designs of the year 2013: morph folding wheel by vitamins design
the world’s first folding wheelchair wheel by vitamins designall images courtesy of vitamins design
london-based vitamins design studio (duncan fitzsimmons, clara gaggero and adrian westaway) works between the areas of science, technology and business. their ‘folding wheel’ invention has been included in the london design museum‘s ‘designs of the year 2013’ shortlist (see the full listing of nominations on designboom here), and is being presented in an accompanying exhibition at the institution until july 7th, 2013.
the project was originally conceived as a bicycle wheel by fitzsimmons during his studies at the royal college of art in london. however, gaining much attention for the concept he began receiving a lot of feedback about its possible applications – primarily that it would be ideally suited for wheelchairs. so, with the help of maddak inc. – a company who specializes in home healthcare and rehabilitation products for seniors or individuals with disabilities – the vitamins design team has further developed it into ‘morph’, the world’s first foldable wheelchair wheel available on the market for purchase. having the ability of being collapsed makes it easy for one to transport and store a set of four during travel, such as in the overhead locker on an airplane, or trunk of a small car as a result of the wheels taking a smaller, more convenient shape– in their open, functioning state each wheel measures 24″ in diameter, folding down to a compact 32″ x 12,5″ when not in use; weighing only 7.5 lbs a piece and made from glass filled nylon with a polypropylene hand rim.
the morph folding wheel measures 24″ in diameter
in its folded state its dimensions measure 32″ x 12,5″
detail
wheelchair installment
when folded, the wheels’s compact size makes it easy to transport and store
prototypes
the design is patented and produced by US medical supplies manufacturer maddak inc., as the ‘morph folding wheel’
the open possibilities of the morph folding wheelvideo courtesy of maddak inc.
duncan fitzsimmons (left) and adrian westaway (right) of vitamins design at the opening of the ‘designs of the year 2013’ exhibitionimage © designboom
adrian westaway of vitamins design showing a small model of the folding wheel open…image © designboom
and collapsedimage © designboom
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it doesn’t look like it saves very much space to make it worth folding. the cost would not be worth the small saving.
Nice work!
Wow, this is really cool and one of the best products I’ve ever seen here, because is not luxury but improving disadvantaged peoples lives. Deep bow!
My criticism of this concept is that while the mechanism is very clever overall it really doesn’t save a lot space. We go from a large round object to a large ovoid object with little significant reduction in size.
IDSA shared this story on its Facebook page.
This is a really great idea. I circular object is much harder to store then a long oval object even if the overall volume remains the same. The picture that would help a lot is to see what the wheel looks like when it is folded and still attached to the wheelchair. This folded wheel looks like it would make it much easier to get the actual wheel chair in a car trunk.