Adults with disability face serious adaptive, economic, socio-cultural and housing
challenges. They also face challenges in their relationships with family members and the
outside community, and in their spatial relationships with dwellings. Despite these
challenges and scholarly research on: health, well-being and housing; housing issues related
to disability, embodiment and the meaning of home; and on the design of inclusive
environments, researchers have failed to give adequate attention to the holistic dimensions
and meaning of home for persons with disability and their family living together under the
one roof. The Universal Design approach itself has design, disability, and phenomenological
limitations. Specifically, it fails to address the issue of 'fit for all' or 'design for all', and it is
clear that more appropriate and integrative design theory and practice are required.
In response, this research gives emphasis to the connection between design and disability
from a phenomenological perspective, and provides unique insight into the world of people
with disability and their family caregivers who share the same house. More particularly, it
explores the role of house and home in supporting the family individually and collectively in
their sense making of disability. The study uses interpretative phenomenological analysis
(IPA) of interview data from fifteen participants in nine households to explore their lived
experiences and the implications for interior design.
