WANDEREST

The elderly population is growing it is projected that elderly are expected to make up one in every four of all New Zealanders. In order to keep them healthy and mobile they need to do light exercise for up to half an hour a day. An easy and cost efficient way to do this is a short walk but this can be stressful on their body. They often need to break their walk up into manageable distances with small intervals to rest.

Currently the councils provide some public seating. These do prove useful for some of the population but for the elderly they are not always ergonomically adequate for a quick rest or placed frequently enough around rest homes and retirement villages where the elderly population is the most concentrated.

To accommodate for these problems a well engineered and ergonomic seat has been designed. The Wanderest is a seat or leaner that is attached to existing lamp posts situated around rest homes and retirement villages. It has been designed to attach to Circular or octagonal lamp posts because they are at equal intervals along the footpath. Other similar structures could also be used to attach the Wanderest.

The Wanderest is designed for anyone but particularly an elderly person who is taking a walk and needs to take a quick rest, to catch their breath or rest their body before carrying on. If every lamp post along a street had a Wanderest it could be looked at as a goal for the elderly, to make it to the next resting spot. Because the Wanderest can be used on many different structures it means the seat could be also used in other indoor or outdoor public areas where you often have to wait for short periods of time such as banks and hospitals.

The Wanderest is a versatile concept which can help the lives of many elderly. Essentially it is one seat which is made up of three identical panels. Extra panels can be added to make a larger seat. The panels are shaped with a slight downward slope on the sitting part and are installed at a perching height. This is so the elderly can slide on and off easily avoiding the need to bend down as far as a conventional seat. To install the seat a stainless steel strap can be bolted or clamped to the lamp post.

The panels are injection moulded form a recycled Wood Plastic Composite. This sustainable material is durable, cheap and rot resistant. This makes it ideal to use for outdoor furniture