Stanford Longevity Design Challenge 21/22 – The Finalists.

Finalists for the 9^th annual Design Challenge at the Stanford Center on Longevity were announced last week and for 21/22, Stanford’s tech-based innovation contest accepted 124 submissions from accredited university design teams in 33 countries around the world. Each year since 2013 there has been a different central theme and this time designers were asked to consider Longevity-Ready Environments: Rethinking Physical Spaces for Century-Long Lives.

On first hearing you might be prone to think this meant interior spaces, considering so much has been covered in the media for quite some time on the topic of home/housing design for aging in place considerations. However to really appreciate the point of this year’s Design Challenge you would have had to read what the full scope of environments and physical spaces was meant to include – public spaces, indoor spaces, and urban design.

As the deeper theme description on the Design Challenge website states, “we are challenging students around the world to take a look at the physical spaces in their communities and ask: how can we design environments that will lead to healthy long lives for people of all ages now and for future generations?”

Under this year’s challenge theme, a community thinking approach includes the built environment and the natural environment. There was more than enough scope for design teams, as they were given five example areas to work within: infrastructure and amenities, multigenerational spaces, construction and building materials, green and outdoor spaces & mitigation of weather extremes.

Looking at the list of the eight finalists given this broad scope, I was impressed at how diverse and unique each of the design projects were and, how specifically they addressed outdoor environmental concerns – urban and rural. Notably here it can be seen – great sensitivity with linkage to the macro issues of agricultural/food security as evidenced by half of the final submissions.

In my view the judging panel is to be commended, for in this Design Challenge the usual fare of technology solutions, as seen in so many other tech contests in the aging & longevity arena, are not on the dance card. Instead for example, from University of Science Malaysia we get Smultronställe a detachable vertical farming system for urban farming; and from Makere University, Uganda there is Karpolax a sachet using green nanotechnology to extend the shelf life of fruit.

While these two finalists have initially caught my attention, I am going to hold off my normal fun exercise of picking my top three choices from the finalists in the Design Challenge to give it some time to research for more details. Anyhow, as with last year, the finalists have until end of March to prepare a pitch presentation with the Virtual Finals beginning March 29, 2022. Worth the wait.