Linda Kafka
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Since 2006, Linda has been a valuable and trusted resource for the residential interior design industry. She is an advocate for Inclusive Design (also known as Universal Design) and is one of Canada’s leading experts on living in place and wellness in the home. As a Certified Living in Place Professional (CLIPP) and a Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS), Linda offers an unparalleled understanding for creating “forever” homes for clients of all ages. Her passion is to support, educate and train those about the importance of creating beautiful and safe spaces that are tailored towards inclusion, accessibility and wellness.
Linda is also Founder of the LivABLE Environment Conference. A global event focused on driving change in residential design to support Living in Place & Wellness in the Home.
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Linda Kafka.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Welcome to the Enabled Disabled podcast. I'm your host, Gustavo Serafini. I was born with a rare physical disability called PFFD. My journey has been about self-acceptance persistence and adaptation. On the show, we'll explore how people experience disability, how the stories we tell ourselves can both enable and disable, how vulnerability is a foundation for strength and why people with disabilities can contribute more than we imagined. I hope that leaders, companies, clinicians, families and friends will better understand our capacity to contribute to the world and help enable us to improve it.
Kafka is a residential interior design sector educator, resource and connector. She's one of Canada's top Goto living in place, industry experts and speakers. Linda is also the founder of Livable Canada, an international conference that brings together architects, designers, builders and manufacturers who are invested in creating healthier, more inclusive, and more empowering spaces. Linda's commitment to learning, connecting, and improving our built environment is remarkable. It's rare to meet someone as dynamic, engaged and empathetic as she is. Linda doesn't just talk to talk. She cares deeply about things like accessibility, aging in place, and universal design.
I speak with Linda in depth about what's missing in the interior design and architecture community, but we also get into why Linda cares so much about improving it. I urge everyone who hears this episode. Please share it with any friends or colleagues who are designers, builders or architects changing the way we design and build the spaces we live in, benefits everyone. Linda and her network have the knowledge to teach and empower the design and architecture community in ways they're not even aware of. I'm also really excited to announce that I will be giving two presentations at Livable Canada this month.
It's from October 27 through the 29th. It's a virtual event. I encourage you to get a ticket by going to www. Liveablecanada.com.
Thank you. All right, Linda, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me today. I'm really excited to be here with you.
Thank you. So let's get started. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You are from Canada, which is awesome. You're the second Canadian Julie was on the show as well. So I know you have a lot of interest that we're going to get to and a lot of experiences. But how did you sort of through school, what drew you to design and what drew you to construction industry and all these trades?
Well, you know what? I have a really slightly different path that I had taken. My original passion back when I was deciding on my career was actually to go into architecture, and I was extremely passionate about it. And I had, like all of us, a caring, loving parent. But back in the 70s, my father said to me he was in the construction industry, and he said, Linda, I don't know if architecture is a place for a woman in the 70s. Perhaps you should look at other alternatives as opposed to getting into architecture.
And I was actually on top of my building construction class. I was top of my drafting and design class, and I loved it. And so I took his advice, and I ended up actually in a profession that he had no idea what it was. It was marketing. And so I spent most of my career in marketing, but always having that desire and passion to really be where I wanted to be, which was in a built environment. And it wasn't until 2000, it was actually about 2006.
I should say I started to participate or I should say volunteer with the Toronto Society of Architects, and it got me back on track. And then shortly, three years later, I ended up being hired by a company in Toronto that needed me to have the revitalization of what we would call a design center. So for your listeners, the design center is typically a collection of various showrooms. They're usually open only to the spray they'll showcase product. And so ours was a residential design center. And it was in that design center that I started to realize or to identify where I really wanted to write out the rest of my career.
And having done over 400 events and working with the designers at the design center that came to visit there, a lot of them were starting to talk about the idea of aging in place. And as a marketing person, we're always paying to pay attention to the changing demographics, so critical in every business. If you're going to market and really stay on top of things, you got to pay attention to the changing market. And so what was happening is we were starting to see information coming up in the Canadian market from the US on that changing demographic, we were experiencing an older population.
We weren't addressing the needs of that in Canada, particularly we had a housing stock. 80% of our housing stock did not meet the needs. A lot of the consumers didn't want to find themselves living in retirement homes. And I found this to be really interesting and start to draw me in. And when you're dealing with an aging population, you're dealing with challenges, progressive conditions. People have mobility challenges. But it also kind of layered on to my own personal life because when I was back in my 20s, my cousin, she was actually in a motorcycle accident and was paraplegic and really struggled with the built environment.
And I watched my mother at home even in the ninetys and the 2000s, and she started to have challenges. Walking today is in a wheelchair. But back then she was using her hands and knees to crawl up the stairs and drag that laundry basket. So many of these things started to resonate with me. And so I felt really comfortable almost moving towards looking at how can I support this industry, whether it's through education or knowledge or sharing ideas. And so looking at the Canadian market, what was unfortunate was that we were not really focusing on it.
And so I had to go to the States to get this. And so one thing just led to another. When you start talking about aging in place, what ended up happening was you started looking at people with progressive conditions. You started looking at people with disabilities, and then it opened up channels in the accessibility world. It opened up channels in the universal design world. It opened up a whole bunch of conversation. But it was the lack of training that I was getting in the Canadian market.
So the more I uncovered this, the more I found training out there. And so it kind of brought me to where I am today in 2021 with a tremendous amount of knowledge, taking several courses, having a greater understanding. And I am probably more passionate today than I ever have about how important it is for us to change our residential built environment, so we don't have to adapt to our environment regardless of our circumstance, regardless of our age or our size, that our environment really adapts to us as our needs change.
