Concord, CA – Patricia Moore, PhD, President of MooreDesign Associates, has been named a Changemaker by The Center for Health Design's Board of Directors. The award honors individuals or organizations that have demonstrated exceptional ability to change the way facilities are designed and built to universally serve all populations, and whose work has had broad impact on the advancement of environments for aging.
Moore is an internationally renowned gerontologist and designer, serving as a leading authority on consumer lifespan behaviors and requirements. Known as the mother of Universal Design, Moore embarked on an exceptional, immersive research endeavor in 1979, that challenged and refocused the design community to include people of all ages and abilities. Frustrated in her efforts to encourage her fellow architects and designers at Raymond Loewy International to consider the consumer needs of older individuals and people with reduced capacity due to birth anomalies, illness or injury, Moore disguised herself as that of women in their eighties. For nearly four years, Moore traveled to more than a hundred cities in North America to experience and document life as an elder, exposing the limitations of product and environmental design.
In 1990, Moore began designing physical medicine & rehabilitation environments for acute and sub-acute care settings. Focusing her efforts on the lifespan needs of patients and their families, she expanded the original EASY STREET™ concept to create real-life therapy environments with REHAB 1, 2, 3™ for pediatric care and OUR TOWN™ for geriatric care. In 2010 she introduced Independence Way™, a dedicated physical medicine and rehabilitation environment for the discreet needs of Wounded Warriors at the Veterans Administration’s Washington DC flagship facility.
In addition to her extensive client work, Moore is also a frequent presenter at health conferences and forums, promoting the lifespan needs of patients, their families, and the community of professionals chartered with delivering exemplars of care.
A Fellow of the Industrial Designers Society of America, Moore was selected in 2016 as one of The Most Notable American Industrial Designers in the history of the field. In 2012 she was inducted into The Rochester Institute of Technology’s “INNOVATORS Hall of Fame”, named a Doctor of Fine Arts by Syracuse University for serving as a “guiding force for a more humane and livable world, blazing a path for inclusiveness, as a true leader in the movement of Universal Design.” In recognition of her nearly five decades of commitment to excellence in design and wellness, Hasselt University in Belgium awarded Moore a PhD in May 2019 for her efforts towards “Design Inclusion and Excellence”. Moore was honored with the prestigious National Design Award, as "Design Mind", in 2019.
Her impact as an internationally-renowned gerontologist designer and a pioneer of universal design has provided our industry with a path for inclusion and excellence. We thank Pattie for her sharing her vast expertise, experiences and tenacious devotion.
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