Future Bathroom

This  three year project is funded (£400k) by the EPSRC and supported by the bathroom manufacturer Ideal Standard. 

This project is about improving the quality and design of bathroom furniture for older people.  The challenge is to design quality products that all bathroom users would find acceptable as well as meeting the specific needs of older and disabled people.

The study adopts creative strategies in the design of bathroom furniture so that it a space with the flexibility to evolve and grow to reflect and meets the changing needs of individuals and their families as they age.

The project will develop a robust methodology for fostering co-design dialogue between designers, researchers and older people (aged 50+), with chronic age related health conditions which lead to disability and frailty. Examples include arthritis, osteoporosis, stroke and macular degeneration. 

 It will also create a range of innovative and desirable bathroom prototypes (both bathroom furniture and assistive technologies for bathroom use) that are sensitive to the problems of living with disability, which do not stigmatise, are capable of manufacture and will demonstrate the principles we have developed