So that's kind of my life. In a nutshell. I love marketing, and I really truly love the idea of working with the trades and helping them with best practices on improving residential design.
So two things that really jump out at me are one your ability to make those connections, and two, your hunger for knowledge and getting those credentials. You're a certified living in place professional, certified aging in place specialist. Your passion for education is beyond most Peoples.
Yes. At the design center, what I found is we worked with design professionals. We worked with accredited interior designers, architects, builders. Everyone has different levels of knowledge. And honestly, if you're going to be the way I looked at it, if I was going to be creating events, talking about this, really bringing people together on it. If you don't understand the basics, especially as we talk about universal design, if you don't understand the language, meaning what's the difference between accessibility or people with disabilities and people with progressive conditions?
And if you're not understanding all of these adaptive housing, visitable housing. How do you have conversations? How do you create events around that? How do you support and bring people together as a community if you don't understand it? So the idea of education was just that I could really understand what the design build community were doing. But what I found was many of them had just their extent or their education was really just in universal design. And it was probably one course that they took throughout their whole training, educational training.
And that shocked me. It really, truly shocked me because so much of it was about other aspects which are just as important. But there was so little amount giving or knowledge given to the design, build professionals on the built environment and how people move within those spaces or how they work within those spaces. When I say work, I'm talking about predominantly residential and not work for a work job related. But how do we work within the kitchen? How do we work within the bathroom? How do we work with the laundry facilities or getting up and downstairs?
Like, how do we interact with our environments? And I was really shocked how little we have on that. So that's important to me.
What would you say with these? Let's say architects and designers, they might run into one course here and there. What do you think the two biggest issues are with lack of implementation, right. Because I think you were in a previous conversation you had told me, for example, that universal design is applied around. What was it, 1% 3% of all private residences in the North American market? Why do you think that number is so low?
I think it's because we don't think about the built environment and how it actually can impact the people that live within it. We tend to kind of go to the creative side, meaning the color choices or the finishes or how that environment looks as opposed to how that functions for us. And I think we really lost sight of that forum follows function to some degree. And also, I think that over the years or at least my experience has been that we didn't want to talk about people with disabilities.
It was a small percentage of the market. It didn't matter or didn't care. I don't want to say it didn't matter. It really does matter. And I don't want to assume that people don't think it doesn't matter. But I think that overall it was just never in the forefront. It was just easier to kind of brush it off to the side. For me, it really resonated when I was with my cousin and just trying to get her into the house. It was really challenging for an able bodied person to try to maneuver somebody that was in a wheelchair into the house.
But it was also shameful. It felt really shameful. And it felt like, oh my gosh, like one of the neighbors going to say when they see us struggling up the stairs. And I felt so bad for my cousin, and it's also kind of like, out of sight, out of mind. Let's just kind of hide it. And I can't speak on behalf of the design community. But I can tell you that statistics and I have researched this and they're hard to find, but you can find them that less than 1%.
Our designers in North America use less than one or about 1% of universal design principles in their design. And I think it's because they don't think about it. Maybe they don't have clients that have that need, but ultimately, it actually benefits everybody. And so we often just think about the individual that lives in the home. But we forget about the people that might come to visit that space, like my cousin, who can't come into my home and never has, because my home has absolutely no universal design principles in it.
The hallways are too small, the doors are too small, the stairs are too many to get up. So instead we find other places. We just find other ways to accommodate her. And it's really sad. It's really sad because she doesn't get to see that part of my life, and I don't get to experience her there. And we're always having to make accommodation. So I think that the times are changing as we see more and more, and I hope that we will see more and more designers embracing this and recognizing the value that it brings to overall.
And if you look at the residential home, it really hasn't changed since the 1050 right after the war, we created one style of home and we just looked at it and yeah, sure, the laundry rooms are being changed now, instead of being in the basement, they're on the top floor. Well, stairs downstairs up doesn't really matter both ways. You're doing stairs. And I look at, you know, we should be looking at the main floor and how we can utilize that space better. So that allows individuals to access different areas without having to do the stairs or ultimately looking at elevators, which were never discussed in residential, but now seem to be top of mind for a lot of designers.
Yeah.
Let's talk a little bit. I want to get back to that. But for people who don't know what is the aging in place market and that subset of knowledge, like, what is it trying to do? What are the goals? What's the methodology?
Well, it was actually the training course that I took has been around for over 25 years, and it was written and run by the National Association of Home Builders in the United States. Canada has just now are finalizing through the Canadian Home Builders Association Adoptive Home training program. But the whole idea of that was to really help the home builders or remodelers in the States. We call them renovators in Canada and the States to call them remodelers to help modify homes to allow individuals to live in place at home.
The problem is as soon as you say, agent in place with anybody, you get that hand in your face. And people say, I don't have design trade say, I don't have clients like that. My clients don't want to be associated with age. So there's a whole issue right now on ageism and all of that which we have to take into consideration. Nobody wants to feel or be stigmatized by anything, including age. So that originally started in the States, it was really designed to really there to help the remodelrs with great information in terms of how to modify a home, or they were looking back 25 years ago of how to create a zero threshold shower and zero step entry and widening doorways.
