tedious to read after a while, because nothing makes sense except the tagline of ‘endless senseless collaborative book’. Its beauty lies in its randomness, just pop in on any of the 3035 pages (which keep increasing), and you are reading someone’s thoughts, from god knows where on earth. It’s the ultimate open source writing exercise going on.

Such initiatives have happened in the past as well. There is Our Own Book, a venture started by two IIM students in India. Here a brief storyline is provided, and contributors have to help develop the story, and ultimately a book gets published with the most number of authors. You can contribute to their story here, and know more about the terms of use here.

There is also The Age of Conversation, another collaborative book, which is the idea of Gaurav Mishra. The first Age of Conversation (the second one is in progress), reached #36 in business and investing books on Amazon.

Writesomething.net does not seem to have an aim to publish it into a book, not now at least. It’s the lack of a storyline, the lack of any restriction or aim, its spontaneous nature, the sheer senselessness of it that makes it fascinating. Its extremely easy to use, just type and hit ‘publish’ and contribute to the epic in progress. Its encouraging human expression, an invitation to just pen your thoughts anonymously for the world to read. In some strange way it connects the entire human population. You may read some random line that surprisingly echoes the thoughts in your own head. And someone else may be reading your mind too.

By Armeen Kapadia and Sanjay Basavaraju

It sounds like a German movie. But it isn’t. Wolfram Alpha already nicknamed as ‘Google-killer’, has impressed many experts during a demo presentation. It is the brainchild of Stephen Wolfram and he calls it ‘Computational Knowledge Engine’. The name is horrible and can’t be more complex. Ironically, to get to know more about it, I had to use Google to throw up some pages.

Some, who have got a glimpse of its function, believe that in the future, if one types the question, ‘Google market share’, Wolfram Alpha would compute a graph of Google’s dwindling market that may be shocking to believe. I personally feel that Google is still superior. Wolfram Alpha and Google are entirely different in their function.

Google is like a library and throws up web pages for a search query. On the other hand, Wolfram Alpha answers factual questions based on syntaxes, which one can easily learn. Google is for finding and Wolfram Alpha is just for calculating. For example, Wolfram Alpha is equipped to answer “What was the average rainfall in Kerala last year?” Stephen apparently is a fan of Google and is open to collaboration. It is least likely to happen since any talks of collaboration will happen once Google believes it can gain from it. That may take a few years for Wolfram Alpha to prove what it claims.

Regulators have long constantly watched Google. Google has been walking a tight rope since it has been seen as being monopolistic, an image that it wants to shed. It seems Google is optimistic about Wolfram Alpha’s success. If it succeeds, the chances are that Microsoft would be interested in acquiring it. And when that happens, Google can add those key functions of Wolfram Alpha into its own search engine. Google is blamed for already killing Lycos and Altavista, amongst many forgotten search engines. Now it seems Wolfram Alpha is aiming to do the same with Google. Such a situation helps Google to convince the public about its new approach towards competition. I doubt Google would wait for such a thing to happen. I am sure, by now, something is already cooking inside Google.

Nova Spivack, a technology visionary and entrepreneur, explains in his blog, “Wolfram Alpha uses built-in models of fields of knowledge, complete with data and algorithms, which represent real-world knowledge. One drawback is that it does not answer natural language queries — you have to ask questions in a particular syntax, or various forms of abbreviated notation. The vision seems to be to create a system, which can do for formal knowledge (all the formally definable systems, heuristics, algorithms, rules, methods, theorems, and facts in the world) what search engines have done for informal knowledge (all the text and documents in various forms of media).”

Some believe the site is over-hyped but many are optimistic. For that matter, even Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, seemed to talk about Wolfram in his letter to shareholders this year.

“I think it will soon be possible to have a search engine that “understands” more of the queries and documents than we do today. Others claim to have accomplished this, and Google’s systems have more smarts behind the curtains than may be apparent from the outside, but the field as a whole is still shy of where I would have expected it to be.”

If you are interested to know more about Wolfram Alpha, you can read a detailed explanation here.

It remains to be seen what will be the effect of Wolfram Alpha on the world. I doubt if it can unsettle Google anytime soon. I feel that Wikipedia should be more worried about it rather than Google.

By Sanjay Basavaraju

The role of designers is constantly changing, and this is clearly visible in the new courses developed by institutes across the world. The lines between D schools and B schools are blurring to create a new breed of design-managers, or management-designers. One such place is the D.School at Stanford.

Started by none other than David Kelly, also the founder of the design firm IDEO, the Stanford D School believes that great innovators and leaders need to be great design thinkers. Known as the Hasso Plattner School of Design, the focus is on radical collaboration, and a multi-discipinary approach. Design thinking is the glue that binds people of different disciplines together. Worldwide, B-schools are slowly turning towards D-schools to better their own way of working. Today, just management is not enough, and B-schools realize the value of design thinking, a systems level approach, and the difference it can make in problem solving. Innovation has become critical to management as corporations are increasingly striving for increased revenue. Hardcore administration is not enough anymore, as creative leadership is increasingly needed in a globalized world that is facing some level of crisis in economics, environment, and sustenance.

The Stanford D-school is not the first of its kind. There have been other such programmes in different places around the world, such as the one at MIT, and the program at Parsons. There is also Design London, a collaboration between Imperial College Business School and the Royal College of Art. All these schools have a strong focus on research, collaboration, entrepreneurship, incubating new ideas, and the inter-disciplinary nature of design.

This move to mix management and design is not welcome by everyone though, as many designers feel they would not like managers ‘telling them what to do’, or ‘interfering’ in the design process. Management might help designers better articulate their decisions and strategies, how to manage teams, encourage designers to research thoroughly, and help designers to deal with facts and figures in a better way. A lot of designers do have these skills, but they are not honed in a traditional design school, and often graduates fresh out of design school struggle to pick up these skills in their first few years of industry experience.

Design is much more than just making things beautiful, and design education needs to cater to the new roles that design is playing in an increasing number of sectors. Design is not exactly art, its not exactly science, and not exactly management, but somewhere involves all three and much more. There are always ongoing debates on whether design and management should merge, whether design is art, and so on.

Previously, the business world was using design, now design is the business.

By Armeen Kapadia