This custom house designer prefers this term for custom house design respectful of the aging process - “adaptable" design.
Still, there’s a forest of nomenclature through which to wend your way, including but likely not limited to –
Universal design
Accessible design
ADA standards for accessible design
Life-cycle housing
Easy-access
Flex housing
Assistive technology
Lifespan design
Barrier-free design
Smart housing
Broadened access
Renewable home
Secret accessibility
Inclusive design
Aging in place
The forever house
Universal design lite
Whew.
The essence –
Design a custom house respectful of its residents’ physical aging process, because if they’re not old already, chances are swell that they will be.
Less colorfully –
Modify the conventional habitable structure in recognition of occupants’ diminishing physical function – potential or actual.
Comment: This designer prefers the descriptive “mature" over “old". We’re talking a state of grace, a status and role, an achievement, a sector in the circle of life, and not a social, generational, or pejorative pigeonhole.
Adaptable custom house design is about three groups
Those who prepare for a time when they'll be living in the same place long enough - so-called "aging in place" - to reasonably expect some significant physical diminution.
Those who already experience that for which the former group is preparing.
Those who take into their household someone in either of the former two groups.
Before The Architect custom designs for each of these groups. It’s not tough; it’s thoughtful, mindful, reconsiderate. Good design done well can readily include good adaptable design.
Of very special note to custom house designers specifically in regard to adaptable house design –
Listen closely to clients’ interests and intentions.
Disclosing and discussing physical challenges comes easy to a few and difficult-to-all-but-impossible for more than a few
Approaching opacity, they’ll only be hints –
A function-specific product suggestion
A grateful reply to something you’d do anyway, say, the 5’ diameter open area in a bath
Questioning door width more than once
Absolutely rejecting steps between house and finish grade
Pointed concern about cabinet or countertop height
Wipe out conclusory anticipations, clichés, really –
Not all mature folks walk poorly
There are plenty of other burdens that befall the human condition – its senses, its capacities, its propensities.
You’ll never get it designed all right –
People change
Products proliferate
All eventualities cannot be accounted; however . . .
You will get it designed better if you pay attention to what you're doing
Designing for adaptability trumps remediating for adaptability, stomps it flat
The former conserves money, time, physical disruption, functionality, expectations, stress, sanity
The latter tears it up
Attention to custom house designing for mature or maturing residents is organic: the more mature, the more attention.
In my opinion, organic doesn’t mean standardized, straightforward and systematic; it means messy, nonlinear, systemically differentiated as in one size does not fit all.
While circumstances in adaptable custom house design improve as between thought and practice, disconnects abound.
Such discontinuities are not limited to custom house designing, let alone for the mature
This designer reckons it in other realms of design, including but not limited to house wiring, residential lighting whether for aging eyes or not, residential fire safety, house foundation insulation, house framing and closing in, kitchen design, aspects of bathroom design, ventilation, sterility of architectural style, and so forth.
Some notions of adaptable custom house design pervade house designing – the stuff you see and hear about day-to-day – for example, levered door handles, ramps, passage widths (sort of), roll-in showers (so California), and showerbath seats.
Other notions are developing, but still murky in this designer’s opinion, for example, facets of kitchen design and design more widely focused on us only shuffling stiffly into the Fall and Winter of our years
Still other custom house designing tasks and techniques are not often if ever addressed
Floors
Doorways passage shall be flush to ½ linear inch saddle, or threshold, including water dams at the foot of garage floors, where the vehicle door seats - means covered porches are happily here to stay
Finish flooring shall be preferably hard – wood, masonry tile, etc – and not soft – most carpet
Unobstructed pathways
Shall be continuous throughout a space (and, of course, between spaces) and
Shall be not less than 32 linear inches wide, not just clearspans at passage doorways
Coefficient of friction (COF)
Shall be in the 0.5 range, and not less, and,
Selectively, shall be in the 0.6 range especially on the exterior, as a covered porch deck
Floor height shall not abruptly vary more than ½ linear inch, as by a rug or flooring transition, not just at thresholds
Cabinetry
Natural reach and not stretched reach shall be emphasized (see Architectural Graphics Standards, 10th Edition , Ramsey/Sleeper in this vein)
Lower storage shall be preferred to higher storage
Countertops may be deepened as an assist in storage space resolution
Drawer storage shall be preferred to door-controlled shelf storage
Shelves shall be preferably open
Shelves shall be preferably sliding
