The Royal College of Art Helen Hamlyn Centre was set up by Roger Coleman and Jeremy Myerson in January 1999 with a purpose to explore the design implications of social and demographic change. It built on an earlier partnership between the Helen Hamlyn Trust and the Royal College of Art - the DesignAge action research unit, which was active at the RCA between 1991 and 1998 under the direction of Roger Coleman.
The purpose of DesignAge was to alert industry and the design profession to the far-reaching implications of rapidly ageing populations across the developed world.
DesignAge was successful in mobilising a generation of young designers behind an age-aware approach to design, via a stream of conferences, seminars, workshops, publications, competitions, design exemplars and the establishment of an international Design for Ageing Network (DAN) and a Special Collection of research papers in the Royal College of Art Library.
In addition, DesignAge participated in the European Union-funded Presence project, which explored the use of new technologies to raise the profile of older people in their communities.
DesignAge was recognised nationally, with a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 1995, and internationally, with a Ron Mace Memorial award.
Many of its key activities were extended under the aegis of the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre, which was established in 1999 with core funding from the Helen Hamlyn Foundation, now the Helen Hamlyn Trust.
Whereas DesignAge was a single-issue action research unit focusing on the needs of older people, the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre had a broader perspective based on advancing the concept of inclusive design - an approach to designing that includes the whole population - all ages and all abilities.
The DesignAge competition for Royal College of Art students lives on as the Age category within the Helen Hamlyn Centre ’s Design for our Future Selves awards scheme.
In February 2007, the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre changed its name to the Royal College of Art Helen Hamlyn Centre in recognition of its work across a broadening range of business, creative and academic contexts. It also placed a growing emphasis on design for patient safety and workplace design alongside its main focus on inclusive design for ageing populations.
Its Special Collection in the Royal College of Art library was disbanded and the content migrated onto three web resources developed in partnership with the Design Council, RSA and BT. Its DAN Network became the Include network as the Centre maintained its international profile in a new era.
