Accessibility on a Shoe String

Accessibility is becoming an important part of more and more building projects. Disability ultimately affects every family and most individuals; we are all eventually subject to illness, accident, and aging. In an important sense, accessibility is for everybody. As a designer and builder, I have included accessibility in everything I’ve designed in the last few years. When it isn’t practical to make a place accessible at the time of construction, I try to make it easy to adapt later. People often expect accessibility to be expensive, difficult to build, and institutional looking. And indeed this is often the case when buildings are poorly adapted after the fact. But when it’s emphasized from the start, accessibility can be simple and affordable without calling attention