All of those principles very much had a lot to do with universal design, but maybe where universal design is kind of the widest range, this just targets a little bit more at people with aging challenges. So we're looking at mobility. We're looking at your eyesight diminishing, so you're increasing your lighting, you're looking at the loss of balance or stability. You're looking at the floor as your gate is different or changes as we might shuffle on the floor and removing transitions and looking at different ways to create a safer environment, ultimately to reduce falls, to give independence and reduce falls.
So what's happening now is that we were progressing away from the word aging and looking at living because we recognize this is actually good for everybody, from somebody young to elderly. We're looking at people that even a woman that is pregnant can benefit from the different concepts and features that you find in aging in place. So what we're seeing is a broader AHA moment, like, hey, if we're doing it for an older population, maybe we should be doing it for everybody and then all of a sudden it's like, Well, why are we doing it so that people with disabilities are also included in this?
It makes sense to me. The key theme if I was to market, it wouldn't. If aging is like you said, nobody wants to be labeled that way, but it's just extending independence and promoting wellness.
Right.
So exercise is always important that changes as we get older. But really, there's a sense in which the less strain we put on our bodies in the built environment. Generally speaking, like, it's preservation and strengthening through safe and effective exercise, as opposed to I have to climb a ladder to get up to the top shelf and I have to lift £30 down from it to get what I need from the laundry room or from the kitchen or whatever it is.
You make a good point because it's typically statistics. Typically it's women that have problems with rotator cuffs. So if we're constantly lifting up high and pulling heavy things down or where your microwave is placed and you're lifting out hot heavy bowls or plates out of the microwave and they're up too high, it's all about ergonomics, too. It's interesting. My son's girlfriend happened to come over this weekend and we were doing an old family traditional recipe. She happens to be short in stature. I'm taller and my son is much taller, and all three of us really were challenged at the counter height in my home.
Now, when I moved into this home, I was a little bit more restricted. We chose the location over the amenities that they had in this place that really helped us function well within the space. So we don't have multi level counter heights in the kitchen. But I felt I jokingly said to her, Do I need to get you a step stool so you can step up to reach to kind of need the dough. And then my son was joking because he was like, Well, this hurts my back.
So I'm getting out of this task. You do it. Mom and I started thinking, okay, I'm an average five. I'm a five, six, probably average height. And the counter height worked for me. And I'm thinking about the other two people that were taller and shorter in stature had really challenges. And so why should they why are we not thinking about everybody? Why are we thinking about the average person? Because the average person doesn't exist? Not anymore. I think that what we're seeing out there is that the, AHA, the recognizing of our environment should adapt to us regardless of what our needs are not the other way around.
And when you think about it, our homes are our biggest investment. And yet we don't challenge anybody that's working or designing those spaces to create those for us. And there's a great amount of value. I think if my place adapts to me, I'm going to stay in it longer. I'm going to be happier here. There's a wellness component to it. My parasympathetic nervous system, which is your calm, relaxed, is always going to be in that serotonin kind of space, as opposed to cholesterol. And that fight flight and freeze.
Oh, my God. This environment is not working for me. And I think that's something that often isn't discussed. Or maybe it's the blending of science and design plus the aging population, plus the advocacy that the Ada has been doing for the last 30 years. I think all of this is coming together. And now we're starting to realize, hey, wait a second. It's not going to cost us much to make these changes, especially at the new build stage.
It's like a self fulfilling prophecy, because the more people do it, the more manufacturers are going to come out with innovative products. And the more it's just going to pick up steam. And we're going to realize, hey, this is actually really beneficial for even if you don't say everyone, but for 80% or 90% of the population, it's going to have a benefit. It builds that momentum. But I don't know. I get the sense that with my company, we work in the home technology space, and we work with a lot of designers and builders and architects.
And I get the sense from the designers and architects and the builders that if they're already successful and they're doing what they're doing, they're mostly repeating that process with every new client. And so their question is, why should I change, right? What's the need to change?
I love that. But when I said to you earlier as a marketing person, we're always looking at the changing demographics. Okay, there's nothing wrong with that. Sure stay on that road and then see what happens and see where you are in 510, 15 years down the road, every time we have a crisis, whether it's a crash in the economy like we experienced in 2018 in the housing market. Oh, gosh. Right now, obviously, the one that we're dealing with right now with Colvin, what happens is that everything kind of explodes here.
We are merely going down the road. Then a crisis hits and everything is kind of turned upside down or inside out or whatever the people we've been following and the companies we've been following, there are no leaders all of a sudden, everybody's looking to go on a new road. And this is the time of opportunity, the greatest time of opportunity, to really look at your business and to look at what could we be doing? Where is everything going? And like I said earlier, from a marketing perspective, we look at the demographics and we look at how to target it.
So I'll give you an example. We have an obesity problem in the world. It's no secret that some of the US States in Canada included have a greater percentage of people with obesity issues than others. But if you were a car company and you were small, compact car, you're not going to market that car in those States or those provinces in Canada that have a large percentage of the population with obesity. So you've got to understand what's happening out there with the consumer and always kind of relook at your business plan and your business model.
And see, is it aligned with the consumers that we want? And if it is, then you continue on. But let's look at it. We've got 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, and we will for the next several years in Canada, where tens of the population and statistics show that we've got about a thousand you've got countries all over the world aging population in Japan, you've got countries like Australia that have adapted to that aging population. The Nordic countries do an excellent job at it. If you look at the UK, a lot of these countries have adapted and looked at their changing population and are catering to that need.
