Adaptability
Good design entails that buildings be both easy and inexpensive to adapt over time, since their functions will undoubtedly change as resident’s age or relocate, families grow in size, or societal transformations alter the function of certain rooms and outdoor spaces. Housing that cannot accommodate these changes is not considered to be in the spirit of good design, since the space created is less livable for the resident over the long run. The success of new affordable-housing developments can be partly gauged by how easily the household can be adapted to accommodate these changes and minimize cost to the resident.
According to the City Design Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago,
“Household fit may be maintained over the long term if the housing is designed to allow for flexible use and/or is easily expandable. A spare room, for example, located near the entry of a housing unit can function equally well as a den, home office or shop, or spare bedroom. Major alterations, such as reorganizing the space in a dwelling or adding a room, can be cost-effective and simplified by planning for such additions in the initial design or by providing unfinished space. Necessary alterations to the dwelling can be simplified, for example, by providing devices that accommodate the installation of accessibility equipment, such as grab rails in a bathroom, or kitchen cabinets and counters that can be adjusted to accommodate wheelchair access.”
Residents of the United States enjoy a great amount of social mobility. It has been estimated by architect Avi Friedman that, “A household moves every 10 years on average. If one considers the useful life of home to be 100 years, it is likely that each house will accommodate 10 different households over the course of its life cycle.” Since relocation often incurs significant costs, and since American families are more non-traditional than ever before it is important that built-in design principals allow for occupants to undertake alterations to their homes without incurring significant costs.
Resources
The Affordable Housing Design Advisor: “is a website completed under contract to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that provides affordable housing tools, a gallery of exemplary projects and a design checklist.”
The Adaptable House: Designing Homes For Change. Avi Friedman. McGraw-Hill. 2002.
“Author Avi Friedman believes that rather than being unchangeable, physical environments should be designed and constructed to easily adjust to the evolving lifestyle of their inhabitants. A home, he contends, should be structurally flexible enough to adapt to changes such as children "leaving the nest," elderly relatives moving in, or the need for home office space.”
