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The goal was to build something that was affordable, durable
as well as good looking, says Cincotta, an architect. “I want it
to be the coolest room in the house,” he says — people don’t
lose their taste just because they’re in a wheelchair.
Wheel Pad uses structural insulated panels for construction
— “you can drive trucks over them, but they are lightweight,”
says Cincotta. He estimates that it would require more than
20 times the number of parts to make the exterior shell of a
Wheel Pad with an ordinary stick-build approach.
Building a home already comes with thousands of decisions to
make — with accessible design, there are so many more, and
a lot of those an able bodied person would never think about,
said Sawchuk, who spoke at the recent LivABLE Environment
Conference on aging and accessible design.
“Unless you have the need for an accessible bath, you would
have no idea how seemingly little things, like the height of the
mirror, the reach of a towel or the slope of the floor in the
shower would make a big difference on the amount of energy
you have for the rest of the day,” said Sawchuk, founder of
Sawchuk Accessible Solutions.
Instead of making their 110-year-old home accessible — which
would have cost over $600,000, and the home would still have
a leaky roof and wet basement — Sawchuk and her husband
decided to build a new home next door. It was a challenging
endeavor, and the building plans changed 42 times during the
process. But the new home is accessible without looking like
it, she says, and even includes a spacious patio with a low wall
that allows her to garden.
“Accessibility aside, our number one goal was to make it
beautiful,” she said at the conference. She finds that she has
more energy than she did before, thanks to the accessible features
of her home.
Hoping to help others going through the same process, Sawchuk
wrote a book (opposite page) about how to build an accessible
home. And as bathrooms are one of the most important
rooms in the home, she has followed up with a new book,
“Building Better Bathrooms,” available this month.
ACCESSIBLE FEATURES IN ERIKSEN’S
HOME FOLLOW THE LIVING IN PLACE
INSTITUTE GUIDELINES:
• a true no-threshold entry
door (with automatic door
bottom)
• outlets placed 24 inches
from the floor, instead of the
usual 12-18 inches
• multiple height countertops
in the kitchen
• d-shaped handles on cabinets
so clothes don’t catch
• a microwave drawer and a
raised dishwasher
•
48-inch wide hallways and
36-inch wide doorways
• outlets near toilets for plugging
in nightlights or heated
or personal hygiene seats
• towel bars that double as
grab bars
• linear drain and zero threshold
entry for the shower
•occupancy sensors for
lights in laundry, closets and
pantry
Accessible design “is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but there
are solutions for the people that need it,” Sawchuk said.
dishes in lower drawers in
base cabinets, rather than
stacked in upper cabinets
handrails on both sides of
stairs
3.5%
of U.S. homes incorporate
basic accessibility features.
Joint Center of Housing Studies
of Harvard University, 2011
No one would buy a home if
they couldn’t access all of it.”
—Samantha Proulx, ABE Factors, at the LivABLE
Environment Conference
90%
of people age 65 and over
would prefer to stay in their
own homes as they get older.
AARP
NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2020 | 37
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