Task furniture in education: design, science and industry creating solutions to support 21st century learning

This paper seeks to describe the methods and initial outputs generated by the Task Furniture in Education (TFE) project, a Marie Curie FP7 (IAPP) Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways funded programme. The project is coordinated and led by researchers in the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin in collaboration with academic and industry partners in Ireland, Germany, Portugal and the USA. The four-year project commenced in November 2010, and received 1.33 million euro of EU Commission funding. The project emerged from ongoing and previous research undertaken within the Faculty of Design at the NCAD, through its graduate school GradCAM and its international collaborators in the area of school furniture design and analysis. While there is a wide range of student task furniture available on the market today, most of it is inadequate to meet the postural needs of pupil, particularly in the context of the accelerating introduction of advanced classroom information technology and advancements in pedagogy. This paper will outline the research findings and outputs generated so far, while discussing our user-centred design research methodology, public engagement and dissemination activities and future plans.