Universal Design Resource is completing a year-long transition into a new website. What better time than now to recreate the mission for this blog? The blog at Universal Design Resource is open to multiple authors – that includes you. Like most blogging, it is a place for opinion to be...
NAHB’s course: Universal Design/Build
This blog is an announcement and the body of text that follows is copied from NAHB’s website: UNIVERSAL DESIGN/BUILD This two-day course focuses on integrated home design features and product specifications that account for client differences due to circumstance, physical characteristics, health issues and aging. Universal Design/Build expands on the...
Nature & Urban Gardens
Stepping back from a focused view on universal design, I see that there are other ways to achieve an environment that disappears the effects of many conditions that would otherwise be considered disabling. What is it and how is it possible? A new and beautifully illustrated book, Restorative Commons: Creating...
New Baby vs New Elder
A bit of a rant today: It’s getting to be years ago that I was looking at bookshelves filled with books on having a baby, bringing a baby home, what to do with a baby when it’s home, what to expect next; what it’s expressing and when, how-to this and...
More than Your House … Your Money!
Another area of self evaluation will be your economic forecast. Most simply, will there be enough financial resources for you to live the way you wish to live? Managing your assets always mattered, however, the retirement model you grew up with has little remaining practical value. To retire at age...
Malia & Sasha Obama
Malia and Sasha Obama are in the White House (almost) and one of the places they will be making friends is in the kitchen. There will be no shortage of staff ready to serve up a hot coco and a fresh baked cookie. And, much to their delight, there won’t...
Let Your Home Work For You
Decreasing the time spent taking care of your home and increasing the time your home takes care of you. According to a survey conducted by the AARP, 89 percent of people older than 50 wish to remain at home, rather than move to other housing options. The question not being...
Living Large in the 70’s
See it in video: Living Large in the 70’s Ahh, the 70’s. Muhammad Ali, Mark Spitz, Vietnam, China and Watergate. What about Star Wars, disco, Atari and video cassettes? How about the New York City blackout, Son of Sam and Guardian Angels? A pretty amazing decade, but, I’m not talking...
Interior Design
Design isn’t just making things pretty or trendy, not anymore. Design includes neuroscience; maybe one could say it IS neuroscience. It’s your nervous system that matters now (it’s the planets nerves too). Our world has changed. The Smithsonian Institution has this list: The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries, third on...
Kaitekisei
Kaitekisei roughly means comfort translated from Japanese to English. In more specific terms it describes a condition of spiritual and physical satisfaction, a very pleasant feeling. What comfort is to different people varies as much as the people themselves. What is clear is that comfort only comes after a certain...