£1 million donation from the Helen Hamlyn Trust marks a new chapter for the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and its new home in Battersea

The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design celebrates its new home in the Royal College of Art’s new Battersea campus with a generous £1 million donation from the Helen Hamlyn Trust. The Centre’s new home on the fourth floor of the Rausing Research & Innovation Building offers a purpose-built space for inclusive design to grow in strength and stature, enabled by the Trust’s generosity.

A global leader in inclusive design, design thinking and creative leadership, the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design has a thirty-year history of working with government, business, academia and the third sector. Recently, the Centre has established the Design Age Institute, a £4.9 million initiative funded by Research England, which brings age-inclusive, life-stage designs towards market. The Centre is also set to commence a £1.2 million Future Leaders Fellowship investigating how fashion technology can support stroke rehabilitation.

In September 2022, the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design will host its biennial Include Conference – a global conference that focuses on inclusive design and people-centred, creative approaches. Titled Unheard Voices, the 2022 conference forms part of London Design Week and will be a largely online conference, fostering a global perspective.

Dr Paul Thompson, Vice-Chancellor of the Royal College of Art, said:

“We are grateful to the Helen Hamlyn Trust for their generous donation and long-term support of the Royal College of Art, and delighted that the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design has its own purpose-built space in our new Battersea building. The vision for our Battersea campus is one of innovation and collaboration – and of enabling art and design to forge real-world impact. The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design embodies this vision, and I look forward to seeing how the Centre’s dedication to inclusive design continues to shape our collective future.”

Rama Gheerawo, Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, said:

“We are delighted to move the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design into its new home within the RCA’s new Battersea campus – enabled by the generosity and kindness of the Helen Hamlyn Trust. We are grateful to the Trust for their continued support of our work to take inclusive design from thought to action and, ultimately, impact. The work of the Centre focuses on people of all ages and abilities, and we now expand our efforts to look at exclusion by race and gender – beginning with our upcoming Include Conference which we hope will give visibility and vocality to the underrepresented.”

Lady Hamlyn CBE, said:

“I am so proud of the achievements of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, now a global leader in inclusive design. We started 30 years ago to address the need for ‘New Design for Old’ to address design issues to help older people live independently for longer. I am so pleased to have been able to support this important Centre at the RCA and to see it now in its own purpose-built space, recognising the fundamental role it is playing in improving quality of life through inclusive design.”

The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design has received total funding of £10 million, including a £2 million endowment for the Chair of Design in 2007 by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, a charity founded by Lady Helen Hamlyn and dedicated to supporting innovative projects that will effect lasting change and improve quality of life.