BALTSE@NIOR ENTERING THE NEW COMMUNICATION STAGE, THIS TIME AT THE WORLD’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS FAIRS RELATED TO DESIGN.
The results of our works were presented as part of Milan Design Week in the Lambrate Design district on 17th -22nd of April 2018.
Every year Salone del Mobile and the accompanying Milan Design Week shape trends and design knowledge being the most recognizable world’s design event. Among all other events they register the biggest number of visitors and exhibitors. As part of this year’s edition, which was visited by a record-breaking audience of over 500,000, BaltSe@nioR project was presented, focusing on the design of furniture for seniors.
– After over a year and a half of project realization, we have already managed to develop a method of knowledge sharing, as well as specific tools, such as a constantly improved age simulator, thanks to which young designers can better understand the needs of senior customers. So far we already presented BaltSe@nioR at prestigious fairs and design festivals in Poland and Sweden. The opportunity to show our project at Milan Design Week is another enormous milestone in building knowledge on how the furniture industry can cooperate with the social, cultural and business environment, empowering them with original and innovative solutions – says dr Beata Fabisiak, project coordinator.
The main focus of exhibition activities was placed on the promotion of the flagship product of BaltSe@nioR project – namely the Virtual Library constituting the knowledge base supporting the process of furniture design for elderly. It will be an open to all collection of knowledge and research results, covering issues of designing for seniors.
How often seniors living in Sweden buy furniture? Does the sixty-year-old Latvians have a separate room intended for sleeping in their households? What are the main problems connected with the use of furniture among citizens of Finland, Germany or Poland? Answers to these and other questions can be found after logging into the currently developed Virtual Library. It will be an inspiring source of knowledge about an aging society in the Baltic Sea region, prepared for designers and furniture manufacturers as well as for interior architects. The library will be available to all interested users by the end of this year.
As part of the BaltSe@nioR project exhibition at Milan Design Week, the effects of joint efforts of the international group of experts, scientists and practitioners representing all countries of the Baltic Sea region were also showed. Visitors could, among other things, test an entirely 3D printed age simulator helping young designers to feel the limitations of the senior body and thus develop their empathy skills to better understand elderly clients. The audience also got familiar with the prototypes of intelligent furniture designed to support the independent functioning of an elderly person in the household and examples of redesign of Polish armchairs from the 60s adapted to the needs of modern seniors.
Thanks to the exhibition, which registered hundreds of visitors, representatives of the furniture industry from around the world could see how the European Union supports cooperation between countries, ensuring the competitiveness of the furniture industry in the region and the comfort of its older residents.
Presentation at Milan Design Week in the Lambrate Design district was a story about a unique attitude to design that is characterized by a multidisciplinary, iterative approach. In the succeeding presentations of BaltSe@nioR project, both pilot furniture designs and tools for their creation are being improved and developed. It is worth emphasizing that the methods and design tools developed as part of the BaltSe@nioR project will be available free of charge in the Virtual Library to encourage entrepreneurs and furniture designers to create more pieces of furniture adjusted perfectly to seniors needs.