And so if we're not doing that, you will get less behind. And so you're either an early adopter in a marketing in marketing or you're kind of coming in mainstream or you're at the tail end. And so for the designers, by paying attention to what's happening with that not just aging population, but with the rise of accessibility. And I should say, the rise of awareness with people with disabilities, it can really help shape your business and show you opportunities, especially ones that are areas that are underserved.
I hope that makes sense.
It does make sense.
To me.
What's really interesting about the way you position yourself in your career is that you're that person who goes and gets knowledge and studies the different fields and then connects the dots for the design and building industry.
Right.
Which is there's probably a handful of people like you in the world. It's remarkable that you've positioned yourself that way.
I think it happened organically. But you know what I've also been doing and I've been talking to lately science and design, evidence based design. And so when you mentioned earlier my credentials as aging in place, living in place, I also went through the recamps and accessibility training, which is from the commercial perspective. And then most recently, I received my wellap accreditation and buildings are certified. People are accredited, as they always say at Lap. But for those of you not familiar, please go to wellcertified dot com and you'll learn about it.
But why I got involved and I started to look at wellness was everybody, regardless of your situation, your age, your size, your circumstances, everybody deserves to be living in a well environment. And what's happening right now is that science and designer coming together. So when you say about connecting the dots, oh, my gosh. Try having a conversation with somebody that life in the Sciences or a PhD level and bring it down to a remodel or a stage or decorator level, or even interior designer. And they talk in syllable words.
And so what I have been doing lately, and I'm really enjoying it is taking that science information that we're finding out about Neuroesthetics and Circadian and even Fractals and Olfactory and all these different things, talking to those PhDs and taking that information and not simplifying it too much. But simplifying it enough that it resonates with the residential design build trade. And there's so much that we can be learning from different areas. And science plays a big role. And so it's not just connecting the dots in terms of products and companies that are dealing with people with disabilities or most recently, technology like, look at the talk about the connected home.
Wow. Is that ever, just five years ago or six years ago at the design center trying to talk to designers about the connected home. It was being dismissed. But all of a sudden now having conversations with integrators people like yourself and then taking that information and sharing it with the designers and design build people in a way that they can resonate and connect with them because your language in the connected home as integrators and different roles you play is a little bit different than the language that a designer might use or an architect or a builder.
So it's kind of connecting the dots by maybe understanding the languages and then finding a common ground if that helps, it does help.
Can you tell the audience a little bit about who aren't familiar with it, about what Neuroesthetics is and the research being done with our sense of smell and fractals, just a brief, brief glimpse as to what that's about.
Thank you. So to simplify it we were not born in buildings. Human race was born in nature, if you were to ask, and I'm really simplifying this down now. So if you were to ask most people around you outside of your own home, Where's your favorite place, you often will hear people say, I love going to the beach. I love being at the Lake. I love being in the forest. I go hiking, I'm in my garden. You'll notice a common thread of nature connected. And so neuroscience is really about or neuroesthetics is really about how our environments make us feel and that connection we have to our environments.
And remember, like I said earlier, we have two nervous systems. We have a parasympathetic, which is your calm, relax, serotonin boosting. And then we have the other one, which is fight, flight, freeze and cortisol. And so what Neuroscientist is all about and why we're all talking about it is that it's been around for a long time. We've been talking about it, but we haven't really connected the dots between science and the built environment. And so this might help to explain a little bit. If you've ever been into an Ikea store, you'll hear often people saying, sitting on the furniture saying, oh, I could just move in here.
I could just live here, come back tomorrow, and I'll still be here or sometimes in real estate. When you go and check out a new place, and you'll see, I really connect with this environment subconsciously. You don't know what it is, but it's your subconscious that's telling you what you're connecting for these reasons. And so what neuroscience and neuro aesthetics is doing right now for the built environment is helping the design, especially the design community, actually understand that they can impact the health of their clients more than a medical profession, meaning that if you are creating and designing spaces that people feel comfortable and safe and connected to, and it's got nature's elements of nature to it, meaning bigger windows or the proper kind of lighting for our Circadian system, which is in our DNA, they're going to have a better experience in that environment.
And then you, as a designer, have done your job better than just following a trend that you would have seen, perhaps maybe on a television show or a color trend or whatever. So everything from color, sound, smell within that space, all of it kind of contributes to that. So Neuroscientist is interesting, because back in 2019, for your trade listeners that might know about the furniture in Milan, in Milan, I should say there was a pilot project that took place with Google and Suchi ready already made architects in New York who's a neural aesthetic architect, and John Hopkins.
And what they did is they created three rooms using the same furniture from the same company, but changing out the colors or changing out shapes. And you would walk through with a device that Google had created, and it could measure your responses to those spaces. And after you walk through the three, it will tell you which one of those spaces you were the most calm in. And so the idea of being calm and really feeling that relaxed is good for your overall wellbeing, what they were demonstrating there is that there was a correlation between science and design.
And if we could create environments that are calming and make us feel more connected to them, then we are actually improving people's health because we want to be Proactive versus reactive. So that's kind of that whole thing. When you talk about fractals fractals, if you're not familiar with it, it would be the simplest form would be something like smokelet, a repetitive pattern. You have them in flames. We'd love to gather around the campfire. Or why? It's those fractals that we're seeing, those moving fractals that make us feel so connected.
Trees are a good example.
Leaves everything flowers, nature is there's no right angles in nature and a repetitive pattern in nature. It is your most highest level of neuroesthetics. It's the top of the pyramid there. And so if you can incorporate fractal patterns into your clients spaces. So if you can also create any biophilic, that would be that connection to nature, whether it's wood, grain or plants or water or light or all those elements, your clients are going to have a more relaxed environment to be in. So fractals is something that nobody's really talking about, but you will hear it over the next few years.
