Adaptive Environments, Boston, USA is celebrating its 30th anniversary and changing it name to Human Centered Design.

Adaptive Environments {AE} is a 30 year old international non-profitorganization, based in Boston, committed to advancing the role ofdesign in expanding opportunity and enhancing experience for people ofall ages and abilities. AE’s work balances expertise in legallyrequired accessibility with promotion of best practices inhuman-centered or universal design.

AE has been the lead organization in the international UniversalDesign movement, having hosted or co-hosted five internationalconferences {New York -1998, Providence -2000, Yokahama – 2002, Rio deJaneiro – 2004, Kyoto – October 2006} as well as international studentdesign competitions, smaller regional meetings and publication of weband print materials. We are currently exploring an international eventthat would offer nations in the Middle East multi-disciplinaryconsultation for post-conflict reconstruction from a Universal Designperspective. We are working with the UN on the implementation of thenew Treaty on the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities thatendorses Universal Design as the basis for design guidelines.

Due to the extensive international network of individual andorganizational collaborators, AE has an unusually rich and flexibleexpertise and a capacity well beyond its core staff of twentydesigners, educators and humanists.  AE knows the state-of-the-art ofUniversal Design in the spectrum of design disciplines from urbandesign, landscape and architecture to interior design, industrialdesign, media and information design and can call upon the ideal matchof expertise and use it efficiently.

We have a formal collaborative relationship with the InternationalAssociation for Universal Design in Japan, with the Design-for-AllFoundation in the European Union and UN Department of Economic andSocial Affairs.  Our international network includes colleagues on everycontinent.

Our new location, blocks from City Hall and the State House at 200Portland Street, is centered in one of the most accessible publictransit sites in Boston. We have joined our internal capacity andextraordinary national and international relationships into a resourcein Boston that is unique in the nation.