November 2, 2024

Emily Post for Buildings

Laura Claridge has just published a biography on Emily Post. To the delight of fans, Emily Post was quite the woman living in quite the time. To her detractors, Emily Post is still no more than an arbiter of manners including the extended pinky finger while quietly sipping tea. It...

Emergency Planning

We know the emergency prep basics but what would make them more universal design? The short answer is, not much. If you have a universal design environment, you’re in good shape. Where emergency planning might be more universal design is in its thorough application and in you actually being prepared....

Consciousness Precedes Form

Being green has been around for a long time. However, in the last year a tipping point was reached and green is now visible everywhere. Governments are doing it, business is doing it, schools are teaching it, and even the “bad” guys, such as the petroleum industry, are dabbling with...

Anne Wiesen: The Restorative Garden, Healing by Beauty

The restorative garden can be as simple as a well-situated pot of healthy sage at a window-sill or as sublime as a cathedral forest. It’s how we respond to a garden that makes it restorative. Are there gardens that are universally restorative? Gardens that evoke a healing response in each...

‘Time’ To Do It Right

I was struck by an article by Dr. Dr Sunil Bhatia in that way when a subject just doesn’t leave you alone – it kept popping up in my thoughts. Dr. Bhatia created and runs the Design For All Institute of India and publishes a monthly newsletter. He recently wrote...

10 Simple Home Improvements for Seniors

Are you 55 or older? What would be the simple improvements to make your home get you another ten years of usability? AARP does annual surveys to assess the desire to age in place, and the means which people are employing to do so. This annual survey, in its fifth...