"Your inclusion in the show was very important; we did not want to just present beautifully-designed things or things that communicate well (eg the graphic design pieces).

Your functional design-with-heart was very important to the underlying messages in the show about discipline, the design process, and how good design can make life better."

Kathleen Campbell
Curator, Here by Design 2
Goldstein Museum

Dianne Goodwin has a passion for the outdoors, a love for developing functional technology, and an abiding concern for consumers with disabilities. “Lots of people with disabilities like to go camping,” she notes, but today’s tents make it difficult for them to get in and out independently.

...functional design-with-heart

For Goodwin and the BlueSky team, this problem presents an opportunity. They have designed tents and vestibules so that someone in a wheelchair or with a weak upper body or a back injury can get in and out as easily as anyone else. So far they have designed five different tent and vestibule combos, with seven different door prototypes and more on the way. Eventually two will be manufactured. Field testing among people with and without disabilities is scheduled for Spring/Summer 2004, and the tents should be available in 2004.

BLUESKY DESIGNS:
Garden Rocker—salvation for sore knees

A specialist in designing for people with physical limitations (which applies to many of us), Dianne Goodwin calls herself a rehabilitation engineer. Her comfortable garden seat eases pressure on a gardener’s knees and back during prolonged weeding or planting—an example of her creative zeal and desire “to bring good things to the world.”