Universal Design for the Home: Great Looking, Great Living Design for All Ages, Abilities, and Circumstances
Universal Design for the Home: Great Looking, Great Living Design for All Ages, Abilities, and Circumstances
Universal Design (UD) is coming of age. Once a home design specialty that was little known, of limited interest, and a source of embarrassment more than pride, it is attracting widespread media attention and taking on (as befits its name) almost universal appeal — and with good reason. The concept emerged years ago out of the need to make homes safe and accessible for the elderly, the handicapped and the very young. Some of the design options were good-looking, but others seemed institutional.
Rating: 
(out of 7 reviews)
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Review by J. Solomon for Universal Design for the Home: Great Looking, Great Living Design for All Ages, Abilities, and Circumstances
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What a tremendous step forward from prior universal design home building/remodeling books. It inspires as it educates the reader about the pragmatic sensibility of this concept. Plentiful, excellent color photography and diagrams backup the top-notch content. Designer Wendy Jordan goes far beyond the functional basics to provide a smart guide to great design that works to everyone’s advantage. Her helpful “great idea”, “spotlight” and “universal specs” move the reader around all the important home design zones and deliver very important lessons on creating smart living spaces for a much broader range of users while anticipating future needs, be it aging or disability.
Review by A. D. Chotin for Universal Design for the Home: Great Looking, Great Living Design for All Ages, Abilities, and Circumstances
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This book is a fabulous resource for anyone building or remodeling a home. It demonstrates, both in words and photographs, why universal design is a great idea for anyone, not just people with physical limitations. Who wouldn’t want to live in one of the houses pictured in this book? Wider doorways and halls, more efficient and better designed appliances, no threshold to trip over when entering your house–these are all great ideas for all of us. Use this book for yourself, give it to your architect or builder, you will not be sorry.
Review by Roberta N. Carlson for Universal Design for the Home: Great Looking, Great Living Design for All Ages, Abilities, and Circumstances
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This book has many outstanding illustrations. Because Universal Design is invisible, the author needed to show good examples, and then tell why they are good examples. Wendy Jordan has done that well. She has also organized the content in a meaningful way. She highlights Universal Design criteria and makes it easy to identify criteria in every example.
Review by Gale for Universal Design for the Home: Great Looking, Great Living Design for All Ages, Abilities, and Circumstances
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I am an Interior Design student. I purchased this book while working on a project studying universal design. It has great ideas – both written and visual. My project focused on accessibility. The book’s examples and ideas in this area are also excellent. I recommend this to anyone – student or not – interested in learning about universal design. A+++
Review by S. Ries for Universal Design for the Home: Great Looking, Great Living Design for All Ages, Abilities, and Circumstances
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in working with a housing group producing housing for the disabled we purchased this book to work with our architect, and to inspire ourselves, as well. I find this all encompassing, inclusive of nearly all disabilities, and that is encouraging. It is easy to read, well organized and has high production values. The reason for the star off is that nearly everything was produced with very high-end materials, and many in my group have difficulty visualizing more affordable materials and techniques, so this has limited the utility of the book for us. As I have counseled others to look beyond the marble and granite this and stainless-steel that, we have been able to come up with affordable options. I think this book was remiss in neglecting to recall that many disabled folks are not going to be able to afford the most expensive option. Also there are greener options than are often shown here, but that can be in the next book.