30 July - 1 August 2009
Project partners: Kyoto University, Kyoto University of Art and Design and Kyushu University
Sponsored by the British Embassy, Tokyo under a UK-Japan 2008 Collaborative Project Grant
UK2008 was a yearlong celebration marking 150 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and the UK culminating in an award given by the British Embassy in Tokyo. This award consisted of three grants in the areas of science, arts and the creative industries. They were presented by HIH Princess Takamado on 5 March.
The Helen Hamlyn Centre's Challenge Workshops programme won the Creative Industries Award, which was used to fund this Kyoto Inclusive Design Challenge 2009. It was held at the Kyoto University of Art and Design.
Four Royal College of Art tutors - Miles Pennington (IDE), Anne Toomey (Textiles), Debbie Cook (Communication Art and Design) and Daniel Charny (Design Products) led interdisciplinary teams consisting of 40 Japanese designers from Kyushu University, Kyoto University and Kyoto University of Art and Design.
Each team was paired with a disabled design partner who helped them frame their inclusive response to the brief. The themes of the brief were Leisure, Work, Wearables and Communication and these could be addressed singly or in combination. The results ranged from proposals for a personal shopping service to an innovative door answering and visitor identification system.
The audience vote at an event that was also open to the public and was held on the final day of the Challenge went to 'You've Got a Visitor' - an innovative visitor identification system devised by Team 4, led by Miles Pennington.
