Housing and Community Development

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Committee on Design and Housing Knowledge Community .
-------------------------------------------

What, exactly, is Universal Design? It's easy to see how places that are user-friendly for those who use wheelchairs can also work for those pulling luggage or pushing baby carriages. But a bathroom for someone who can't hear? A kitchen for someone who can't see? A closet for someone with cognitive limitations? Living and sleeping and working places for people getting old? We design universally, we (try to) sell our clients on the idea, but do architects really get it?

These were the questions on my mind before writing The Accessible Home: Designing for All Ages and Abilities (The Taunton Press, and with a foreword by Michael Graves FAIA). In writing, I traveled around the country talking with homeowners, architects, designers and builders whose work is featured. There are 35 homes designed for, by, and with people with all kinds of disabilities. These include families, couples, and individuals living with MS, AMN, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, polio, TBI, SCI, hearing loss, and low vision/blindness, as well as people aging in place (or intending to). These homes are all around the continental USA (and include Canada and Mexico). They comprise farmhouses, suburban houses, city and country homes, new houses and old ones, single-story and multi-story houses, lofts, vacation homes, and pre-fabs. All were created by architects or designers.

The book has 250 color photos and 25 floor plans - it's enlightening, inspiring, eye-opening. If you haven't yet seen or read the book, please do. It will change the way you think about homes, and the way you work with your clients. Really.

-------------------------------------------
Deborah Pierce AIA
Pierce Lamb Architects
West Newton MA
-------------------------------------------

Good questions raised. The standards for disabled we are more accustomed to now, by and large, address the needs of wheelchair users. The list of disabilities grows, especially as the population lives longer.  How to address hearing or vision loss in the residence will be challenging, and maybe more difficult in public spaces. It is appropriate that architects address these concerns for safety and welfare, and important that in the process they not lose focus on providing commodity and delight, still an important line on our calling card. Looking forward to this seeing this publication. 

Allen E Neyman, AIA 
Rockville, MD

-------------------------------------------

It sounds like your book is an interesting trip through houses built or adapted for special purposes.   I trust that accessibility is not the focus suggested by the title but rather the interesting solutions to special problems.  What to call that other than good design is hard to fathom.

I think, as architects we design our buildings to solve particular problems of a particular user.   If they are blind, deaf or cognitively challenged, the solutions should be different.  So I question that "universal design" is a desirable goal.  That seems a sort of one size fits all approach.   We know a house designed for  a growing family of five may not work as well 30 years latter for two.   We forget that moving people  is often the easy, practical solution.    

Do we really want to advocate that all houses could or should fit all users and  problems equally well?

-------------------------------------------
Peter Carlsen AIA
Carlsen & Frank Architects
Saint Paul MN
-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 03-22-2014 12:24
From: Allen E Neyman
Subject: The Accessible Home

Good questions raised. The standards for disabled we are more accustomed to now, by and large, address the needs of wheelchair users. The list of disabilities grows, especially as the population lives longer.  How to address hearing or vision loss in the residence will be challenging, and maybe more difficult in public spaces. It is appropriate that architects address these concerns for safety and welfare, and important that in the process they not lose focus on providing commodity and delight, still an important line on our calling card. Looking forward to this seeing this publication. 

Allen E Neyman, AIA 
Rockville, MD

-------------------------------------------

That is the classic argument of whether a one-size-fit-all flexible shed approach or the highly made-to-order customized solution approach is more appropriate. Ultimately how much of which is appropriate is a client decision taken after having well informed inputs from her/his architect.and support consultants. This deliberations have to be made in conjunction with the consultant team. There is really no absolute right and wrong.

Kid returning to live with parents, given the prohibitive cost of housing these days, could mean the house design for 5 would work again with little or no alteration until the arrival of grand children. Circumstances changes, value changes and so will the design brief. It is the client's absolute prerogative to go one way or the other.

