COLLABORATIVE DESIGN

Collaborative design is a thirty year old concept for Whirlwind. Hundreds of riders around the world from Nicaragua to Uganda have been directly involved in the design and manufacture of our chairs, providing rapid and regular feedback through repeated prototyping and testing under real developing world conditions. This collaborative, open approach to design has helped us create some of the most innovative wheelchairs brought to market - and some of the designs that didn't quite make it that far!

We welcome new collaborators into our network. Wheelchair riders from Vietnam recently suggested an anti-tip bar which is now in development. Local wheelchair riders are the best designers of chairs that are appropriate for their needs in their local environments. We have a long history of specific, concrete collaborative designs that are placed in the public domain. Our drawing sets are protected by a Creative Commons license. From 1980 through 2007, this network of designers and small wheelchair building shops resulted in the production of roughly 20,000 Whirlwind chairs since Whirlwind began designing years ago. An additional 30,000 other wheelchairs incorporate one or more significant aspects of Whirlwind designs.

The design documents for the RoughRider, which has been adapted for mass production, are available only to our quality certified manufacturers. Please contact us to become a producer for your region. info@whirlwindwheelchair.org