Past Events

Ageing & Design Opinion Former

16/07/2009

Aim: Identify collaborative student projects
The workshop brought together a number of interested individuals together to discuss
the potential for student projects in the field of ageing & design and to identify a small number of
opportunities which might be developed and presented to final year design students to work on
between September 2009 and April 2010.

Projects resulting from this event are now underway with Camden Council, Kirton Healthcare, Hothouse Product Development Partners and the RNID.

Background
Within the broad field of ‘ageing’ there is considerable research, Knowledge Transfer and design
potential for Brunel. With its well established areas of research, recently formed Brunel Institute for
Ageing Studies (BIAS) and the proven track record of successful work in the Design area, design led
collaboration has tremendous potential to help create innovation as well as support practical
development and implementation of concepts and research. The synergy of all this expertise can be
of considerable interest to existing and new external partners.
Designplus at Brunel has been matchmaking Design/University/Industry collaborations since 2004.
One particular focus of our activity is establishing collaborative Major Projects for final year design
students. These have been very successful in introducing companies to the university, providing
value to the companies in terms of concept development and boosting the quality of the participating
students’ work.