And so you'll see it in fabric. You'll see it in wallpaper, you'll see it in flooring, showing up, you'll see it in all different areas, but you need to have an understanding of it and how you can actually talk to your clients about it and why you chose those patterns versus others and Biophilia. It's only I think really about the last ten years we've been talking about Biophilia, but surprisingly, all of this has been discussed and analyzed and studied and implemented in the commercial world. If you look at Apple and what they've done with their building and where you work, they spent billions of dollars to create an environment that really is more positive and supportive and really well for their employees.
Why aren't we doing that for the home?
It doesn't have to cost as much as we think. It's where you really solve that problem is in the design phase, right? It's in the architectural phase. Let's think this through ahead of time. Let's figure out what's important.
Maybe.
Cost is such a I think it's such an overblown objection, right. Because it doesn't have to cost even 20% more if you design it into the space and budget shift.
Right.
So maybe you're going to spend a little bit less on some finishes here and there. Or maybe you have one less room, et cetera. But figure out what's important to you and then design for it well, you know what?
You're absolutely right. Cost is an excuse, I think. Okay. Yes, there's a cost to everything. But then what is the cost? What is the value of your family's health? So how do you put a price tag on healthy, well environments? And I like to think what we look at and some people will say, Well, how does designing with universal design or people with disabilities kind of come into this conversation? How is that? Well, think about that. I keep going back to how spiking our cortisol or spiking our serotonin.
If you have to struggle through 24, well, you won't get through 24 in store with a wheelchair. But if you have to struggle trying to get in and out of spaces and up the front stairs, as you can imagine me trying to bring my cousin and her wheelchair up a few stairs and my family members, all one at the front, one at the back. She's embarrassed. That adds stress to all of us. If we could just create environments that make it so much easier for people to maneuver around or for people that have challenges with their vision or their hearing, or if you do it, especially in the early stages of the new build.
I mean, let's face it, home modification that's going to be a little bit more expensive because we're already dealing with an existing facility and so widening hallways. Okay, that might not be doable. It might be the landscape of where that property was built. There is 15 stairs going up because it's in a very hilly area, and there's nothing you can do about it. But if you're doing new build, it's pennies, it's pennies. And the National Association of Home Builders actually did a cost analysis on this.
And so if we look at, for instance, light switches and outlets, lowering the light switch to make it easier to reach if you're in a sitting position or, oh, my gosh, please, everybody, please raise those electrical outlets up higher off the ground, like 18 inches, 15 to 18 inches would be great, because even though I'm an able bodied person, I'm now struggling with my eyesight is starting to diminish. It tends to really be noticeable when you're in your fortys and I have to bend down. I already feel the aches and pains of bending, and I have to now fiddle and try to find that plug and get it.
We're just ready to plug it in. And I think to myself, I actually talked to a builder about this the other day and he said to me, Well, Linda, he says, it just doesn't look nice that far up. And I'm like, it's not about looking nice. It's about how I function in my space. And half the time those outlets they're hiding behind furniture tables. Anyways, exactly.
That's what I was going to say.
Please make it easier and dealing with your profession as we talk about the connected home bringing an integrator in earlier is so critical, as opposed to trying to figure out after the fact we're moving towards so many devices that are making our lives so much more convenient, and they should all talk to each other, and they should all be integrated to each other. And I know that integrators also have a greater understanding of security measures and things that need to be implemented or put into place for security issues.
So when it comes to cost, really, my question to my clients would be, how do you put a price on your family's wellness? Do you want to have this product that has high off gassing, off VOCs and you're putting formaldehyde and all kinds of toxins in the air that your grandchildren or your children or you are breathing in? Or do you want to spend a few more dollars and have this product that is not going to diminish the air quality within your home? Right.
And for the disability community, how do you know that your son or your daughter isn't going to have a friend who's in a wheelchair or somebody that you meet at work that you want to invite to your home? How can we not have at least the main floor of our home to be accessible for people? I know the estimates vary.
But.
You read between 15% and 20% of the population has some form of a disability now.
And it's increasing rapidly increasing because we are adding that agent population. And those are only the people that report that think of all the people that don't report it. And look at these readers that I'm wearing is a disability. These glasses. So one in five people are challenged with the activities of daily living. He was elderly. I met a gentleman. He was probably in his 40s, and he said to me he had arthritis at the age of eight and he suffered with his whole life. Well, I've never heard of that, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
And so when you're looking at simple things that can be done within your space, but it increases the value of your home or wherever you live. If you haven't thought about it, you should really think about it. And if you want more information, it certainly is out there now. If you Google aging in place or living in place accessibility, home modifications, you are not going to be short on any information out there. There's a ton of information. I think the hardest part is just getting through reading it all.
And especially if you're in the trade, having resources like individuals like myself or yourself is smart business that go to resource that can point us in the right direction and help. Ultimately, we're all in this together. Right? Absolutely.
And I think it's so powerful to think about. And I want to talk about Livable next, but just to kind of tell me if you agree or not, but I look at it as inefficient or almost like a waste of human potential, right. Because we spent so much time in our built environments, we're making our lives more difficult, less healthy, less productive, less inclusive by maintaining a standard of homes that essentially has been around since the 50s. I mean, that's almost to think about how much.
Yeah.
It's just sad.
