D4L: Exploring Design for Longevity
Description
What if living longer meant living better-more creatively, meaningfully, and connected to others?
D4L: Exploring Design for Longevity invites readers to rethink aging not as decline, but as a design opportunity. As longer lives reshape how we work, learn, and plan, traditional age-based models of retirement and aging no longer reflect lived reality. This book introduces Design for Longevity (D4L)-a human-centered, systems-oriented approach to imagining and shaping purposeful life journeys across evolving life stages.
At the heart of the book is the D4L Unclock Framework, a flexible design tool that reimagines time beyond linear timelines. It explores three pillars-longevity, service, and system-through the lenses of design, technology, and society. The resulting relationships help readers uncover connections between personal well-being, social infrastructure, and long-term planning. Rather than prescribing fixed solutions, it encourages reflection, exploration, and adaptive thinking over time.
Blending personal stories, design research, and real-world projects from MIT, IDEO, and global collaborators, Sheng-Hung Lee presents practical frameworks, tools, and case studies-from Longevity Planning Blocks to LongevityTech cities and phygital experiences. Written for designers, researchers, educators, students, and anyone curious about living longer with intention, D4L offers inspiration and guidance for designing lives, communities, and systems that honor longevity as one of the defining opportunities of our time.
This book is a open access book.
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Person
Sheng-Hung Lee, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Urban Technology at the University of Michigan and Director of the d-mix lab. His work focuses on urban systems, service innovation, and Design for Longevity (D4L)-exploring how individuals, organizations, and societies navigate life transitions across services and systems. Trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lee's doctoral research introduced a hybrid design-research framework that integrates constructivist grounded theory, causal loop diagrams, and design ethnography to examine behavioral and systemic dynamics in longevity planning. His work bridges human-centered design, systems thinking, and real-world experimentation, connecting research with practice.
An active leader in the global design community, Lee has served as a Board Director of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) since 2020 and joined the World Design Organization (WDO) Education Committee in 2023. He has held editorial and leadership roles, including Guest Editor of DIID (2024) and Track Co-Chair of the 2024 Design Research Society Conference in Boston. His work has received international recognition, including IDEA Gold, iF Gold, Braun Prize, and Red Dot Best of the Best, and has been exhibited worldwide at venues such as Dubai Design Week, Venice Design Week, and the Cooper Hewitt Museum.
Previously, Lee was affiliated with MIT AgeLab and MIT Ideation Lab, where he co-taught courses on global aging and the built environment and contributed to initiatives across sustainability, governance, and professional education. He has taught and lectured internationally in Europe and Asia. Lee holds a PhD in Human Behavior and Service Design and two master's degrees from MIT, and undergraduate degrees in industrial design and electrical engineering from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.
Content
Introduction.- Longevity Economics.- Service-driven Experience.- Design for Longevity.- Service Encounter.- Research Methodology.- Qualitative Approach.- Quantitative Approach.- Tangible Artifacts: Longevity Planning Blocks (LPBs).- Experimental Design.- Tech-based Service Experiment.- Touch-based Service Experiment.- Pre- and Post-Experiment Surveys.- Semi-structure Interview.- Observation and Fieldwork Notes.- Photos or Videos Documentation.- Data Analysis.- Data Synthesizing and Learning.- What is Design for Longevity (D4L).- Learning from Failure.- Conclusion.