What is Universal Design ? Special Needs Checklist for Home Design

Warm, inviting, spacious, and full of natural light. When Anna and Paul Whipple first saw their Murrieta, California, house in 2001, they fell in love with all those qualities.

Not until they actually moved in did the active sixtysomethings realize that those same qualities also made it a house where they could live comfortably their entire lives. If they needed a wheelchair or walker someday, they would still be able to cook in the kitchen, bathe safely, and get in and out of the house and every room easily.

“I fell in love with the kitchen because it has this huge island that was in the middle of things and easy to get around,” says Anna. “The design ideas are so subtle that you don’t walk into the house and think, ‘I am in a handicap house.’ ”

The house was not designed just for those with disabilities. Universal design—used in the Whipple home—is the practice of designing products and environments that can be used by all people, whether young or old, short or tall, able-bodied or disabled.

Find a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist in Your Area: The National Association of Homebuilders (NHBA) provides a listing of local NAHB Remodelors™ Councils that can assist you in finding a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist in your area. Click on your state for a local address and phone number.

Done well, homes with universal design features do not look very different from other houses or cost much more. The wider doorways and halls, which make the home negotiable for wheelchair users, also contribute to its spacious feel and make it easier to move in the big-screen TV or roll luggage out to the car. Varied-height kitchen countertops are comfortable for both adults and children. And people with limited mobility can come to visit and stay longer because they have access to toilets and baths they can easily and safely use.

“What I was designing for people with special needs is just good ergonomic design for everybody,” says Susan Mack, an occupational therapist who collaborated with an architect to design the Whipples’ home. “Eighty-eight percent of my buyers are able-bodied buyers who just love the open floor plans and the ergonomics.”

Mack, whose California consulting company is Homes for Easy Living Universal Design Consultants, and Greg G. Bucilla III of Bucilla Group Architecture in Irvine, California, pleased more than the Whipples with their design. In 2001 they won the Gold Award for Aging in Place in the National Association of Home Builders’ Best of Seniors’ Housing Design Awards competition. Mack won the award again in 2004 for a home she collaborated on for the Jerry McClain Company in Newark, Ohio.

Chances are good everyone who wishes to stay as long as possible in a home will need universal design elements

Despite the advantages, universal design has yet to catch on with baby boomers. And when it comes to Hispanic baby boomers, “people are missing the boat on this,” says James Johnson, a professor who studies demographic trends at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The concept of being empty nesters is not in vogue with the Hispanic household.”

Homes that are designed so multiple generations can comfortably live together are especially important to Hispanics. “The unique characteristic of Hispanic families is to want to maintain close contact, both emotionally and physically, with family,” Johnson says.

Most baby boomers say they want to stay in their own homes the rest of their lives, but they seem reluctant to make the needed changes, experts say. “There is this stigma that somehow you are going to make [the home] look institutional,” says Vince Butler, a remodeler in Clifton, Virginia, and a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialists (CAPS) instructor.

Mack and more than 500 other design professionals, home remodelers, and builders—all trained as CAPS in a National Association of Home Builders program developed with AARP—are hoping to change that.

And many boomers don’t seem to want to think about the possibility of declining health that comes with age. “There is one attitude out there … called denial,” says Greg Miedema of Dakota Builders in Tucson, Arizona. “They will say, ‘Well, that sounds nice for somebody who needs it, my parents, but I don’t need it.’ ”

Yet chances are good everyone who wishes to stay as long as possible in a home will need universal design elements. They might be needed even sooner if an accident occurs or an aging parent suddenly moves in. Those are the times when most CAPS contractors get calls from caregivers desperately seeking help in adapting their homes.

Universal design fixtures and features include doors that are wider and have levers rather than doorknobs

Contractors, however, would much rather incorporate universal design as a matter of course in new homes and remodeling projects when the changes can be included simply, seamlessly, and inexpensively.

It costs little to add universal design features during construction of a new home or a remodel. It costs substantially more to do it later. Widening a doorway to 36 inches when a room is being framed might cost $6 extra for a bigger door. Doing it later could cost $650, says Mack.

It is easier to raise outlets and lower switches when the walls are being framed rather than afterward. And adding an elevator can cost $50,000 if the space has to be added outside the home, says Butler. But if the house were planned with square closets on top of each other that could easily be converted to an elevator shaft later, the cost is closer to $20,000, the Virginia remodeler says.

Properly adding grab bars in showers or tubs so they can support substantial weight can cost hundreds or more if the tile has to be removed and wood installed behind the tile backer board to create a sturdy surface to screw the bars to. If wood blocking or plywood is added behind the drywall during construction, grab bars can be installed later and in a variety of places at little cost.

Even better, go ahead and install grab bars in every new tub and shower, contractors say. They are available in stylish finishes and many colors, and they don’t look much different from towel bars. Grab bars can be helpful to many people—small children, pregnant women, or someone with a sprained knee or broken bone.

“Heck, they are helpful when you come home after having too much wine,” says architect Jeffrey Anderzhon of In\Vision Architecture. The firm’s office in Omaha, Nebraska, works exclusively on designs for older adults, including retirement housing and assisted-living facilities.

In the bathrooms, universally designed showers, with no curbs to step over, can look luxurious and differ little from the big showers installed in upscale homes.

Other universal design fixtures and features include doors that are wider and have levers rather than doorknobs. The path to the front door is usually flat or gently sloped and free of steps. Thresholds at doors are either nonexistent or very low. Carpet is scarce, but that’s now common in interiors anyway. Natural light, along with a lot of other sources of electric light, is used to make the interiors brighter for those with diminishing vision.

Kitchens often feature countertops at different levels and pull-out chopping boards. Occasionally, knee space is created underneath the sink or cooktop to allow someone to cook or do dishes while seated. Pocket doors that match the rest of the cabinetry conceal the knee space when not in use.

‘I have the perfect house’

The Whipples originally thought the extra features in their home were nice. But they soon realized they were more than nice. About a year after they bought the house, Paul's brother, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a cane to get around, moved in.

“What a blessing, because our house was just perfect for him,” Anna says. “He really found getting around in the house was quite easy.”

The home’s curved, gently sloping pathway to the sidewalk, lined with wrought iron rails, became part of his exercise routine. When he moved in, he could barely make it to the street and back, Anna says. When he moved out a year and a half later, he could make 10 round trips.

The couple also found the spacious house perfect for entertaining because it was accessible to friends with declining mobility. “My husband and I are very agile and young-seeming for our age, but we have a lot of friends who have mobility problems—from bad knees to arthritis,” Anna says.

Before one Christmas party, an invited guest called ahead to ask if she would have trouble getting into the home. The woman, who had been declining invitations for fear she wouldn’t be able to safely navigate when she got there, was happy to see friends she had been missing.

“My heart was warm when I could say to her: ‘I have the perfect house,’ ” Anna says.