Yeah. I think this is our time now. And when you think about the Ada being 30 years old and the struggles and trying to implement changes in the building code, the residential sector. Yes, we are. We have a building code for those of you that are not familiar with this industry, but it is very limited in relation to what you're seeing in the commercial sector, and that's changing. And I can't speak to the American market. But I know right now in the Canadian market, the Canadian Standards Association, along with the Canadian Home Builders Association, are actually creating accessibility standards for residential.
And I don't know how long it will take before it would be in the code, but it's coming. It's coming. And organizations like Britannson Foundation that has a fantastic training program on accessibility. Yes, it is strictly for the commercial space. And oh, my gosh, when people are building those environments, they tend to build to the minimum code. Again, it's budget and all of that. If we can just do it to the minimum, then check that box off. We've done it. But the design build, people that work in the design build sector have the power.
They truly have the power to change this and to really move it forward. That's what we need to rely on. And that's why I spend a lot of time advocating in the trade sector. And I have to tell you, I have been hit with a lot of rolled eyes, hand in the face, please. Like the squirrel. Like, really do I have to listen to Linda, tell us again, but every day I speak to people that are starting to sit up and take note on the value that this brings by improving our residential environment and making it inclusive.
And some people get kind of get hooked up on the words like, oh, but I don't have clients with accessibility, or I don't want to deal with people with aging. Ultimately, what we're doing is we're really giving people independence, so they're not having to rely on somebody else to help them within that space, and we're giving dignity. We all deserve that. And we never know when life is going to throw us a broken leg here because of this being accident or a paraplegic because of a motorcycle accident, God forbid, or a loss of hearing or loss of sight.
We don't know what's going to happen to your life, but if you're in the power to design spaces and to really look at it, we're relying on you as the trades to really take us forward in this because we don't know as consumers, we don't know what we need. I don't know how many times they're going to renovate my kitchen. If this is my forever home, I might only want to do one or two renovations and then that's it. But if I stay until I'm elderly and not want to go into a retirement home.
Boy, I'm going to have challenges if I ever reach up to those top covers or if I'm stuck with microwave over top of the stove or other things that we see that are wrong in this space.
It's almost like we're designing for how long do people typically live in their homes?
Well, it's interesting. You should say that my European relatives not only spend a lifetime in their homes, but they don't flip real estate like we see in North America. Now, I live in Toronto, and if you've been paying attention to the housing market, we have a housing crisis. We have probably in the States as much as we have here. Affordable housing and housing crisis. I've lived in my home for 30 years. My neighbor is probably longer. My mother bought her house in 1967, and she only just moved, and she just moved out in 2018.
So if you do the math, she was there for a long time. I think that what we're seeing is the cost of real estate, the millennial generation that can't afford housing, the restrictions out there, less and less land, more and more people coming into the city. What we're seeing is people not selling their homes, loving your community. All of the amenities are there your dental doctor offices and all the things that you love. You may have relatives or neighbors that you want to be close to.
You don't want to necessarily leave and go into a bedroom community that's going to have less amenities. What I think we're going to see is more and more people wanting to stay in their homes and not necessarily flip them. We're seeing a rise in multigenerational homes, which was never a big thing. I think back in the early 70s, we were doing that in Canada, and then it kind of plateaued, but it's come back now. The sad part is if you look at a lot of the floor plans for multigenerational running, both floor plans are almost exactly the same.
And there's no consideration for that aged family member that's going to live on one portion of that. So I think that we're going to see less and less of the housing turnover. And when it does go, prices are going up and up and up and up.
And yet we design for the now, right? We don't design thinking of how could you put with flexibility? One of the principles of universal design is flexibility.
Right.
So we're designing for a moment in time rather than a period of time.
Oh, well said, absolutely. Well said. And so I think that do I want to be moving when I'm in my 60s? No. Do I want to move again when I'm in my 70s to another house to adapt to my needs? No. And 80s, it gets worse. And do I want to find myself in a retirement home? No. So, no. So what am I doing? I'm going to rely on the trades to educate me. And whoever educates me is going to get my business. But remember, if you are also looking after my cousin, who's in a wheelchair or my mother, who's now full time in a wheelchair, and you take care of their needs and make their life easier, you better believe you're getting all my business, all my business, and my children will probably hire you as a design build professional, too, because we're going to respect the fact that you thought about and looked after our family.
And so when I hear a lot of professionals say to me, Well, word of mouth, I get a lot of business. Word of mouth. Word of mouth is not a business model. It's not reliable because your population, your clients eventually age and move on. Unfortunately, they will pass away. Their neighbors move away. Word of mouth at some point in that business will start to dwindle. And so you need to really look at your business model and what value you're bringing and really incorporate that into kind of connect with today's consumer.
I love that. I don't think I've ever heard that, Linda. I think that's brilliant. Word of mouth is not a business model.
Think about it. And you know how many designers I know that they've enjoyed years of word of mouth? Hey, listen, I had a thriving printing business, word of mouth. And when I moved locations, my business really just died. That was back. My business died. Why? Because my clientele didn't want to go the distance. And word of mouth is like, yeah, Linda's, great. But oh, gosh, you have to drive, like, 20 minutes out of your way to get to her. And so it starts to change. So you can't rely on word of mouth as your business model.
Bring value to your clients and wellness aging in place. Whether that's your thread living in place, people with disabilities or accessibility, you've got all options. You're not stuck in one area only. So you can choose which way you want to go in your business and expand that. And I am seeing more and more designers, especially now interior designers that are incorporating wellness and wellness discussions into their services or other list of services.
