If this new home and work environment in Australia by Sibling Architecture hits like a jolt of electricity, maybe that’s because it reinforces the fact that everybody deserves good design. These interiors were created with aging and disability in mind, but they’re bursting with color, attention to detail, and an energetic feel. It’s especially telling that a result like this feels so rare.

The designers were determined not to get caught up in the tendency to reduce accessibility in architecture to a list of legal requirements like grab bars and standard countertop heights. They didn’t want “Frenches Interiors” to look anything like a medical facility, in fact, so they rethought what meeting those requirements could look like, developing “a different and domestic type of accessibility.”

Taking inspiration from their clients, who help people acquire care and living environments that allow them to retain as much normalcy as possible, the architects transformed the interiors of an existing Melbourne terrace house with furniture and decorative elements that are both functional and beautiful. The overall effect is bold, graphic, fresh, and even youthful.

“The former sitting room is converted to a workplace with the theatrics of curtains that conceal sitting and standard desks,” they explain. “The circular table, which allows for uncomplicated circulation, has deep tubular pockets that hold office pens and plants, or flowers, champagne, and crostini after taking care of business. The rear living room centers around a ‘cake’ couch where slices can be removed in order to include wheelchair-users within the seating arrangement. One slice features pink powder coated handles to assist visitors to get seated.”

“A circular motif is featured in Frenches Interior as a symbol of inclusion and sharing, for example, found in the form of the sturdy terrazzo lazy Susan on the dining table. Other symbols, or totems, also appear in the space, which contain valued objects, such as books and whiskey, of the clients. This project extends Sibling Architecture’s interest in how to design an age-friendly city. Frenches Interior explores the potential of accessibility to be domesticated through highly-spirited gestures where space can be reconfigured according to different needs and desires.”

Sibling Architecture takes an unconventional multidisciplinary approach to just about everything, so it’s no surprise that they were able to pull this off. The firm, consisting of Amelia Borg, Nichola Braun, Jane Caught, Qianyi Lim, and Timothy Moore, prioritizes a sense of community building and never fails to take a risk. Their practice combines architecture, urbanism, graphic design, art, and cultural analysis to respond to social needs of all kinds.

It’s time to discard old ideas about what makes spaces accessible and start designing them so they can be used and enjoyed by everyone, regardless of their cognitive and physical capacities. As Sibling Architecture beautifully demonstrates here, aesthetics are just as crucial to that equation as anything else.

The post Colorful Interiors Reimagine What Accessible Architecture Can Look Like first appeared on Dornob.

What if housing was simply designed to accommodate a broader range of human bodies and abilities? The “universal design” movement advocates an “architecture for all” approach with features like doorways, aisles, and counters that are easily usable by people seated in wheelchairs. In this way, young, able-bodied people can still use the spaces as they normally would, while elderly and disabled people don’t have to struggle to do simple things like reach a cup in a cabinet, turn on the sink, or get into the shower.

A new prefabricated house kit by Japanese retailer MUJI offers just that. The single-story “Yō no le house,” or “plain house,” takes inspiration from the “hiraya” style of living, which eliminates most interior walls. The company envisions “connection” as the central theme of the design — with one’s family, with community, and with nature. Three large glass doors open directly onto a spacious wooden deck with a sunken fire pit, so the inside never feels lonely or cut off from the world outside.

It may be designed with seniors in mind, but “Yō no le house” would work for virtually anyone, including wheelchair users. The transitions between indoors and out are smooth enough to roll over, and kitchen counters and tables have plenty of space beneath them to sit comfortably. Many of the company’s furniture items are pictured inside as a perfect complement to the design, including a rolling dining table and a platform bed that’s incredibly easy to get in and out of.

While some people might like the open layout as it is, owners do have the choice to customize the interiors. You can add walls to create separate rooms, and the windows are placed evenly to make sure there’s plenty of natural light in each area.

High ceilings painted white give the 800-square-foot house a spacious feel, warmed up by plenty of wooden surfaces. Cube shelving in the bedroom area eliminates the need for closets. If users need all the shelves to be lower, or want to make any other changes, they can also fine-tune all of the built-in elements to perfectly match their unique needs.

Like all of MUJI’s prefabs, this house is designed to be long-lasting. The durable metal roof and cedar siding will look beautiful for decades to come, with little need for maintenance. It’s easy to imagine this home serving a single person or couple for many years, even as they age.

This prefab house design for seniors is currently only available for sale in Japan, with prices starting at $150,000. MUJI has even installed a model unit in a forested area in Isumi, about two hours from Tokyo, for anyone who’d like to see one in person.

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The defense is often that there’s no money for an elevator and no room for a ramp. And in crowded urban spaces, building a ramp with the gentle grade required to make it usable can, indeed, take up quite a bit of space — but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s impossible. A recent project called “Song House” by AZL Architects demonstrates a smart approach to exactly that problem.

In China, many rural villages have high populations of elderly people living in places that aren’t well-equipped to meet their needs as they age. Meanwhile, younger generations flock to bigger cities to find work and raise their families. AZL explains that the past 40 years of rapid urbanization in China have caused a “hollowing-out” of millions of old, culturally significant villages. But these rural places still have something to offer all generations of families.

The architects state: “The natural humanistic values of rural settlements need to be reactivated through new production cycles and lifestyles. Shanghai, having the highest GDP in China and being a world-famous metropolis, is also facing difficulties and conflicts between its urban and suburban [populations]. Those living in the city are constantly under the pressure of high living costs, [while] the declining of rural communities and human settlements in suburbs is happening at the same time.”

