Industrial - Bachelor
Guard-N-Ease is a rail-mounted kneeling platform that attaches to existing raised garden beds. Designed for senior gardeners, it lets users kneel once, lean on a padded rest, and glide the full length of the bed, reducing the strain of constant kneeling and getting back up, so they can keep gardening independently for longer.
Gardening keeps senior Australians active, purposeful and connected. Raised beds reduce bending, but gardening still means kneeling, shuffling along and getting back up, again and again. For senior bodies, the strain adds up, and many push through the pain or give up the garden altogether. With the proportion of Australians aged 65 and over projected to nearly double by 2065–66 (AIHW, 2026), it’s a growing problem.
Four observations and seven interviews with gardeners aged 60 and over produced 411 data points, sorted through affinity diagramming. Six of seven participants struggled with kneeling or the repeated up-and-down motion, and one described the answer herself: a seat that moves up and down the garden bed. Benchmarking found existing kneeling products were held back by their aesthetics, while observations showed seniors still bending and leaning forward over their raised beds.
This project set out to help senior gardeners keep doing what they love by removing the constant up-and-down rather than replacing the garden beds they already have. The design needed to:
– Let users stay down without the repeated up-and-down
– Give them something to lean on and push up from
– Work with the raised beds people already own
– Put function first, without looking clinical
Using Guard-N-Ease takes three steps. Fold the kneeling platform down. Kneel on the mat and rest your forearms on the padded top. Then glide along the rails to reach the full length of the bed without getting up. When finished, fold the platform away and lift the mats off to store undercover.
Mat sizes and the platform’s height are based on anthropometric data for adults aged 65 to 79, from the smallest women to the largest men. With rails cut to length by the supplier, Guard-N-Ease fits any straight-sided raised bed at least 400mm tall.
Materials were chosen for outdoor life. The trays and connecting bracket are hot-dip galvanised and powder-coated steel, and the folding brackets are laser-cut, press-folded duplex stainless. Corner brackets are CNC-routed Accoya timber, left uncoated to weather to silver-grey. Mats use antimicrobial Dunlop foam with GX12 canvas covers. The HIWIN rails, blocks and stainless fasteners are off the shelf.
The design was developed through foam mock-ups, multiple CAD iterations and SolidWorks simulations to confirm the strength of the steel rails. Scaled 3D-printed tolerance tests refined the fit of every part before a working 1:2.5 scale model was built.
A working 1:2.5 scale model, sanded and spray-painted, demonstrates the glide and fold mechanisms in a real outdoor setting.
Guard-N-Ease keeps senior gardeners doing what they love for longer, without the constant up and down. Designed to feel like garden furniture rather than a medical aid, it fits the beds people already own and is built to last outdoors. Future development will explore an adjustable kneeler height and use in aged care and senior communities.
“Guard your knees. Garden with ease.”
Remy Lewis-Clarke, Designer of Guard-N-Ease.
Remy Lewis-Clarke is a graduating Industrial Design student at QUT, passionate about human-centred products that solve everyday problems for people and communities in need. Skilled in SolidWorks and prototyping, and experienced in KeyShot, Remy takes ideas from user research through to detailed, manufacture-ready designs.
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