Fantastic. Let's talk about what you are doing from an event perspective to help connect all these dots for the trades. Let's talk about the Livable Design Summit. Can you tell us how did you get it started? Where has it been? How have you seen it growing and evolving, and where do you want to see it moving forward?
Thank you. You know what? It actually evolved from the designers when I ran the design center back between 2009 and 2017. And during my time there, I probably created over 400 events on various topics. But I was starting to grow a lot of create a lot of topics around that aging in place, client or wellness or accessibility and so on. And then I was experiencing a lot of these trades that were going and getting their Cap certification or the Clip training or whatever their training was. And then the conversations were coming back to me like, I feel so lonely.
I've got my training. But now I don't have anybody to connect with or I need more information or I want to see some projects. And so it was really built from the industry listening to the industry saying in their different silos, saying, we need more like, could we instead of having one event this week or a month and then another one in a couple of months, could we do something that's a little bit more powerful and significant? So I started off I created a platform called a websitelivablecanada.
Com, but the American way, by the way, L-I-V-A-B-L-E Canada. Com because I really looked at this prior to COLVID as really Canadian Centric website to support Canadians because we didn't have like I said earlier, training knowledge and so on. We're always going to the States, and as much as we love our American cohorts and they are valuable to us, we need something that was a little bit more for our backyard or our own market. And then from that I started the plans. There was always intent to create a conference, and I called it the Livable Environment Conference, and it was meant to launch in May the 6th, 2020.
I think it was I already lost track with Covet and then, of course, Covit hit. And what was meant to be a small 200 gathering event. Toronto Centric ended up going virtual, and we had that in October of 2020. And what ended up happening is we brought all these people from around the world, and they were tuning in from Australia and from Greece and from Denmark and the UK and 65% from across Canada and a large significant number from the US. And then there was 15 builders or designers that came from printed out and I'm like, wow, all of a sudden everybody was sharing part of this conversation.
We decided to keep it virtual. We ran a second one in April, the first one, we had about 465 people come and they showed up. They actually showed up on a virtual three day event. Typically, if you're doing in person, we could have probably done it one day. We started off with 30 plus speakers, and I think we ended up with about 40 speakers the first time and then the second time we did it in April because we thought it was too long to wait a year before we resumed the conversation.
And we had another one in April. And now we're at 500. But when you do virtual events, we kind of capped it at that because it's costly and you have to pay for everybody coming in. So we purchased enough credits for 500, and we were sold out with a waiting list. And people walked away with a lot of AHA moments. And then we did a deeper dive with the science, with people from the science world and neuroscience and a whole bunch of other different topics still keeping true to our accessibility, our design, our wellness threads and business threads of education.
And now I'm working on the third one. And believe it or not, I've actually created a science and design summit that's going to happen at one of the trade shows in a big residential trade show that's happening in North Carolina. It's called the High Point Furniture Market. And so we're going to be in person in October 15 there. And then October 27 29th, I'm back in Toronto and we'll have a third virtual. I changed the name to Livable Design Summit Summit. Usually the bringing together of leaders.
And that's what I see. This is these people that are showing up, whether they're speaking or attending or our product manufacturers are really, truly changemakers. They're change makers. They're showing up, like I said in the marketing, your early adopters, they're the ones that are showing up. They're sharing ideas. They're incorporating it into their business. They're all at different levels. And we've got architects sitting at the table with renovators and decorators. And when I say living sitting at a table, I mean, virtually. But we're actually piloting our very first home tech summit, and we're bringing the integrators there and let's talk about technology in the home.
And so our theme is really about best practices and to improve residential design. But what we're seeing is healthcare. People, like occupational therapists want to join the conversation. And we believe people from the hospital industry that are typically over the years would be designing hospital rooms. They want to be part of the conversation because there's so much to share amongst ourselves and our given professions. And so what I'm doing is just facilitating based on the needs of what everybody's asking, just facilitating a really great network of people that have a lot to share that are actually making an impact in the residential environment, whether it's single family, right up to multi unit.
So as you know, I attended the April conference, and I was blown away, and that's why I reached out and connected with you and Jonathan and a few other people.
But.
It was so interesting because I was going in there expecting one thing, right. Which is okay, there's going to be designers and architects here.
And.
I want to kind of see what's trending and maybe meet some people. And instead I got this whole experience of, oh, my gosh, here's somebody talking about universal design here's somebody talking about accessibility, about wellness, about health. I was not expecting that. And it was like it felt like, okay, this is the place that I want to be. This is what I needed here's an actual community of people that are thinking about these things, like you said, leading innovating and showing up as early adopters. And I felt like I felt very at home.
And it was so beautiful to see that there are people out there who care about these things. And it's not just in my head or it's not just this little tiny minority of people. So I want to thank you for that experience. And I do encourage all of our listeners to at least if it's not sold out yet, sign up for the conference. Consider attending whether you're in the trade or not, even if it's for yourself, for your next home, to learn how to advocate for yourself and how to ask for the things that are actually out there to improve your own experience in your home.
Yeah, you don't know what you don't know. And so when I ran the design Center, I got a chance to sit up. If I wasn't on the board of an Association, I was volunteering and, you know, as well as I know, we all work in silos in our own profession. We're just too busy. We can't cross over. But that was the advantage I had as a design center, managing it. I was on the board of the interior designers for two years. I was on the board of a decorating Association.
