Good news architects!! Say goodbye to Neufert and fruitless internet search to scale people. IA Collaborative, a design consultancy from Chicago, has started a Kickstarter campaign to reintroduce Humanscale once more to architects. Humanscale is a collection of handy design models which comprise more than 60,000 measurements fitted to people of every size, age, and situation, fit to use as a scale tool.
Courtesy of IA Collaborative
IA has worked closely with Henry Dreyfuss Associates, the original creators of Humanscale templates from the 70s and 80s. Their templates are currently out of print and rare to find, but since they are beneficial to architects and historically valuable, a copy still exists at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Now IA is giving these templates a second chance to be of use to architects and designers by updating and releasing 3 booklets and 9 data sets.
Courtesy of IA Collaborative
“Never before or since has there been such a complete and usable compendium of human factors data. Each page is a master class in information design, and this was before computer layouts,” said IA Collaborative about Humanscale on Kickstarter. “After finding so much value using Humanscale during the prototyping process in our own design work, we wanted to make them available at a reasonable cost to people everywhere”.
Courtesy of IA Collaborative
“Design today has more influence than ever before, and it shapes our most important experiences. Humanscale has the power to ensure those experiences are human-centered. Every designer and architect should own a Humanscale manual, and I’m proud to be a part of making that possible”, said the Founder and Chief Design Officer at IA Collaborative, Dan Kraemer.
Courtesy of IA Collaborative
Each of the 3 booklets includes 3 templates adapted to many facets of the human body intended for architectural design. The booklets also go through various topics like seating standards, body dimensions, and disabled access guidelines. The designer can utilize the “data selector” that revolves around each of the templates to collect the correct data according to size, age, or motion.
Courtesy of IA Collaborative
“Within the 60,000 bits of data Humanscale offers, there are data points like measurements, square footage and traffic flow for home, office and public space design – and much more,” said Kraemer. “Never before or since has there been such a complete and consolidated reference tool for anyone designing spaces and environments.”
Courtesy of IA Collaborative
The Humanscale Kickstarter campaign is expected to wrap up on the 25th of August aiming to make a profit of $137,800. Every set of the triple booklets will cost $79. The discounted copies IA Collaborative is offering on their page have been sold out. The agency hopes to introduce Humanscale 2.0 which would contain more data and present a substantial addition to the digital world.
