Stanford Center on Longevity Design Challenge

The Stanford Center on Longevity hosts an annual global Design Challenge that is open to teams from any accredited university in the world. The goal of the challenge is to inspire student designers to consider longevity-related innovation topics, engaging them in a practical and exciting way. In its first 8 years, the Challenge has attracted over 700 designs from students representing 59 countries. This year’s design topic is “Longevity-Ready Environments: Rethinking Physical Spaces for Century-Long Lives.”

Making communities longevity-ready for everyone means recognizing the way our environment affects well-being at all ages in the context of a 100-year life. Starting even before birth, environmental factors such as air quality, availability of well-designed outdoor spaces and transit options, living conditions, and toxin exposure affect our physical and mental health. These factors are also pathways by which inequality affects physical health – environmental quality is often worse for children and adults of lower socioeconomic status, leading to poorer health as they age.

This year, students are challenged to examine the physical environments in their communities and identify opportunities to design for an environment that better supports long lives.

What Kinds of Designs are Included?

Students from all majors/fields of study are encouraged to submit a design. Students are encouraged to consider all aspects of their physical environments including public spaces, indoor spaces, and urban design. Designs can be products, programs, or services, and might target:

• Outdoor and green spaces
• Airborne pollutants and household toxins
• Mitigation of weather extremes (e.g., heat mitigation) and climate change
• Public infrastructure, including housing and transportation
• Moving toward sustainable cities
• Energy consumption reductions