Why Accessible Housing Design Must Become the New Standard

The American housing market is in crisis, but beyond the supply shortages and interest rate pressures lies a more structural failure, according to design-build firm Access Design + Build founder Jeannine Clark. Homes, she notes, are still being designed and built for a single version of human life, where injuries, aging, shifts in mobility, and family configurations are rarely taken into account.

Jeannine argues that the industry continues to prioritize short-term construction efficiency and resale trends over livability. She says, “We don’t build homes around how people actually move through life.” Many homes for senior citizens tend to become difficult to navigate safely or modify affordably. Retrofitting after a health crisis or mobility change often costs significantly more than designing thoughtfully from the beginning.

As the owner of Access Design + Build, Jeannine oversees interior design and general contracting and operates as a project manager. She has spent the last three decades watching this problem compound. She believes her multifaceted role has given her a vantage point to understand where the system breaks down. “Aging in place is a necessity for a lot of people, especially for those with mobility issues,” she adds.

She has seen what clients need and what builders are willing to deliver, and she argues that the gap between them isn’t primarily about money, but rather about philosophy. Across residential construction, Jeannine sees two dominant extremes. One, she explains, leans heavily into institutional accessibility, producing spaces that feel disconnected from the way people are meant to live. The other prioritizes aesthetics and trend cycles without considering long-term functionality. Both approaches, she insists, fail the people who eventually have to live in those environments.

Several macro pressures are intensifying the issue. Studies show that by 2030, one in six adults will be over 65. Rates of chronic illnesses and neurological conditions are rising across all age groups, while housing costs rise and inventory shrinks. Jeannine notes that many households now accommodate multiple generations under one roof, yet she argues that most new residential construction still treats accessibility as an optional upgrade, not a baseline expectation.

Jeannine believes construction practices themselves contribute to the problem. She points to waste, rushed installation schedules, and design decisions that prioritize minimum compliance over practical use. “They’re checking a box for building minimums without understanding what that actually means in practice. A 32-inch doorway technically becomes 28 inches because of the door thickness and the handle. People don’t often think about the fully completed space,” she explains. That way, Jeannine adds that the house may meet the code standards while failing the functional ones, and that starts before the finishing materials ever go in.

With experience on both the design and construction sides, Jeannine has had direct exposure to the tension between client needs, builder constraints, labor pressures, and development economics. Many homeowners, she notes, unknowingly make choices that create avoidable accessibility problems later. Flooring transitions, poor lighting design, visually indistinct surfaces, and cramped layouts can become major obstacles as mobility and vision change with age. “People pick trendy materials instead of materials that support how bodies age,” she explains.

She points to monochromatic kitchens and bathrooms as a common example. While visually popular, low-contrast surfaces can impair depth perception and spatial awareness for older adults. Flooring patterns can also become visually disorienting for people managing glaucoma or peripheral vision loss. Lighting presents another overlooked challenge, particularly in older homes where outdated fixtures and incompatible bulbs reduce visibility.

Good design, in Jeannine’s view, begins with spatial intuition. “You shouldn’t have to adjust your body to fit the house,” she says. “The house should work naturally with the person using it.”

Accessibility, she posits, should be integrated into housing from the start rather than as a corrective measure. In her view, wider doorways, more functional circulation paths, adaptable layouts, and lower-maintenance materials do not radically increase construction costs when incorporated early in planning. Yet Jeannine argues the long-term savings are substantial, especially when compared to remodels after injury or aging-related changes.

She also believes the industry underestimates how much poor foundational construction affects long-term housing quality. Improper framing and drywall installation, for example, can create downstream inefficiencies across cabinetry, plumbing, trim work, and maintenance. “If it’s not straight, everybody else down the line spends more time in installations, which results in unbudgeted money spent,” she says.

Jeannine advocates for a more integrated approach to residential development, one that treats universal and adaptive design as the baseline standard. She sees potential in modular and manufactured housing models if they are approached with long-term livability in mind instead of pure production speed.

When she starts a design from scratch, room layout, she notes, is her first priority. She seeks to understand how a home sits on the land and whether it can accommodate life as it evolves.

“What happens if I need to take care of my mom? Is there enough space on this land? Do we have a mother-in-law suite? Can we add on? Homeowners often face these questions, and those are the ones we need to be asking as well, so that the homes are designed to answer them,” she says.

According to Jeannine, current housing pressures have exposed how little flexibility exists within standard residential construction. She believes the conversation now needs to shift from housing quantity toward housing quality and adaptability.

“Housing should support longevity, dignity, and ease,” she says. The industry already has the capability. What it lacks, Jeannine believes, is the mandate. Until accessibility is treated as a default, standard homes, she notes, will keep being built for a version of life that most people don’t actually live, and the gap between what housing provides and what people need will keep growing wider.