Jury Citation
Hack Care is a timely, important, and highly accessible
piece of work that raises public awareness around providing a life of dignity and grace for
persons with dementia. Put together with sensitivity and beautifully designed, the book and
toolkit offer creative, affordable, and practical ideas for improving the home environment with
simple design hacks and innovations. It encourages and empowers caregivers, as well as seeds
advocates for inclusive design with every hack.
The Jury commends the project for its powerful message of normalising dementia – positioning it
not as a strictly defeating problem but as a prompt to act, adapt, and create a better
experience of daily life through ‘hacking’. The Jury also recognises the designers’ attitude of
facilitation, rather than prescription, through design – they refer to family caregivers as
designers in the project, along with their intention to open a much-needed deeper debate as to
how a complex societal issue such as dementia may be tackled.
Hack Care provides a valuable reminder that now more
than ever, it is critical to challenge our preconceptions and shape behaviour and thought around
dementia, with one in 10 people above the age of 60 years living with the condition in
Singapore.
VIEW
JURORS
Nominator Citation
Lee Poh Wah
Chief Executive Officer
Lien Foundation
Two years after the completion of Hack Care, the Lien
Foundation can, in our capacity as client, confidently attest to the project attaining
outcome-based success.
In work of such a nature, measuring design’s impact is difficult. But the impact of Hack Care can be clearly gleaned from the public’s demand
for it. After the original print run of 2,000 copies, which we believed would satisfy the
community’s appetite, we had to make a second print run of 1,500. The demand came from exactly
the stakeholders who mattered: end users and subject matter experts.
A quarter of the copies were requested by the former (caregivers of persons with dementia), while
half were requests from the latter (professional staff from the medical and social services).
Caregivers took design into their own hands, putting Hack
Care into practice through their experiments with household items to elevate the
quality of their loved ones’ lives. Professionals did likewise in eldercare centres and nursing
homes, improving lives at a larger scale.
Impact was felt in the design fraternity too, not only locally but also internationally. The
project was covered in reputable overseas media such as Wallpaper*, Design
Wanted, Elle Décor, and Dezeen. The book inspired designers around the world to
look at dementia, an illness that affects millions, through the usually staid vantage point of
the domestic.
The project’s success could not have been presumed. The design challenge was complex, and Lekker
Architects worked amid painful personal challenges. But the studio dug deep and – on its own
initiative – spent three years working on Hack Care
alongside its cross-discipline collaborators at industrial design studio Lanzavecchia + Wai, as
the vision grew.
This is a special story of designers who reframed adversity as inspiration, using design, satire,
and common sense to make a point.
Disclaimer
The ideas in
the Hack Care catalogue have been gathered to suggest ways to improvise and expand care
for persons with dementia. While every effort has been made to ensure that the hacks contained
in the catalogue do not pose any undue health and safety hazards, the Lien Foundation
nonetheless urges all readers to exercise their own judgement on the safety, suitability and
appropriateness of these ideas to their own respective caregiving situations. Readers are
encouraged to do their own research, and to always consult a professional when in
doubt.
Hack Care is a social initiative led by the Lien Foundation and is not
related to IKEA®, the Inter IKEA Group, or the Ikano Group. All references to IKEA® products are
presented for the reader’s convenience only and do not imply IKEA®’s approval of the
modification of their products. IKEA®, the Inter IKEA Group, the Ikano Group, and the team
behind Hack Care shall not be liable for any product failure, damage or personal injury
resulting from the use of the hacks featured in the catalogue.