Kitchen storage design metrics shall be adjusted accordingly
A pantry directly accessible from the kitchen shall be included in storage metrics at the rate of 1.5 times capacity from counter level down and 1 times above, adjusted for depth
Countertops
Heights shall be varied to include 30 linear inches above finish floor level, and sited in at least part of major work areas in kitchen and master bath
Bath countertop may be, in part, raised above the conventional 30 linear inches above finish floor level
Design shall include sit-down, open-below counter in work area of both kitchen (preparation sector) and master bath and, preferably, laundry
Both kitchen eat-in and adult bars may be at conventional sit-down heights (so California)
Community and private spaces shall be on the same floor level, while noting that residential elevators are increasingly affordable and minorly space hogish
Comment: Adaptable bathroom design and bathroom construction is presented at length in the author’s House Construction Design Standards
Stairs construction design
Stair treads shall be lighted (low-voltage, as below nosing, along stringer casing, at sidewall) or stair treads otherwise distinguished one from another by color or both
Stair risers shall be 6 ½ linear inches approximately, equally ±¼ linear inch – emphatically on the exterior
Stair treads shall be 11 linear inches approximately, equally ± ¼ linear inch – emphatically on the exterior
One stair riser and one stair tread shall sum to 17 ½ linear inches approximately, whether exterior or interior
Stair wider than 3 linear feet shall have continuous stair handrails on both sides, whether interior or exterior, including winder stairs
Stair landings shall be as wide and at least as deep as stair tread width
Electricity
Utility electrical receptacles shall be 15-18 linear inches on-center above finish floor level
Electrical switches shall be 36-40 linear inches on-center above finish floor level
Electrical switches shall be sited within 12 linear inches of a passage and physically unobstructed
Residential lighting shall be
Layered
Non-glare
Gradually transitioned
Not less than 40 foot candles overall
Not less than 70 foot candles in kitchen, bathroom, and laundry interiors and at exterior of passages to interior
Not less than 100 foot candles at kitchen, bathroom, and laundry countertops
Comment: The matter of residential lighting for aging eyes is addressed summarily in two articles on this website and the author’s website and at length in his House Construction Design Standards.
Motion sensors shall be your friends, particularly in complex intersections of traffic
Pressure switches shall be your friends, particularly in wall switch access-limited spaces, as in smaller closets
Electrical switches shall be dimmers wherever possible, noting Lutron owns multiple-way switch dimming in this designer’s opinion [and noting also that the designer does not fully appreciate rocker switches with the itsy-bitsy rheostatic slide control]
Electrical switches shall be lighted between Master Bedroom, Master Bath, Kitchen and major passages to the exterior
Walls shall be selectively fortified for grab bars whether or not immediately installed
Appliances - clothes washer, clothes dryer, diswasher, and the like
Units, notably laundry units, shall be front-loading wherever possible
Units may be set upon pedestals or lowered when wall-hung to increase access by natural reach
Units shall be preferably accessible by drawer below countertop
Units shall be preferably accessible by side-opening door above countertop
Comment: This house designer notes that at the upper end of kitchen appliances, there are adaptable-sensitive features and increasingly, including but not limited to cushioned closing of heavy oven doors that'd otherwise could take more than you've got to keep it from banging closed, automatic sealing of refrigerator/freezer doors without having to make that for-sure push that you might not always make, sealed rangetop burners for hugely easier cleanup, etc.
Colors shall be light. Varied. And light.
Surfaces shall be finished in other than glossy. All surfaces.
Sure, sure. There’s more to this than has met your eyes so far
Nevertheless, there’s enough here to make the point that designing an adaptable house is
Devoutly to be wished at the get-go and not in retrofit
Is a considered collection of materials and methods including
The obvious – stuff everybody in the know knows
The not so obvious – stuff you get from media
The individuated – stuff that’s really about you
Before The Architect designs and drafts custom home plans nationwide. Its principals Ralph and Jean Pressel have worked hands-on together since the ‘60s in custom home design, drafting, consulting, plus building and repair in every major trade.Their plan sets are extraordinarily detailed; their clients' active involvement throughout is essential.
Home Design Standards - Home Building Standards 4Q08 Edition e-book at 823 pages and the website www.beforethearchitect.com at nearly 1000 pages of text and illustrations are enterprises of Before The Architect’s principals.
Disclaimer: All information on this site is provided for informational purposes only! By no means is any
information presented herein intended to substitute for the advice provided to you by any health care or other professional
or organization.
tweet this!