The first barrier to accessing any home is the entrance. When searching for a home, we often ask ourselves if it’s a place where we can grow old, but we don’t often ask whether it’s the home that will allow us to age in place. Universal design helps make homes function for people with varying levels of mobility.
Universal Design (UD) is an approach to design that increases the potential for developing a better quality of life for a wide range of individuals. It is a design process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation (Steinfeld and Maisel, 2012). It creates products, systems, and environments to be as usable as possible by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation.
