ICON - Spring 2016

both places. More than half the rental apartments
in New York are in walk-up buildings, often with
very old apartments that don’t have easily modifi-
able kitchens and bathrooms. We’ve been looking
at those issues all over the city.” The Design for
Aging committee is partnering with New York City
government to create a guide for owners to make
universal design investments in buildings. However,
adds Hunter, “It’s easier to effect change in the pub-
lic realm. I’ve seen amazing transformations of some
spaces, where they become really active and peo-
ple engage, through pretty modest improvements:
benches, tables, places to get out of the sun.”
Hunter would like to see more intergenerational
housing settings, where senior citizens can inter-
act regularly with people of all ages. It’s difficult,
though, to build housing that works for multiple
generations and feels like it’s part of the neighbor-
hood while still incorporating services and social
spaces that older residents might need, she says.

Hunter points to models like co-housing, a type of intentional community of private homes with certain shared facilities and spaces that can help

REMAINING IN HOME, SWEET HOME

While cities look at age-friendly design on a larger scale, interior designers continue to find solutions for people within their living spaces. Take Manchester, Massachusetts, interior designer Lisa Bonneville, FASID, NCIDQ, who in recent years has transitioned her 35-year practice, Bonneville Design, to focus on aging in place.

“It’s really about looking at what you’re going to need, how long you’re going to be in your home, and putting the structural elements in place when you’re still in your 50s and 60s,” Bonneville says.

Bonneville Design recently oversaw the second in a multiphase project to help a husband and wife, now in their 60s, remodel their circa-1968 home for future needs. A first phase concentrated on new landscaping to improve access into the house without steps. More recently, a dormer was added upstairs to double the size of two bathrooms, making enough room for a wheelchair.

Floating Douglas fir
vanities allow easy
standing or seated
access, while a roll-in
shower stall was made
large enough to allow
for a built-in bench and
for a caregiver to enter.

A wall-hung toilet with
a bidet-like washlet
seat and other features
usable at the push
of a button prolong
independence and
privacy. Throughout
the house, Bonneville
also widened
doors and removed
thresholds to increase
mobility, and lighting
was augmented to
provide “ample and
dimmable layered
lighting: what you
need, when you need
it, both ambient and
accent,” the designer
explains. Next up,
Bonneville and the
homeowners plan to
remodel the kitchen,
including a lift in the
enclosed porch to
the garage alongside
entry steps. A future
remodel will add an
elevator, ensuring floor-
to-floor access to three
levels of living space
including second-
floor bedrooms. Not
all homes need to be
designed to allocate
space for first-floor
bedrooms, says
Bonneville.

Although each of these remodel stages brings a price tag, Bonneville believes it’s still a cost-effective endeavor. “One third of your life might come in retirement age,” she says. “It’s less expensive to alter your home to make it accessible than to move into assisted living. And it really increases the market size of who can live in that house.”

LEARN MORE AND EARN CEUs

A webinar by Lisa Bonneville, FASID, NCIDQ, on aging in place, “Planning Ahead to Age at Home—A Price Tag with a Happy Ending,” will debut on the ASID Academy web page in March.

www.asid.org/ education/ ASID-Academy

Among the universal design elements Lisa Bonneville incorporated for her clients is a bathroom geared toward wheelchair access with optimal spatial considerations, including widened doors, level thresholds, open base vanities, a toilet with accessible range-of-motion features, and an adjustable, hand-held shower.