Walk A Mile In My Shoes

Before and After Audience Challenge

Stove of Hope 

By

Ewing Choi

  Purpose: To design A better stove that is usable by wheelchair users (and also elderly people, who have difficult standing up) 

Now, this stove already has some universal design qualities. But it can be improved to a greater extent. If you take a look at the control system, it has a ‘touch sensor control’ that requires low physical effort to operate. And As a result, this equipment is far more accessible to ‘people with low dexterity issues or arthritis’ than a “typical, average, and normal” stove control that requires a lot of turning movement.    

But still, this equipment’s current range of users does not include people on wheelchairs. Most typical and conventional stoves are designed for people at their standing height. But what about elderly users, who may have mobility problems? They may even have difficulties standing up for a long time and cooking. But by putting wider range of users into consideration, we provide design solutions that include more people.

My goal here is to provide a possible universal design solution for a stove that include elderly people and wheelchair users

Here is my design solution. Stove of Hope.

The height of stove will be slightly lower than the typical. It will be adjustable between the counter top heights (Standing height) to eating table height (Sitting height).

Now this is significantly important to ensure the safety of ‘wheelchair users’ or ‘elderly users, who may be sitting on a chair while cooking’. These users must not need to reach over a heated stove while the tall counter top height limiting their vision.

Now we need more leg room to accommodate wheelchair users. It will have a relatively flat cook top protruding from the wall, with magnetic induction stove attached to cook top.

 ß BEFORE 

In order to prevent limiting the maneuvering clearances of wheelchair users, the stove must have special hardware that allows the stove to be folded when not in use.

AFTER