open design communities as driver for inclusive wellbeing

DESIGN FOR (EVERY)ONE

Design for (every)one (D4E1) is a micro living lab at the Howest university college, originated at the intersection of industrial product design and occupational therapy. The lab implements open-ended design principles within the context of design for wellbeing. Our goal is to help minorty groups through open design to meet their social needs resulting from working conditions, education, community development, and health. The advent of networked computers and digital fabrication make it feasible that individuals which mainly fall out of the mainstream can produce or adapt their own unique tools.

A new generation of makers and healthcare professionals are seizing this opportunity by producing one of a kind product adaptations in people’s homes, sheltered workshops and rehabilitation centers. Although future healthcare policies are encouraging to effectively engaged people in the collaborative maintenance of their own health there is little known on the dynamics of these common-based approaches and how professional designers can help to infrastructure them.

ABOUT

Do-It-Yourself Assistive Technology

TRAINING MAKERSKILLS FOR OT

In this unique postgraduate course for occupational therapists you will learn to adapt and tailor products to the specific needs of the individual client, you will discover traditional and new materials and you will be introduced to techniques such as 3D printing and laser cutting.

In this training you learn by doing. You work out lifelike cases yourself, so that after 3 semesters you are completely ready to make your own as well as to work efficiently with makers.

DATABASE DIY-AT

Over the last 10 years, the D4E1 research group from the University College of West Flanders (Howest) has conducted 150 participatory design case studies on do-it -yourself assistive technology ( DIY-AT).

Set up in local contexts and built around the meaningful activities of individual people. You can find the results of these products within our repository. All of them are licenced under creative commons and can be rebuild for non-commercial activities.