Industrial designer bruce hannah has a big problem with products and environments designed for what he calls the “Martha Stewart niche.” This market segment, populated by 35-year-old millionaires, is just too small and exclusive. What’s more, adds architect/industrial designer Tanya Van Cott, even occupants of this rarefied demographic stratum leave it by raising families and growing old. The designed world, Hannah and Van Cott argue, should be accessible to people of many different ages, levels of strength and agility, and degrees of affluence.
To celebrate the approach they advocate-dubbed “universal design” -Hannah and Van Cott have designed an engaging new exhibition for the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. In “Unlimited by Design,” Hannah and co-curator George A. Covington bring together examples of universally designed interiors, consumer goods and recreation systems, all meant to enhance everyday activities. Many items on display are commercially available today; others begin to define the household of the future.
What’s immediately striking is just how stylish and attractive most of this stuff is. Each of the exhibit’s many rooms represents an arena of daily life. The kitchen is stocked with funky, chunky (and easy-to-grasp) cooking and eating utensils, the office outfitted with sleek, curvaceous (and orthopedically correct) furniture. Indeed, says Hannah, one of the exhibit’s prime goals is to counter the stigma of accessibility-the assumption that things designed with the needs of the disabled or elderly in mind must be ugly or awkward.
Linger in front of a display and you begin to see how universal-design principles can inform familiar objects. Take a laundry detergent bottle cap: its ridges help a shaky or arthritic hand keep its grip, its bright color contrasts with that of the bottle for better visibility, it does double duty as a measuring cup, and it pours residual soap back into the bottle, cutting down on waste and mess. Lever-style door handles (a small room showcases several versions) fit more comfortably in the hand than a knob, have a shape that indicates clearly which way they should be turned, and can be operated with an elbow if hands are unavailable.
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