If there is any hints of a future shift to a specific direction it is well worth the effort to cater for it now. It may not mean installing the full suite now but just thoughts and provisions that would make future installation/ adaptation a breeze rather than a pain to implement

On the other hand, the book could be an interesting resource for those who are designing facilities that serves the general public, be they the average man in the street, handicapped, blind or visually impaired, deaf or cognitively challenged...

-------------------------------------------
Geok Ser Lee Intl. Assoc. AIA
Owner
GSLA
Irvine CA
-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 03-24-2014 19:37
From: Peter Carlsen
Subject: The Accessible Home

It sounds like your book is an interesting trip through houses built or adapted for special purposes.   I trust that accessibility is not the focus suggested by the title but rather the interesting solutions to special problems.  What to call that other than good design is hard to fathom.

I think, as architects we design our buildings to solve particular problems of a particular user.   If they are blind, deaf or cognitively challenged, the solutions should be different.  So I question that "universal design" is a desirable goal.  That seems a sort of one size fits all approach.   We know a house designed for  a growing family of five may not work as well 30 years latter for two.   We forget that moving people  is often the easy, practical solution.    

Do we really want to advocate that all houses could or should fit all users and  problems equally well?

-------------------------------------------
Peter Carlsen AIA
Carlsen & Frank Architects
Saint Paul MN
-------------------------------------------

One size does not fit all. The water fountain standard particularly bugs me. Both standard heights are a strain on my back. Counter heights, in general are too low for me. Handrail heights are problem for children and so they never use them.  Fortunately I have no disabilities yet and children take tumbles down steps and usually survive.       

While we should not presume that one size fits all, many details that we use for the ADA benefit us all, accommodate us all with greater safety and comfort. Pushing a baby stroller in contemporary public places with curb cuts, proper distance between doors in series, and doors with a better balance of closer resistance, for example, is a "unviversal" improvement.

But heights,of handrails and fountains are our best attempts at one size to fit all, that are a pain in the back for a lot of folks. There's more work to be done.        

-------------------------------------------
Allen E Neyman
Rockville, MD

-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2014 20:45
From: Geok Ser Lee
Subject: The Accessible Home

That is the classic argument of whether a one-size-fit-all flexible shed approach or the highly made-to-order customized solution approach is more appropriate. Ultimately how much of which is appropriate is a client decision taken after having well informed inputs from her/his architect.and support consultants. This deliberations have to be made in conjunction with the consultant team. There is really no absolute right and wrong.

Kid returning to live with parents, given the prohibitive cost of housing these days, could mean the house design for 5 would work again with little or no alteration until the arrival of grand children. Circumstances changes, value changes and so will the design brief. It is the client's absolute prerogative to go one way or the other.

If there is any hints of a future shift to a specific direction it is well worth the effort to cater for it now. It may not mean installing the full suite now but just thoughts and provisions that would make future installation/ adaptation a breeze rather than a pain to implement

On the other hand, the book could be an interesting resource for those who are designing facilities that serves the general public, be they the average man in the street, handicapped, blind or visually impaired, deaf or cognitively challenged...

-------------------------------------------
Geok Ser Lee Intl. Assoc. AIA
Owner
GSLA
Irvine CA
-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 03-24-2014 19:37
From: Peter Carlsen
Subject: The Accessible Home

It sounds like your book is an interesting trip through houses built or adapted for special purposes.   I trust that accessibility is not the focus suggested by the title but rather the interesting solutions to special problems.  What to call that other than good design is hard to fathom.

I think, as architects we design our buildings to solve particular problems of a particular user.   If they are blind, deaf or cognitively challenged, the solutions should be different.  So I question that "universal design" is a desirable goal.  That seems a sort of one size fits all approach.   We know a house designed for  a growing family of five may not work as well 30 years latter for two.   We forget that moving people  is often the easy, practical solution.    

Do we really want to advocate that all houses could or should fit all users and  problems equally well?

