Yes, New Single Family Homes Should be Universally Designed

Yes, New Single Family Homes Should be Universally Designed

As we celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the ADA, I see an incomplete landscape. Courageous, brilliant, and bold activists like Judy Heumann, Ed Roberts (and many others) have given people with a disability civil rights and a level of inclusion that seemed unreachable 40 years ago. However, there is still a lot to build moving forward: today in the US, two thirds of people with a disability are unemployed. Healthcare expenses are out of control, and it is difficult (at best) to find a private residence that is accessible.

Most developers and new home owners either have no idea of what universal design is, or follow the mantra: "It's my private home and I'll do what I want." Indeed, there is no law or obligation to make single family residences beneficial to a wide population, and I’m not arguing that there should be.

I'm here to make the case that a new single family residence in the US should follow universal design principles, because following Universal Design (i.e. UD) will ensure that all new private homes are at least partially accessible to people with a disability. If universal design is taught, learned, and embraced, the natural result is that private homes will be more accessible to a lot more people. These people are not just the ones with a disability. They are people who are aging and prefer to live at home and families who want to see their loved ones enjoy more freedom and independence.

People in the construction industry often conflate universal design with accessible design. UD is the broader umbrella that looks at accessibility as one of its key design ingredients. This mistake shows in arguments made against accessibility: it costs too much; it looks industrial and detracts from the beauty of the design; and I'll never get injured nor do I know anyone with a disability, so it doesn't apply to me.

This article is the first in a three part series. In part one, we'll dive into the concept of UD and show how it includes accessibility as part of its process. Part two will tackle the first two objections to making private homes accessible. Part three will focus on the final objection to making private homes accessible and weave together the insights we’ve gained through this exploration.

I don’t just want to influence the construction industry. I want to empower people with a disability (and their families and friends) to make a stronger case for why all private homes should embrace UD. UD WILL improve our homes, not just for people with a disability, but for everyone who understands that to be human is to embrace the beauty of our fragility.

What is Universal Design and how does it Relate to Accessibility?

One of the most prominent influencers of UD is at the University of Buffalo’s Center for Inclusive Design and Universal Access. UD is “a design process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation.”

A group of multidisciplinary experts first wrote the Principles of UD in 1997! 1997!!! The experts wanted to go beyond the limited prescriptions of accessibility found in the ADA and other laws, which focused on the bare minimum needed for accessibility.

These experts took a broad range of human ability as their standard for designing products, buildings, and human living spaces with the idea to include as many people as possible. By taking accessibility as a starting point, UD invites us to ask: how can we make things better for a wider range of people?

A commonly used example of UD is the curb cuts on our sidewalks around the country. While the curbs started out to give people using wheelchairs access to the streets, it turns out that it helps people in crutches, walkers, skateboarders, people pushing strollers -- a wide variety of people.

The University of Buffalo lists eight design goals for UD, which helps make outcomes measurable, and understandable “within the constraints of existing resources”:

1- Body Fit: meant to accommodate a wide range of body sizes and abilities. Are some bodies older or more prone to injury? Do some bodies use assistive technology, like wheelchairs, to navigate the world? 

2- Comfort: keeping demands within desirable limits of body function and perception. The idea is, we don’t want to overly strain people’s bodies, or make things so awkward for certain people to use that they are stigmatized.

3- Awareness: how easy is it to perceive critical information in order to use? An example might be a hidden button to flush a toilet, or a light switch that turns on by moving your hand in a circle three times with no clear indication of how to operate it.

4- Understanding: are things intuitive and easy to use? A button that says “Ignition” or “On” to turn on your car is fairly intuitive.

5- Wellness: seeks to promote safety, health, and avoidance of disease. How safe is a beautiful flight of stairs to a second story in a home with no handrails? How calm and relaxed do we feel in a living room where there is so much echo, you can’t even understand what someone is saying 6’ away from you?

6- Social Integration: are we okay with our homes being spaces that people who use wheelchairs can’t access and will never feel welcome? Does it feel good to have our homes reflect a sense of segregation vs being a place where all are welcome?

7- Personalization: the ability to adjust to your preferences by providing choices. I think of this as flexibility: some people may want their phones to alert them whenever a new email arrives.

8- Cultural Appropriateness: “Respecting and reinforcing cultural values and the social and environmental contexts of any design project.”

UD opens a whole new vista to improve how we function, feel, and participate. Diving into the objections in the next article will help bring these realizations to life.