Action for Age

Action for Age developed from a design brief for students, part of an awards programme run by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in the UK, the aim of which was to explore the role of design in providing an alternative response to the growing problem of population ageing.

The initiative was later replicated in Portugal, thanks to a partnership with the ExperimentaDesign biennale for architecture, design and creativity. The result was Action for Age: design for a better future, aimed at encouraging and guiding young designers to create products that improve quality of life for older people through original design concepts. The “products” can be conventional design objects, services or other types of creations.

From 23 to 28 July the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation hosted a workshop in which six design students from all over Portugal took part, replicating the workshop held in London with British students earlier in the year.

The two groups of students came together from 4 to 11 September in Lisbon for a final workshop and design intervention in one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Lisbon, Graça. The results of the work were presented in a conference held at the Foundation on 12 September during the inaugural week of ExperimentaDesign Lisboa ’09;the documentary film on the project which was shown at the conference will soon be released.

As the project combined two areas in which the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has a key interest – social innovation and population ageing – the project was supported by the Gulbenkian Human Development Programme.