For six years. I was volunteering with the Builders Association. I was speaking at the kitchen and bath shows. I was attending Aging and America conferences. And so what I was doing is I was involved with the Toronto Society of Architects and then eventually into the Royal Architect Institute of Canada. But an AIA, the American Institute of Architects. And so everybody kind of works in their own silos because it's very costly to become a member of all these different associations. But because of my role at the design Center, I could get into each one of these.
And the common thread was there was a common thread. They were all talking about, how do we improve spaces in general and how are we looking at it through the lens of accessibility and through the lens of aging and through the lens of wellness. And so when I designed the conference, I thought, I am not putting this as one silo. And remember, everybody is coming in at different levels. I've got architects who have been doing this for 30 years in working in accessibility. I've got people that have never even heard of some of these terms that are coming into.
I've got others that are specializing just in wellness. So everybody is at different levels. So the idea of the conference was to kind of look at the format of Ted Talk, which we all know that we have about 18 minutes attention span, and then our minds start to wander in that, and we don't want to overload you with a ton of information, because that is difficult, too. But we want you to really curate your own experience of this event. In April, we had more than 50 speakers pre recorded, and then we did Product Knowledge, which was live.
And then we brought in panel discussions, which were live to kind of round everything out. And so for all of our events, we've always offered a paid ticket. It's $99, and then you get access to all the recordings for Lifetime. Or if you just want to come in and try it out, or if you don't feel you need all that information, you can come for free. So we don't make this difficult for anybody. We want you to show up. We want you to be there, and that's why we have that free ticket for you.
But in the event that you do want to have all the recordings and from previous offices, then so be it. And we've got a small ticket amount for that. But it's about bringing the community together and about making change and bringing the change makers. We're quite happy that it's moved in this direction and it's going to continue to grow. And hopefully one day we'll have a hybrid where I'm actually working on it right now in 2022. I hope that we can have an in person event along with the hybrid virtual event, but we will never, ever stop doing virtual, because how great is it for us to be able to connect with people in Australia or new Nordic countries and share information?
It's not great or any other. Or maybe you want to learn from us from what we're doing.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's about sharing and learning and making positive changes. So that's what we're all about. We're just changing up the website now and we're a small team. We're not a big organization. I actually do this more of a volunteer out of passion than from a monetary perspective, because you don't make a lot of money in this. But I have to tell you, as I ride out my retirement, I can look back and say I made a difference, and that's what I hope my father is no longer with us.
Before he passed away, he said to me, Linda, he died of cancer in 2007. Linda, I still don't know what you do. And I said to me, See, dad, if you would let me be an architect, he wouldn't have been asking me that question, but instead I became a marketing person. And now you have no idea what I do. But I have to say, I'm quite proud of the fact that I've come full circle and I'm actually using my marketing skills and my connections in a field that I really originally wanted to be in which was architecture.
So for me, it's passion driven. And I think what you'll find is more and more people as we start to age and we move through that changes in our life and our career. We find that doing something that's meaningful and something from a passion perspective really adds value to our own personal lives. And I want to encourage your listeners to really think about what drives you and what's your passion and what's meaningful for you. And don't wait. You might be in a job that you might not necessarily love, but that doesn't mean that you can't get out and volunteer for things that really make a difference in your life.
For me, it's making a difference in other people's lives. So thank you.
You're welcome. And you definitely are. And I appreciate you saying that. So where can people find you? Connect with you? Reach out, sign up for the conference, all of it?
Yeah. So I've got everything on Livablecanada. Com. So it's L-I-V-A-B-L-E Canada. Com. But the American waylivable. And if you go there, you'll find my contact information. I'm there like, hey, reach out to me. If you have questions, I gladly will give you my time and my resources. As long as you ask, I'll be there to help you. And if you want to register for the event for that summit, the Livable Design Summit. Just go on to the Livable Canon of theirs. Ticket registration there. It will take you to our eventbrite page.
You have an option of $99 all in access to all the recordings for a lifetime. Or you can come in for free. We also have the Home Tech Summit, which we're quite excited about and bringing technology and information. And then if you happen to be interested in the Science and Design Summit, we have information on that, too. So three summits have come out of this passion of mine.
You're doing a terrific job, and I hope that it continues growing and you can keep extending your reach.
And.
Ideally, it's going to be, yes, it's a passion project, but ideally it will be financially rewarding and something that you're helping more people with, right. Why not have both if you can.
Yeah. Thank you. You know what? I write up my retirement. I want to look back and I made a difference. There are so many places to make a difference. This is the one I chose to make a difference in. So thank you for having me today. I really appreciate my value, your knowledge and your information. You'll be a speaker at our Livable events. You're doing two presentations, I believe. And I look forward to having you back because you can't just do one presentation. Everybody has a wealth of knowledge.
So bring these people back over and over again to share more and more information. So I'm excited to work with you.
Me, too.
And.
We'Ll keep amplifying and promoting on our end. Because again, I think what you're doing is incredible and super important.
And.
I'm honored that you're here on the show. I'm so happy that we connected. And I look forward to what's next.
We have. Julie, your first Canadian Speaker. She was twice speaking, and I think she's coming back. And so you may have connected with her through Livable. She connected with Jonathan White from the Idea Center at Buffalo University. Another training program should I take? But there's lots of connections, and that's what I'm all about. Hey, connect. Let's let's connect. Let's make this world a better place. Absolutely.
Thank you so much for being here, Linda. I really appreciate it.
My pleasure. Thank you so much.
Helpful links:
Website: https://livablecanada.com/
Connect with Linda Kafka on Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindakafka/