About Roark Design
Roark Design strives to lift the quality of design in the disability space through user-first empowering products.
Doing what's best for the user vs easiest for the manufacturer.
Listening to users and their therapists.
Producing lasting and dependable products.
Manufacturing in South Australia with the utmost care.
Providing value for money when assessed over a product's life.
Improving the design of assistive technology.
Roark Design adheres to the following principles
Meet the founder
Roark Design’s founder, Tom Carr, is a mechanical engineer, tinkerer, traveller and paraplegic. He believes that design is nowhere more important than in the disability space, where he designs simple empowering products.
Prior to Tom’s accident in 2017 he travelled spontaneously for leisure and work. After becoming a paraplegic he became anchored by his shower wheelchair. Additionally he didn’t like the fact it tipped when he leaned forwards and his feet interacted with the castors when manoeuvring. He was given a second folding shower wheelchair - it was 22kg and took 10 minutes to assemble/disassemble, which required tools.
It was an invitation to design one good shower wheelchair to replace both. That took him 2 years and 9 iterations and was the beginning of Roark Design.
About Roark Design
Design is fundamentally about making something that enables someone to do something they previously couldn’t. It’s about empowering the user, whereas bad design disempowers the user or others. It follows that an area where good design matters most is the disability sector. The best strategy to design great products is to make them as simple as possible, but no simpler.
After Tom’s accident he became aware that products in the disability space were designed with less care than those in the rest of the medical device world. Looking at the disability products in his life he could see the decisions manufacturers had made were because it was easier for them rather than better for the user.
Roark Design was started with the aim of lifting the quality of design in the disability space. The better the design of assistive technology, the better we can live.
