By Victoria Stone-Meadows
A student from Hampton Park has been named as a finalist in the Young Australian Design Awards as part of the Good Design Awards.
Christine Lugtu has designed a wearable solution to seasonal affective disorder (SAD) as part of her industrial design course through Monash University.
She drew inspiration for her design from her drive to help the people around her who suffered from mental health disorders.
“I got the inspiration from the people surround me, mostly family and friends, that suffer from mental health disorders,” she said.
“I wanted to research more about it because I didn’t know much about mental health disorders.”
It was through her research that she learned about SAD and came up with the idea of a light-emitting garment that helps treat the depressive symptoms of SAD.
“I came across a treatment called bright light therapy that cures 80 per cent of the symptoms of SAD,” she said.
“Bright light therapy mimics the sunlight and people that have SAD are usually exposed to less sunlight, so my hood mimics this therapy to stop the depressive symptoms.”
Ms Lugtu found that the current market of bright light therapy products mainly consisted of lamps that mimicked sunlight that people used in isolation.
“I thought instead of that, it would be better if people could wear it outside and it would be more social and much more portable,” she said.
“I found through my research that people who are suffering mental disorders often suffer alone so I wanted to make my solution more portable so people can have the benefits of social interaction to counter depressive symptoms as well.”
While Ms Lugtu said she was very excited to have been selected as a finalist for the award, her drive to design this solution came from a more personal place.
“I didn’t make it to win an award; I made for myself to say I did something and tried something to understand and help the people around me,” she said.
“That was the most important thing.”
The winners of the Young Australian Design Awards will be announced at a black tie gala night on Thursday 8 June, at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney.
