Our Mission
Adaptive Design Association advances healthcare, education, and social well-being by engaging everyone—novice to expert—in building custom adaptations, discovering untapped potential, and nurturing communities that thrive with diversity.
Our Approach to Design
Through our foundational program, Adapt for Access, we serve an average of 100 clients annually, creating everything from seating and standing devices to mobility aids and even motorized ride-on cars modified through switch adapting. Each item is designed in collaboration with clients, caregivers, educators, and therapists, particularly when off-the-shelf solutions are unavailable or inaccessible. For children with disabilities, timely access to the right tools transforms outcomes in mobility, communication, learning, and emotional growth.
Design with Purpose
At Adaptive Design, we ask: Why, how, and for whom did this design come to be?
By centering lived experience, we move beyond one-size-fits-most solutions and engage in design as a holistic, intentional act, one that expresses care in both process and outcome.
Our Values
Our work is guided by values that keep people at the center of everything we create:
- Flexibility and Adaptability: We evolve with changing needs and opportunities.
- Collaboration and Community: We co-create across disciplines and lived experiences.
- Integrity: We commit to transparency, honesty, and ethical practice.
- Inspiration and Passion: We design with joy, curiosity, and care.
- Inclusivity and Belonging: We build spaces where everyone feels seen and valued.
- Centering and Accountability: We prioritize the voices and needs of the individuals we serve.
These values shape everything we do, from how we collaborate to the adaptive tools we build, and remind us that thoughtful, inclusive design can change lives.
Our Vision
Adaptive Design primarily serves New Yorkers in all five boroughs, with an emphasis on communities that face structural barriers to disability services and accessible educational opportunities. Our programs also reach communities across the country and worldwide. Through partnerships with schools, disability service providers, and professional training programs, we help ensure that equitable communication access translates into equitable education access.
Adaptive Design envisions a future where every community has its own adaptive design hub, ensuring inclusion for all.
Our Journey & Milestones
From humble beginnings to national recognition, Adaptive Design’s timeline charts our evolution: how we’ve grown, innovated, and expanded our impact through partnerships, media features, and design breakthroughs.
Here are a few key moments from our history:
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2001 - 2005
Becoming Adaptive Design Association
Creative Constructions became an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit under the name Adaptive Design Association, Inc., marking the beginning of the organization’s next chapter. -
2006-2010
Expanding Our Reach
Adaptive Design relocated to Midtown Manhattan in 2006, expanding its workshop space and capacity. In 2009, the organization’s work was featured in Cory Tomascoff’s documentary, Among the Giants. The following year, Adaptive Design brought its approach abroad through a workshop in Ibarra, Ecuador with Kit Frank. -
2011–2014
Advancing Tangible Symbols
Ellen Trief led the work to standardize tangible symbols with support from the Lavelle Fund for the Blind, resulting in a collaboration with the American Printing House for the Blind on STACS and supporting the annual production of 13,500 tangible symbols.
In 2014, ADA’s work gained wider recognition through a New York Times feature, Using Cardboard to Bring Disabled Children Out of the Exile of Wrong Furniture. That year, ADA also led a workshop in Guatemala with FUNDAL.
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2015–2019
Growing Recognition
In 2015, Adaptive Design founder, Alex Truesdell, was named a MacArthur Fellow. Adaptive Design’s work was featured on PBS News Hour in 2016 in a story about creating custom-fit solutions for children with disabilities using cardboard.
In 2017, Truesdell delivered the Lesley University commencement address, Being Believed in Matters.
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2020–2024
Building a New Chapter
In 2020, CUNY TV’s Eldridge & Co. featured Adaptive Design’s new executive director, Jennifer Hercman. In 2021, ADA was included in Sara Hendren’s What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World.
Support from the Ford Foundation Good Neighbor Committee in 2022 enabled upgrades to ADA’s financial systems, followed by inclusion in the Robin Hood Foundation’s GRIT special initiative in 2023.
In 2024, Made to Learn students received University College London’s Making Good Prize. ADA’s work was also highlighted in a Print Magazine feature by Ellen Shapiro, and the short film Student Making for Students featured the Made to Learn program.
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2025–Present
Designing What Comes Next
In 2025, NYCxDesign launched CareXDesign, and ADA continued its work with FIT Adapt/Evolve.
In 2026, Adaptive Design was named the recipient of the Impact100 NYC Transformational Grant.
Media & Publications
Explore how ADA has been featured and documented across media, academic and design publications. These resources highlight both our philosophy and the people behind the work.
- Using Cardboard to Bring Disabled Children Out of the Exile of Wrong Furniture (New York Times, 2013). Link to article.
- Using Cardboard and Ingenuity to help Kids in Need. (Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2016). Link to article.
- “What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World” Sarah Hendren
- Design and Humanity Intersect at the Adaptive Design Association (PrintMag, 2024). Link to Article.
- Adapt/Evolve in New York showcases "empathy" in designing for accessibility. (Dezeen, 2025). Link to article.
About the Founder
In 1981, Alex Truesdell, met two people that forever inspired her to better the lives of others.
In that year, Alex Truesdell, an early childhood teacher at the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, met Erin, an infant with severe multiple disabilities. A few months later, Alex’s aunt lost the use of her fingers and thumbs following a spinal cord injury. “I had never heard of adaptive technology, but suddenly found myself waking up in the night thinking of adaptations. I rolled towels into bolsters, carved notches in toys, and threaded straps through seat backs.” With the help of her Uncle Frank, a skilled builder, Alex learned to work with all kinds of materials, and together, they transformed ideas and frustrations into highly customized solutions for Erin and her Aunt Lynn.
Over the next few years, Alex set up a small workshop in her basement and made many more adaptations for children on her caseload. Alex was eventually hired full-time by the Perkins School to start the Assistive Device Center. In 1998, Alex relocated to New York City with the goal of replicating the practice and philosophy of adaptive design, and adding an internship program for women re-entering the workforce through Alternatives To Incarceration. Through a great stroke of luck, Alex met Antoinette LaSorsa and they developed a pilot called “Creative Constructions.” In 2001 they established the Adaptive Design Association as an independent nonprofit. In 2015 The MacArthur Foundation recognized Alex's innovative approach to solving a critical global problem and awarded her the MacArthur Fellowship.
Photo Credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation