Walkers and canes may be surprising fare for ICFF, but not for Japan, a country that’s dealing with a rapidly aging population. Thanks to rising birth rates and declining death rates, nearly 32 percent of its citizens are over the age of 65 (Germany and Switzerland are the next closest contenders, with 27 percent seniors). No wonder, then, that Japan by Design, an exhibition intended to give an overview of the nation’s product culture, would include tools for the elderly. Read more…

On a rainy day in May, my wife and I arrive by taxi at Daniel Libeskind’s Contemporary Jewish Museum. We’ve seen this wonderful sculpture of a building from the street and are eager to experience it. But I’m having problems getting there. The museum is on an interior street, so after we leave the cab, we have to walk on the slippery sidewalk. This would not be a problem for most people, but I use a cane and am having an awful time getting to the front door. This is a public building and, surely, the ADA rules for access have been followed. Or were they? In fact, was way-finding in a true systems sense even considered by the designers? Read more…

The town of Ave Maria, in Florida, was planned as a Catholic-based community.

What does it take to make a city accessible to all? How do we foster truly inclusive urban design? These are some of the questions being raised by the 2009 International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. Founded in 2001, the Biennale has evolved into a worldwide gathering of exhibitions, conferences, lectures, and other activities devoted to themes of architecture and urbanism. The fourth event, which opens in September, is titled “Open City: Designing Coexistence.”  Though the theme sounds fairly warm and fuzzy, the U.S. curators’ response is a provocative one—and they want your help. Read more…

Part of our aging-in-place bathroom coverage this month includes a short piece on Toto’s universal-design center in Japan. What’s eye-opening about the UD research center—and a tad depressing, when you compare it to this country’s lack of commitment to basic research—is how purely exploratory the work there is. It is not merely a tool for new product development. Recently I talked to Valerie Fletcher—executive director of the Boston-based Institute for Human Centered Design, and a leader in the universal-design movement—about Toto’s research initiatives, the cultural underpinnings of these efforts, and the new “definitions” for an idea whose time is long overdue.

Above: Researchers in Toto’s universal-design center conduct simulations that reproduce the limited range of motion experienced by older bathers.

In 2006 you cut the ribbon at the opening ceremonies for Toto’s universal-design center. What’s it like?

It is a freestanding building, dedicated to research. There is a concept in universal design called user experts—based on the presumption that people whose life experience is different from a typical designer have something important to offer. The center utilizes this way beyond the focus group idea. They document the user interface in every imaginable way. Read more…

According to a story in last Sunday’s New York Times, working long hours can be bad for you—even if you secretly kind of enjoy it. As a result, some companies are trying to discourage the practice. To wit:

Sprint Nextel, for example, offers its employees time-saving services like the ability to fill prescriptions at work and help with travel planning, said Collier Case, Sprint’s director of health and productivity. There are also incentives to stay active at work: the headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., has covered pathways between buildings, and stairwells are designed to be inviting. (Also, some elevators operate at deliberately slow speeds.) [Emphasis ours.]

Inviting stairwells are nothing new—indeed, the New York Times’s headquarters has them in spades—but deliberately slow elevators? Sneaky! Read more…