Intro and Objectives
Transcript:
Music Introduction
Hi everyone, and welcome to this course on Design Guidelines for Universally Accessible Homes. I'm your host, Sarah Pruett. We've put together this course to help educate you about universal design and its importance to implement in all areas of the home. We're glad you're here, and I hope you learned something new.
Course Introduction
Welcome. I'm Sarah, occupational therapist and the program director at The Universal Design Project. I'm excited you've chosen to join me today. Whether you've joined me for any of my other courses or not, I'm really happy to be able to dig into some universal design guidelines for homes. Some of you listening may have a deep understanding and knowledge of the benefits of UD and others are interested in learning more.
But whatever your knowledge level, I'm sure you will learn something new to apply to your life personally or in your professional work. Universal Design is often misunderstood and confused with other design approaches for people with disability. Rightly so because it was coined to help make spaces more inclusive for people with disabilities.
But what many don't understand is that UD doesn't put a big focus on designing only to make it easier for people with disabilities, but it makes life easier and convenient for everyone and prepares environments for the future when most likely someone will need to use that environment that has an impairment. You may be wondering why this is important to consider and why we have taken the time to do an entire course about how to design homes.
Don't people go to school for that? Well, yes they do, but that perspective of combining the concepts of how people function in the design of a home isn't often considered, and we feel it's pretty important. A home environment is supposed to be supportive of your needs and the needs of your family at all ages and abilities.
Important Factors About People + Design
Home should work for you and not work against you. But what has been happening for years in our housing stock within the US is that there hasn't been a connection made between important factors when considering all the different types of people that can use a home across the house's lifespan.
There are three big variables that need to be considered, and then we need to look at the interaction between all three. The variables are people, the design of the home environment and tasks done there. The first factor is considering all the different characteristics about people mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Easy enough right? Well, actually it's pretty difficult because we need to consider all the different types of people out there. This includes those who have perfect abilities or those whose bodies might not work 100%. Also, consider how impairments can impact someone's life. To do that, we need to look at the second factor of the design of the home environment.
That's how the features there, including the measurements and their configuration match or don't match the abilities of the person. The third and final factor is essential in this entire puzzle, and it's considering the tasks people do at home. Not only is it important for knowing the tasks that people do in their home, but how they're done.
We know people use the bathroom or wash dishes, but considering how people do those things that might use a mobility device or have limitations in hearing, or vision, or understanding information and how they approach those daily tasks in the home is important information, so we can then create an environment that has a good fit between their abilities to increase the outcomes of successful completion of the tasks they need and want to do throughout the day.
Unfortunately, the way our homes have been designed and continue to be designed year after year, decade after decade, do not account for the needs in our communities that would be better addressed from a better fit between all of those three factors. Our team at the UD project has taken account of that good fit and considered all the different people in our population so they can perform those tasks around the home with more independence and safety. We feel it's going to take more than our own voices to advocate for a different way to approach all home design and I'm excited to share that information with you in hopes that you can continue to share that with others and make a difference in your own homes and communities.
What the Course is About
So what will this course be about? I'm going to do a deep dive into the typical areas of the home and talk about specific features and measurements that will be helpful for implementation of universal design in a new build or in a home that might be easily modified. It's not uncommon to find home builders or designers approaching accessibility with the idea that if we put a few features here and there, it'll make a home universally designed. But in contrast, we feel that is important to make sure every person has the ability to use all of their home to the best of their ability. Sprinkling in a few functional features here and there isn't going to make a home truly usable for everyone to take care of the things they need to do every day.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
Learn what it means to consider all people in home design and how design choices can be a good fit for a wide range of people.
Understand the difference between a home with universal design features and a universally designed home.
Consider tasks that people do in all areas of the home, how they do them, and how utilizing universal design guidelines for homes improve safety and independence to those that live or visit there.
You're gonna explore universal design guidelines for every area of the home and how they can apply to new construction or easily modified existing spaces.
You will see examples of universal design.
Lastly, have a chance to reflect on what you've learned.
Creativity in the Guidelines
I do want to make sure you know that I'm sharing this information for people to utilize creatively in their own projects.
I'm not going to tell you exactly how each area of the home has to be structured. There is lots of flexibility in the design as long as you make sure you're including these features of universal design. And yes, there are a variety of ways to do it. So how is this course set up? We've designed it in a way that you can watch individual videos or lessons of the content at your own pace, video by video, and you can even check off each lesson after you complete it to keep track of your progress.
How the Course is Structured
I will guide you to do that after each lesson. If you're really getting into the groove and you wanna watch them all, you can binge watch the course in one sitting too. I also hope you'll be able to pull this information up whenever you need it in the future to utilize for yourself or share with others.
In each lesson, I will go through the typical barriers that people experience in their homes regarding being able to take care of their daily tasks and then pair that with specific guidelines, including measurements that would be helpful for eliminating those changes from the beginning of a design and creating more function in each space of the home.
Up Next
Before we get into all of the design details, I'm going to help you understand the philosophy behind implementing UD into an entire home and what it really means to design for all people. I'll see you in the next lesson.