Museums add designs for people with disabilities
terns, are for sale in the museum shop.
The exhibit is organized into three sections: Moving, Connecting and Living.
The Moving section includes the racing wheelchair designed by Designworks and made by BMW, and a colorful array of canes. A prototype of a “Walking Stick System” designed by Michael Graves Architecture and Design is lightweight, eye-catching and can stand up on its own. The “Chatfield Walking Cane,” designed by Matthew Kroeker, is made of cast aluminum and walnut, with bright silicone handles made to be grippy and not slide as easily when leaned against a wall. One walking stick includes a built-in flashlight.
The Connecting gallery features a voting booth designed for use in Los Angeles County starting in 2020. Designed by IDEO, a firm in Palo Alto, Calif., the yellow booth is wheelchair-height, and features headphones in addition to a large touch screen with instructions in many languages.
In the final gallery, devoted to everyday life, a colorful square prototype of a “Shower Trellis Grab Bar With Shelf, Sprayer Holder and Hook,” designed by Michael Graves Architecture and Design, is multifunctional and meant to replace standard bathroom safety rails that can make home bathrooms resemble those in hospitals.
The AdhereTech Smart Pill Bottle lights up — and will signal a caregiver’s phone — when it’s time to take a medication, and the Liftware Level spoon is designed to stay steady even if the hand of the person holding it isn’t.
A gallery adjacent to the exhibition is devoted to new designs as well as crowdsourced suggestions for design ideas of the future. The works stem from a partnership between the museum and Pratt Institute, in collaboration with CaringKind, a nonprofit dedicated to Alzheimer’s caregiving.
Here, velvety-looking floral wallpaper made of Velcro provides a home for easyto-misplace items like remote controls. A standard walker has been outfitted with a sort of window box for small herb plants, and numerous family photos hung on the inside of a front door are meant to distract Alzheimer’s sufferers from leaving the house.
McCarty says the show will likely travel beyond New York, although future venues and dates have not been confirmed.