Learning Research
Designing for Age, Agency & Joy
The Design Age Institute is the UK’s national strategic unit for design and the healthy ageing economy, bringing together designers, businesses, researchers and communities to help address the challenges and opportunities of an ageing society.
Helping people age happier
The Design Age Institute was set up in 2020 as part of the UK Government’s Grand Challenge on an Ageing Society. Over the next three years, the Institute will deliver an ambitious vision to apply the transformative power of design to equip individuals and communities with the products and services needed to maintain agency and experience joy at every age.
As a core partner, the Design Museum is leading the Institute’s engagement of individuals and communities in the debate about the future of ageing through an exciting programme of design workshops, talks, projects and exhibits.
Developed in collaboration with researchers, designers, innovators, industry partners and ageing communities, the programme will invite the public to interact with design products, services and research that has the potential to transform our experiences of ageing and help us all age happier and healthier.
#AgeAgencyJoy #DesignAge
Photo Peter Krejci for Royal College of Art
Centaur Robotics
Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design
Join This Age Thing
This Age Thing is a community of healthy ageing advocates working collectively to celebrate diverse stories of getting older, challenge negative stereotypes, and help develop better products and services that can help all of us to age happier.
Partners
Funded by Research England, the Design Age Institute brings together expertise from across world-leading research, design, innovation and learning including the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design (HHCD) at the Royal College of Art (RCA); the National Innovation Centre for Ageing at Newcastle University (NICA), University of Oxford’s Institute of Population Ageing (OIPA), the International Longevity Centre (ILC) and the Design Museum.
Related display
Related events
The Wisdom Hour: Our Future Selves
Join The Wisdom Hour, a creative space to celebrate positive stories of ageing facilitated by This Age Thing and Design Age Institute.
Designing for Your Future Self: Happy, healthy and wise
Join experts in design research from Design Age Institute and its partners to debate key discoveries, projects and aspirations for our rapidly ageing society, and explore the market potential of future generations to benefit from longer, healthier and wiser lives.
Designing for your future self: The future of inclusive technology
Designing for your future self talks series, curated by Design Age Institute. Will technology revolutions also revolutionise how the UK’s ageing population grows older with agency and joy?
This event happened on Tuesday 24 May 2022. A recording will be available soon.
Designing for your future self: Let’s talk about sex
The third session in the Designing for Your Future Self talks series, curated by Design Age Institute.
This event happened on 22 March 2022.
Designing for your future self: No time to waste
The second session in the Designing for Your Future Self talks series.
This event happened on 9 November and was live-streamed as part of the Design Council’s Design for Planet Festival.
Background image Aura Power Suit by Yves Béhar, Fuseproject and Superflex (New Old: Designing for Our Future Selves exhibition at the Design Museum).