Hampshire’s Spirit of Invention and the Center for Design

In a way, Hampshire’s Center for Design began before alum Colin Twitchell 78F was even a student at the College. In high school, Twitchell was an avid and accomplished outdoor athlete and became interested in engineering and mechanical design, designing human-powered aircraft and customized wheels for road-racing wheelchairs. He furthered his education in adaptive technology at Hampshire, and his Div III was the design of a lightweight, multi-terrain wheelchair. 
 
After graduating with a B.A. in exercise physiology and mechanical design, Twitchell worked as an adaptive equipment designer at the Institute on Applied Technology at Boston Children’s Hospital; founded Ergosport, which facilitates physical therapy outdoors instead of in hospitals; and created seating adaptations for use in canoes and kayaks.     
 
In 1993, then Hampshire President Greg Prince announced an initiative made possible by a major gift from the parents of Twitchell’s classmate Rob Lemelson 78F. Jerome Lemelson, an independent inventor who held more than 500 U.S. patents, and his wife, Dorothy, awarded the College $3.2 million to establish the Lemelson Program in Invention, Innovation, and Creativity. 
 
Twitchell had been directly involved in conceptualizing the overall program and helped the Lemelson Foundation make the decision to donate the funds. President Prince, announced that the Lemelsons “selected Hampshire because of its history of innovation in higher education, and because of the College’s commitment to real and lasting social change.” 
 
The Lemelson National Program included a variety of new courses and project-based teamwork to support students’ entrepreneurship and creativity. Brenda Phillips was hired to as the director, and, fittingly, Twitchell was asked to return to campus to teach adaptive technology. He was also tapped to help conceive of a space in which students could design and fabricate those projects. 
 

That shop, which was originally named the Lemelson Center for Design, would ultimately become simply the Center for Design — or C4D, as it has become affectionately known — one of the country’s oldest academic makerspaces. Joining him in the effort was alum Glenn Armitage 81F, current fabrication shop supervisor, who was tasked with bringing the concept to fruition, physically setting up and running it. 

“No space was provided,” remembers Armitage. “We had to equip the facility and develop use policies from scratch.” In March 1995, its first iteration opened in the basement of the Cole Science Center. The initial dedicated spaces for the current C4D were built and opened the following year, and an expansion was completed in 2006.

In the Center, Twitchell taught courses in adaptive design, applied design for social change, and invention and entrepreneurship. Says Armitage, “Colin guided countless students onto the road of creating their own businesses.” 
 
Armitage worked to ensure that students were involved in the C4D’s evolution, providing ideas that helped shape the space and its offerings beyond just adaptive technology to support for creative projects of all kinds — from blacksmithing to jewelry work to computer design. 
 
The C4D has been praised as having an atmosphere that is exceptionally inclusive and that helps makers of all levels and interests nurture projects. Over the years, students, staff, and faculty alike brought real-world problems to the shop and left with real solutions, ranging from an accessible snowboard, once displayed at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, to a portable gynecological-examination table for use in developing countries. 

The C4D continues as a laboratory for making and learning for all, offering fabrication, machining, 3D printing, glassblowing, welding, electronics, woodworking, and more. Classes, clubs, and individuals experiment with prototyping and inventing to make tools, musical instruments, armor, and sculpture. Many graduates have gone on to use the skills they learned at the Center in their professional lives.
 
Twitchell left the Center in 2016 and Armitage is retiring from Hampshire College this year, after working with, teaching, and inspiring countless members of the community. 
 
A gratifying aspect of his many years at the Center, says Armitage, is “knowing how many students’ experiences were transformational in some way. They often had never had such an opportunity for creative expression and skill development.” He also noted “the pleasure of working with many collaborative and supportive coworkers, and having a great degree of freedom to exercise and expand my skills and creative capacities.” 
 
Armitage is planning a celebration to mark the end of his time at Hampshire and is putting together a network of alums and students who have ties to the Center for Design. If you’re interested, please get in touch with him at gsado@hampshire.edu.