‘NEW OLD: Designing for our Future Selves’ opens at the Design Museum

Back in 1986 (over three decades ago!) Jeremy Myerson, co-founder of the RCA Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, saw the world’s most profound design forces rethink everyday objects to meet the needs of older generations. New Design for Old, held at the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Boilerhouse space, was an exhibition that is now regarded as a pivotal moment in design thinking and opened our eyes to the reality that the industry was failing to act inclusively for those ageing in modern society.

Today, NEW OLD: Designing for our Future Selves is open to visitors of the Design Museum, and includes new projects by industry heavyweights Yves Béhar /fuseproject, Konstantin Grcic, Future Facility, IDEO and Priestman Goode. Included in this epic line-up is East London-based invention agency Special Projects. Each section of the exhibition — ageing, identity, home, community, working and mobility — features a bespoke design commission by one of these leading design teams and sees them revisit the brief curator Jeremy Myerson’s original saw in 1986, but with a broader scope.

Tasked with “creating new solutions for demographic change” and addressing the challenges of ageing, Special Projects founders Adrian and Clara have curated an installation that focuses on placing the individual at its heart. In a homey, natural and relaxing space an older person sits at a custom-built table, topped with a paper surface that participants can write upon. The success of the exhibit depends upon members of the public acting upon the invitation to step forward and ask the person a question, thus unveiling the valuable of experience and wisdom amassed with age.

NEW OLD: Design for our Future Selves is open now and, if you haven’t already had chance (or just loved it the first time round), is the perfect excuse to head to beautiful Kensington and explore the stunning John Pawson-designed interiors of the new Design Museum.