High Access Home: Design and Decoration for Barrier-Free Living [Hardcover]

Charles A. Riley III (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 3, 1999

Welcome to the home of the future, courtesy of Universal Design, a new movement that's helping the disabled, the aged, pregnant women, and children live with ease and comfort. Think of the automatic garage door, which originated out of necessity for a client whose condition prevented him from lifting a heavy door. Now just imagine if your home was as easy to operate.

"High-Access Home" redefines the standards for home design today. Conveniently positioned sinks, grab bars in the shower, properly illuminated hallways, and remote controls for the window shades, adjustable kitchen counters are just some of the improvements shown in this illustrated volume. You'll never have to reach for a light switch or bend for an outlet again.

At first glance, a home that follows the principles of Universal Design does not look any different from a traditional, well-crafted home. A connoisseur of the user-friendly Universal Design home appreciates its invisibility as much as its functionality. Subtle differences are its hallmark-with levers instead of knobs on doors, with wider hallways and doors, non-slip floors in the bathroom, roomier garages, elevators, and touch pads, Universal Design is a silent revolution in simplifying life.

"High-Access Home" tours the top of the line homes that follow Universal Design, featuring both revamped old homes and newly-constructed ones as well. Tour Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Top Cottage or visit the Carroll Center for the Blind, which happens to be a renovated stable that's ultra-chic. Following this tour is a room-by-room breakdown of how to create the ideal home to make living easier. This chapter focuses in-depth on the entry, the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen, the bedroom, and the home office, providing helpful tips on how to get started simplifying your home life. Additional resources for product manufacturers, non-profit organizations, and government organizations are provided in the appendix. If you are living with an aging parent, children, or you would like to "age in place," or have a disability, "High-Access Home" will provide advice, inspiration, and resources for barrier-free living.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Proving that accessibility and elegance need not be mutually exclusive, High-Access Home is filled with high-end interiors embodying the best of barrier-free living. Aimed at minimizing the effort needed to accomplish everyday tasks, Universal Design strives for buildings and products that can be used by the broadest possible range of people. Rather than such using obvious hallmarks of accessibility as a conspicuous ramp shooting straight up to the front door or the stainless-steel grab bars reminiscent of a hospital, Universal Design overlays the user-friendly with the stylish, melding aesthetics and practicality.

With beautiful photos and intelligent text, the volume analyzes what makes these spaces so successful and offers suggestions for incorporating the ideas into your own home. Most of the dwellings featured here are fairly luxurious, with elaborate decor and extensive renovations beyond many budgets, but there is also much helpful information for countless adaptations, such as shower seats, door levers, easy-access cabinets, and much more. This creative and carefully planned approach goes beyond Universal Design to become plain-old good design from which anyone can benefit. --Amy Handy

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (December 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847822133
• ISBN-13: 978-0847822133
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,494,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charles A. Riley II, PhD is an arts journalist, curator and professor at the City University of New York. He is the author of twenty-eight books on art, architecture and public policy, including The Art of Lincoln Center (Wiley), as well as the essay for the recently published Opera Portraits, an art project that involved photographing singers backstage at major opera houses. He has also written The Jazz Age in France, The Art of Peter Max, Arthur Carter, Ben Schonzeit (all published by Abrams) as well as Aristocracy and the Modern Imagination, The Saints of Modern Art, and Color Codes (all from the University Press of New England), and Sacred Sister (in collaboration with the noted avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson). He is curator-at-large at the Nassau County Museum of Art and has presented exhibitions devoted to Picasso, Surrealism and contemporary art, and has written dozens of exhibition catalogue essays and his articles on art have appeared in several magazines, including Art & Auction, Art & Antiques and Antiques and Fine Art. He is a former reporter for Fortune magazine and former editor-in-chief of WE magazine, and has participated in cultural policy and educational think tanks internationally. A graduate (summa cum laude) of Princeton University, he received his PhD from The Graduate Center of City University of New York. He resides in Manhattan and Cutchogue, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars High-Access Home, April 23, 2000

By 

"mking18" - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Access Home: Design and Decoration for Barrier-Free Living (Hardcover)

This book is totally impractical and a big waste of money. It portrays "mansions for the disabled" by use of dramatic single and double-page pictures. The text is sparse and often uninformative. It has an almost total dearth of practical information which would be useful to anyone but a multi-millionaire. For example, one photo shows a beautifully decorated living space which includes, as its sole sop to the handicapped, a wheelchair with an attractive throw pillow on its seat. (How practical is that?) Another photo shows a kitchen with almost no cabinetry below the countertops, enabling a person in a wheelchair to work at any of the surfaces. But what tools, dishes or food would this person find for his or her use? Unfortunately, most of these items must then be stored out of reach in its overhead cabinets. The small amount of practical information available could be, and has been, successfully put in a pamphlet. While the jacket cover claims that the book contains "practical advice for converting your home for accessible living," what is actually depicted are new homes of amazing size and splendor, not accessible to 99.9% of all people, disabled or otherwise. I am still looking for a definitive text on planning for accessability. This is so much easier to build into a home than it is to add later. I personally feel that it would be desirable if all new homes could be built with accessibility in mind. Yet the topic is rarely mentioned in any book on home design.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars For the very rich only, April 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: High Access Home: Design and Decoration for Barrier-Free Living (Hardcover)

This book is fabulous for the disabled multi-millionaire who can afford to build a very expensive user-friendly house. Unfortunately, it is useless for those of us with more modest incomes who want to modify our homes to put off moving to assisted living facilities. Time magazine gave a totally misleading brief review of this book. For us, AARP is a much better source of information, much of it free....

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Is it worth your money? Depends on what you are looking for!, June 22, 2000

By 

J (Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Access Home: Design and Decoration for Barrier-Free Living (Hardcover)

This book is beautifully laid out, the photography is well done and it would make a coffee table sparkle. But its usefulness is limited to new house construction, to people who like open floor plans, and for those who have the money to spend. I believe it will be of little help to anyone who is working with an older home and is remodeling rather than gutting it and starting over. Also I disagree with some of the layouts in kitchens, etc. as to how easy they are to access with a wheelchair or with a person whose disability prevents them from bending forward or side to side. There is inefficiency to have a person open two doors and then extend drawers. You can design drawers with a lower side to view contents. There were two photos that helped me to visualize concepts I had read about elsewhere. Is it worth your money? Depends on what you are looking for!