-------------------------------------------
Peter Carlsen AIA
Carlsen & Frank Architects
Saint Paul MN
-------------------------------------------

The ADA requirements are a one-size fits all set of requirements.  I have talked with apartment owners who are required to make a certain percentage of the units ADA compliant.  They tell me that the last units they rent out are the ADA compliant ones.  They say even the handicapped do not want to live in a full ADA compliant unit.  If those are the only units left, they usually have to discount them in order to rent them.


-------------------------------------------
D. Cook AIA
Tipp City OH
-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2014 20:45
From: Geok Ser Lee
Subject: The Accessible Home

That is the classic argument of whether a one-size-fit-all flexible shed approach or the highly made-to-order customized solution approach is more appropriate. Ultimately how much of which is appropriate is a client decision taken after having well informed inputs from her/his architect.and support consultants. This deliberations have to be made in conjunction with the consultant team. There is really no absolute right and wrong.

Kid returning to live with parents, given the prohibitive cost of housing these days, could mean the house design for 5 would work again with little or no alteration until the arrival of grand children. Circumstances changes, value changes and so will the design brief. It is the client's absolute prerogative to go one way or the other.

If there is any hints of a future shift to a specific direction it is well worth the effort to cater for it now. It may not mean installing the full suite now but just thoughts and provisions that would make future installation/ adaptation a breeze rather than a pain to implement

On the other hand, the book could be an interesting resource for those who are designing facilities that serves the general public, be they the average man in the street, handicapped, blind or visually impaired, deaf or cognitively challenged...

-------------------------------------------
Geok Ser Lee Intl. Assoc. AIA
Owner
GSLA
Irvine CA
-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 03-24-2014 19:37
From: Peter Carlsen
Subject: The Accessible Home

It sounds like your book is an interesting trip through houses built or adapted for special purposes.   I trust that accessibility is not the focus suggested by the title but rather the interesting solutions to special problems.  What to call that other than good design is hard to fathom.

I think, as architects we design our buildings to solve particular problems of a particular user.   If they are blind, deaf or cognitively challenged, the solutions should be different.  So I question that "universal design" is a desirable goal.  That seems a sort of one size fits all approach.   We know a house designed for  a growing family of five may not work as well 30 years latter for two.   We forget that moving people  is often the easy, practical solution.    

Do we really want to advocate that all houses could or should fit all users and  problems equally well?

-------------------------------------------
Peter Carlsen AIA
Carlsen & Frank Architects
Saint Paul MN
-------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------
Ann Dunning AIA
President
Ann M. Dunning, AIA, Inc.
Chagrin Falls OH
-------------------------------------------
I have a suggestion for all architects considering doing access projects.  Spend a few days in a wheel chair, on crutches, and notice all the roadblocks that well meaning planners put in the way. I've have spent 4 months x 2 times now, and I can truly say that all the parking spaces are down hill, the steps too high, and the distances from one department of the hospital to the front door are impossible.
Most of all the people who are handicapped have to expend so much energy to go thru the maze that it is the best exercise program ever invented.  I know I think differently about those little things that could make life so much easier.






Original Message:
Sent: 03-24-2014 19:37
From: Peter Carlsen
Subject: The Accessible Home

It sounds like your book is an interesting trip through houses built or adapted for special purposes.   I trust that accessibility is not the focus suggested by the title but rather the interesting solutions to special problems.  What to call that other than good design is hard to fathom.

I think, as architects we design our buildings to solve particular problems of a particular user.   If they are blind, deaf or cognitively challenged, the solutions should be different.  So I question that "universal design" is a desirable goal.  That seems a sort of one size fits all approach.   We know a house designed for  a growing family of five may not work as well 30 years latter for two.   We forget that moving people  is often the easy, practical solution.    

Do we really want to advocate that all houses could or should fit all users and  problems equally well?

-------------------------------------------
Peter Carlsen AIA
Carlsen & Frank Architects
Saint Paul MN
-------------------------------------------