The answer might lie in redeveloping these suburban and rural communities in a way that makes them appealing and accessible to people of all ages, says AZL. Their client for “Song House,” retired electrician Lao Song, needed to take in his elderly mother, but his apartment in Shanghai just wasn’t designed for it. He and his wife dreamed of moving back to their hometown of Nanson Village to demolish their dilapidated family home and build something new “suitable for both the elderly and the young.”

“In order to help relieve the living pressure of their daughter and son-in-law, Lao Song and his wife thought about inviting the parents of their son-in-law, who are in bad health conditions, to return to the Fengxian countryside together with them and take care of each other in their old ages. For this to happen, the families almost spent all of their savings as normal working-class [people]. This house also embodies the beautiful imagination and anticipation of a relaxed rural life for these families of eight.”

The architects’ solution was a multi-story concrete home arranged around an atrium —an update to the traditional Chinese courtyard house that’s fallen out of favor in recent decades. An external ramp visibly wraps around the outside of the house, reaching each of the three stories so the oldest generation of both families can get around while maintaining a sense of privacy and independence for everyone.

The atrium offers “a center of space and daily activities,” and off of it five bedrooms are splayed, each facing a different direction. Wheelchair accessible restrooms are located next to some of the bedrooms, though all parts of the house have their own small sitting areas. The interiors are designed to promote intergenerational contact and assistance while offering the refuge of private spaces when they’re desired.

This home may be located in a rural area, where there tends to be more space for such constructions, but it’s a beautiful example of thinking outside the box to be more inclusive of anyone who might want to enter. More than that, it turns an accessibility feature into an integral part of the design, and it looks fantastic to boot.

The post Accessibility Gets Graphic with a Cool Wraparound Wheelchair Ramp first appeared on Dornob.

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When 11-year-old Chicago girl Lily Born noticed that her elderly grandfather often spilled his drinks, her creative mind immediately kicked into overdrive. Her grandfather has Parkinson’s, and like others who suffer from this or other tremor-inducing conditions, he has trouble keeping a cup steady when picking it up and setting it down. Lily’s idea was the Kangaroo Cup, an unbreakable, spill-proof cup that is easy to hold, drink from, and set down.

Its three legs suspend the cup itself a bit off of the surface, which makes coasters unnecessary. The legs also provide stability on uneven terrain. The Kangaroo cup makes a perfect picnic companion because it can sit right on the grass without tipping over.

The cup’s invention and refinement have gone through many stages that are familiar to any other inventor. Lily and her inventor father first made the cups from hand-molded plastic, then from clay at a ceramic studio. The ceramic versions couldn’t stack in the cabinet and were prone to breakage, so Lily turned to a team of designers and manufacturers to help the Kangaroo Cup really reach its potential. It has become a stackable, BPA-free cup that is unbreakable and comes in a variety of colors.

The Kangaroo Cup’s first Kickstarter project was successful and allowed the team to produce the ceramic cups, but they went back to Kickstarter to fund the new, improved cups – and quickly surpassed their fundraising goal. The plastic cup is dishwasher and microwave proof and suitable for people of every age. Even if you don’t suffer from tremors, the cup is also great for kids who are too old for sippy cups but not quite old enough to drink from regular cups without tipping them over.

About Lily Born

“Listed as Business Insider’s top 11 year old in tech, and Mochi’s “25 game changers under 25,” She has exhibited her invention at the White House Science Fair, White House Woman’s Expo, Smithsonian Museum of American History, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and has been honored as a CNN Heroes “young wonder” in addition to appearing on CNN headline news, NBC Nightly News, NPR’s Weekend Edition, Fast Company, Business Insider, CBS’s Hidden Heroes, Univision, internationally on the Daily Mail (UK) and The Telegraph (UK), as well as locally in the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, on WGN’s morning news, and on CBS 2 news. Lily Born has also been recognised by A Mighty Girl and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls as someone who inspires other girls to follow their passions and dreams.”

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Falls are a particularly scary problem for elderly people; they can result in injuries that take months to heal. One statistic states that one in three people aged 65 or older in the US has experienced injuries from falls, and the percentage only goes up as people age. Many elderly people are embarrassed to use assistive devices like canes or walkers. Israeli start-up company B-Shoe Technologies has developed a fantastically helpful new smart shoe technology that would keep seniors from falling.

The B-Shoe (or Balancing Shoe) contains sensors and a small motorized mechanism in its bottom. When the sensors detect that the wearer is becoming unbalanced, it subtly shifts the foot backwards so the wearer remains upright. The shoes look just like regular shoes so there is none of the stigma associated with canes or walkers.

According to the company, the movement is so gentle that it is barely perceptible to the wearer. The corrective action takes place quickly – much quicker than the often-slowed reflexes of the elderly – to prevent a fall. Test subjects have said that the movement is not startling and does help to prevent falls. The B-Shoe has been in development since 2008, and if the company’s crowdfunding campaign is successful they may have the shoe on the market by 2016.

More from the creators

“1 out of 3 people age 65 and over falls every year. It could potentially be your parents, your grandparents, your aunts, your uncles, your friends or even you. Such falls often result in injuries and sometimes death. Life expectancy drops radically after these falls. Also, most of the people who need aids, such as canes and walkers, refuse to use them since they symbolize weakness and dependency.”

“Using ultra-light components, B-Shoe incorporates pressure sensors, an embedded integrated motion device, a microprocessor, a rechargeable battery and a sophisticated algorithms. B-Shoe’s smart brain assures early detection of imbalance and that it will operate only when needed, making it perfect for use anytime, anywhere.”

The post Smart Shoe Auto-Balances to Keep Seniors from Falling first appeared on Dornob.