Kate Abfalter

Product Design Engineering

I am a passionate and driven Product Design Engineer, who strives to develop innovative, user centered solutions that make a positive impact.

Throughout my degree, I completed an internship at FREO2 where I worked on an oxygen delivery system for children in Uganda. This semester I developed a storage solution for Vitruvian where my design was commended for its integration into the user’s home environment.

I have expanded my technical skills via working at Tricycle Developments for the past 2 years. Where I have worked on wide range of projects learning from experienced professionals who love what they do.

For my final year project, I chose to take a proactive approach to the global ageing crisis, focusing on a product solution to promote intergenerational interaction.

Intergenerational programs across the world have proven to increase both generations wellbeing, physical and mental health and encourage a shift to positive ageing attitudes.

BUILD is a modular building system, developed in conjunction with researchers, users, and aged care staff, to facilitate intergenerational programs that bring together pre-schoolers and older adults in aged care facilities.

The kit contains a set of poles, boards and activity panels that use intuitive actions mimicking fundamental movement skills to create play structures. The sizing and configurations possible enable children to climb up to the adult’s seated or standing eye level. The activity boards target specific cognitive, or physical outcomes and stimulate a range of senses. BUILD facilitates enjoyable interaction, that encourages social connection between generations, while promoting an increase in physical activity and retention of everyday function.

BUILD, User Interaction

BUILD, Built structure

BUILD, Part design

BUILD, Configurations, and Interaction

BUILD Kit

Acknowledgement of Country

The School of Design and Architecture respectfully acknowledges the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and knowledge-keepers of the lands, waters and sky that surround us, where we work, learn, create, communicate and make place. We recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded and this always was and will always be Wurundjeri Country. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who continue to make a better world through design.

We extend our acknowledgement to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, students, alumni, real-life clients, and knowledge keepers, who have contributed to our own education diversity and growth. We will continue to ensure that staff and students respectfully honour ancestral connection to Country and Place in everything that they do.

We are dedicated to the notion of design to make a better world and we acknowledge that making tools, shaping place, sharing stories, making meaning, wayfinding and collaborating have long been and continue to be both central and integral to First Peoples' cultures. We recognize that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ cultural contributions have continued relevance to design practice and commit to: reconciling ancestries of design and contemporary practice as well as pursuing culturally and professionally appropriate ways to engage with a diverse population of colleagues, industries and clients. In a time of treaty-making and voice we understand that there are overlaps between caring for Country and the sustainable production of goods, services, experiences, products and buildings.

Guided by the principles of respect, reconciliation, and reciprocity we undertake to indigenising and decolonising design practice by dismantling colonial structures and challenging biases that have marginalised Indigenous voices and design.

As students of SoDA you will be given opportunities to both engage with and educate yourself in Indigenous creative practices and cultural protocols through a lens of inclusivity, diversity, respect, mutual understanding, inter-cultural dialogue in all aspects of design practice. Indigenous people have been telling stories, making tools, and connecting to Country through visual media, placemaking and place marking for more than 60,000 years and these practices are part of an ongoing, evolving and live tradition.