Ambulance redesign wins Papanek honour
The Emergency Ambulance project is a joint initiative by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and Vehicle Design Department at the RCA to create a new ambulance interior fit for 21st century healthcare.
It has been named as a finalist in the Design for the Real World Redux International Design Competition, held in memory of the Austrian-born designer and educator Victor J. Papanek, and will be exhibited this autumn in Vienna and next year in New York.
Papanek's 1971 book Design for the Real World was one of the first to promote ecologically and socially responsible design. The competition in Papanek's name solicited entries from designers of projects that upheld his vision of environmental and/or social responsibility. A total of 92 submissions were received from 20 countries.
From these submissions an international jury selected 17 projects are being exhibited in Vienna at the University of Applied Arts (10 November 2011- 31 January 2012). The exhibition will travel to New York in 2012, at the Museum of Arts and Design, and/or the Austrian Cultural Forum New York (6 March-17 June 2012).
This international award scheme was set up to commemorate the acquisition of Papanek's archive and library in 2010 by the Victor J. Papanek Foundation at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.
A full-size mobile demonstrator of the Royal College of Art's new ambulance interior was formally launched by Lord Darzi of Imperial College on Thursday 22 September 2011 as part of the RCA's contribution to the London Design Festival.
Developed by bringing together frontline paramedics, clinicians, patients, academic researchers, engineers and designers in a co-design process, the ambulance redesign project has reconfigured the layout of the patient treatment space to achieve 360 degree access to the patient. This not only improves the clinical efficiency but also enhances patient safety.
The new interior is also designed to be easy to clean and modular equipment packs containing specific treatment consumables have been incorporated to aid in clinical performance, infection control and stock control.
Professor Jeremy Myerson, Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, says: 'The new-look ambulance builds on six years of research at the RCA and is a strong example of socially responsible innovation. Recognition by the Victor J.Papanek international design competition is a shot in the arm for the whole team.'
