Transcript:

Terminology

Welcome back. When considering all the different ways to make changes to homes to make them more functional, it's easy to get confused with all of the different terminology. I'm not gonna go deep into that for this lesson, although I do in our course on The State of Accessible Housing in the USA with terms like ADA accessibility,

Aging in Place, Visitability, Easy Living, and Barrier-Free Design. But I really want you to understand the real benefit of universally accessible homes throughout the community. Universal design dramatically reduces the frustrations and barriers of using a home. The objective of universal design, thinking about it as a design process, is to provide universal accessibility.

In other words, the goal is to design a home that just works as best as possible for as many people as possible, regardless of whether a health condition that affects function is present or not.

Successful UD Outcome in Housing

At The Universal Design Project, we believe that the entire home should be universally accessible. That's what we consider a successful universal design outcome. This means that anyone who lives in or visits a home can access all the areas like bedrooms, bathrooms, different floors and outdoor spaces, as well as do things that they want and need to do in those areas, like making their bed, taking a shower, putting their kids to bed upstairs, or entertaining friends, just to name a few.

Some people just like to slap the universal design label on the home, even if it only has a few accessible features or a few accessible spaces. Why is this problematic? It's misleading. Sometimes people think they are implementing UD if a few features that provide additional accessibility exist like wider doorways, lever handles, rocker light switches on lights. They decide to make sure there's at least one accessible bedroom on the main floor, but the upstairs and the backyard, they're not accessible. Picking a few universal design features or adding in some additional functional spaces is helpful, but it doesn't mean the entire home is functional for everyone.

The goal should be to create usability and independence for the broadest range of people across the lifespan in the entire home from the littlest members of our communities like kids and their parents, to aging adults who want to live in their home long after retirement, or anyone in between who may have been born with a disability or have a life-altering health event that resulted in some form of impairment.

Impact of Universal Accessibility on the Community

Implementing UD now has an impact on so many. A fully universally accessible home, meets the needs of people who currently don't have disabilities, but at the same time provides options for those who are at risk for problems in the future with a progressive illness, those who have trouble completing daily tasks now, those born with an impairment, and those who have an unexpected life-altering event. When we focus on housing that meets people's needs at the beginning of the design process, it simply is smart design. We meet people's current needs while preventing the occurrence or evolution of barriers that can impact their function in the future.

Barriers to Implementing UD

You may be wondering, well, why don't people just make universal design the standard way of design? Well, we agree. However, there are lots of barriers to seeing more UD in homes, including funding, education, awareness, legislation, and building codes. We believe that providing education and guidelines for implementing UD into housing is a great start.

Up Next

Keep watching because we're gonna start to peel the layers back to each area of the home and explain some of those universal features and measurements, show you some examples of UD in homes, plus discuss how UD positively impacts the ability to do what you want and need to do throughout your home, no matter the circumstance.

The first area of the home I'll discuss is parking, and I bet you'll never realize how much detail goes into parking your car and getting inside. I'll see you there.