Universal design is a lot more than just helping those with difficulties getting around the home. It’s about making a home both functional and beautiful in the same moment, because even the homeowners who might require their home to be universally designed, don’t necessarily want it to look that way. In its truest essence it’s really about making the home usable by everyone to the best extent possible without overt specialization being done to the home.

Organizations and studies on universal design are popping up all over the United States. As the population continues to age and live longer, there is this developing want to continue to live the active lifestyles everyone else is living.

Putting it together

“What universal design means for homeowners is that you can live and stay in a home without having to move because your home doesn’t support your activities any longer,” says Richard Duncan, director of universal design training at The Center for Universal Design. “If you need to customize it later on, you won’t have to spend as much money or have nearly the hassle that you would normally have with standard housing.”

The Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University focuses its attention on educating homeowners, builders and remodelers on what is expected in order to make a home universally designed. The Center’s original universal house feature list was created in 2001 to ease adoption for contractors and include elements, features and ideas that contribute to components of a universal house. These concepts include areas such as the entrance, making all doorway widths a minimum of 32 in. wide; interior circulation; bathroom; decks, building decks at the same level as the house floor; kitchens; garages and carports; switches and controls; laundry area; storage; home automation; windows; hardware; light and color; and sliding doors.

There’s a whole range of things in kitchen design Duncan talks about: pantry style storage that puts storage at different heights; differential counter heights; and full extension drawers and slide out shelves in base cabinets to be able to get to the things at the back without a lot of bending and stretching to get at those things. Duncan also suggested adding room lighting and undercounter lighting, which is really big right now, especially for older eyes that need the extra light.