Show Notes:
Style Guide: Chapter 1: Parking Areas
- Section 1.3: Parking Surface
- 1.3.1: Stained Concrete
- 1.3.2 Concrete Stamping
- 1.3.3 Aggregate Concrete
- 1.3.4 Pavers
Style Guide: Chapter 2: Entrance Routes
- Section 2.2 Solid Surface
- 2.2.1 Pathway Surface Examples
Residential Universal Design Specifications: Chapter 1: Parking Areas
- 1.2.3 Asphalt or concrete
- 1.1.5 Parking space slope ≤ 1:50
Residential Universal Design Specifications: Chapter 2: Entrance Routes
- 2.2.3 Solid Surface
- 2.2.4 Easy to maintain
- 2.1.2 Pathway running slope ≤ 1:20
- 2.1.3 Pathway cross slope ≤ 1:50
Product Links:
Ramp Specifications: Learning Community Post
Transcript:
Sarah: [00:00:00] You’re listening to Good Fit Poor Fit. Our podcast is part of The UD Project, a small business rooted in occupational therapy that looks at how the design of a home environment impacts how well people of different ages and abilities perform everyday activities. We chat about this unique perspective to boost your knowledge and help you consider what can be changed in communities like yours.
Learn more about our work at universaldesign.org.
This episode is part of an ongoing series here on Good Fit Poor Fit. We’re going deep on residential universal design specifications, walking through every major area of the home with an occupational therapy lens. Along the way, you’ll hear stories about real people. Whose lives are shaped by the design choices we discuss.
Whether you are a rehab therapist, a designer, a builder, or someone thinking [00:01:00] ahead about your own home, this series is built for you. Start with episode 107 for the full picture. A good fit doesn’t happen by accident. Let’s get into it.
Sarah: Welcome back Good Fit Poor Fit listeners. Rebecca and I have spent a few episodes discussing parking areas associated with homes. From the locations we park, the width and length of the space, to the height of covered garages and carports. There’s a lot of opportunity to bake in function right from the beginning of a new design and build, but not completely out of the question in an existing home.
Rebecca: That’s right. And today we’re trucking along, talking about additional parking specifications, specifically the types of surfaces we’re parking on and navigating as we move into our homes. We’ll also talk a bit more about the slopes of those pathways since we only briefly mentioned it in the last episode. What I’ve learned in prepping for this episode is that, not all surface types are equal when we’re trying to [00:02:00] cast the widest net possible with design. So listeners, I think there’s a lot of good stuff in here if you’re trying to figure out solutions for yourself, your clients, a family member, or friends. So where are we gonna begin today, Sarah?
Sarah: Well, I wanna start off with a house down the street that I drive past a few times a week. Beautiful front yard, the kind of landscaping that makes you slow down a little. Big flat stones set into the ground with landscaped grass in between them leading up to the front steps, and then there’s a section of small rounded gravel leading to a bench in the front yard underneath a tree.
Whoever designed this, it’s really thought out about how you would look at it with lots of visual interest and textures. And every time I drive past it, I think about what it would take to get from the street to that front door in a wheelchair or a walker, or for my friend who uses forearm crutches. Lots of starting and stopping and watching [00:03:00] out for the cracks.
Rebecca: Or what if you’re carrying a sleeping toddler, a pet, a bag of groceries, or if your feet don’t always land exactly where you expect them to? That pathway, the one that looks so carefully considered aesthetically, would probably stop a lot of people before they even reach the door. Beautiful or not, I don’t think that would functionally serve most people all that well.
Sarah: And here’s the thing, it’s not that the people who designed it made a careless choice. They made a completely normal one. One that many people see on Pinterest or their Instagram feeds, unique pathways, they’re just everywhere.
They’re in every home magazine. They’re what a lot of people picture when they imagine a nice front yard. The problem isn’t the aesthetic impulse. The problem is that often the surface choices aren’t considered for how all different types of people may move across them.
Rebecca: For sure. And this is something that comes up a lot in the clinical space, [00:04:00] the clash between aesthetics and function, and the prevailing idea that they cannot coexist. I would argue that they can, but I don’t wanna digress us too much. So let’s put a pin in that for another episode, or probably actually several more episodes. Today, we’re gonna be talking about the surfaces, like the flat stones and rounded gravel that Sarah was talking about before, that we traverse to get from our car or a driveway or carport to our door. So it can seem mundane, but then I think about a cragged, cracked driveway that has some grass growing through, or a carport with a floor made of that tiny tipple stone, or a parking pad that’s surrounded by grass. And then I realize that these surfaces, these environments, they require people’s ankle stabilizer muscles to kick in and hold them upright. They require people’s vestibular systems to keep them standing up as the ground beneath them shifts and changes. They require people’s depth perception to tell them when the surface will go from feeling one way to another, [00:05:00] and that’s a lot of demand. So when we’re talking about accessible surfaces, two things matter above all else. Is the surface even? Meaning there are no unexpected height changes or gaps or irregular variations. And is it solid? Meaning it won’t shift or move under a person’s feet or wheels. Those two things can make a big impact on someone’s ability to get into their home safely. And when a surface fails in either of these ways, the consequences can compound quickly. So let’s start with gravel because it’s the clearest example. Gravel fails on both of these fronts. It shifts. The surface height is constantly variable depending on where exactly your foot or wheels land. For a wheelchair user, gravel can stop forward momentum entirely. The front casters can dig in, and the chair just stops. For someone with a rollator, the wheels sink in and catch. For someone like Walter, who we’ve talked about in a previous episode, who has Parkinson’s, his foot clearance [00:06:00] is already reduced, so gravel creates a constant unpredictable surface where the foot doesn’t know what it’s gonna land on. And that’s exactly the kind of sensory input that can trigger a fall in someone whose gait is already a bit challenged.
Sarah: Gravel is really an interesting one. If it’s a small, hard-packed gravel, it’s generally going to be easier to move on. But big or small gravel that’s really thickly packed is quite difficult. I think the reason this matters, even for people who don’t have a specific mobility concern, is that shifting on surfaces require extra cognitive and physical processing, like you said before, Rebecca.
Every step asks your nervous system to recalculate. Most of us do this automatically without thinking about it, but for people who are fatigued or distracted or their nervous system is already working harder than usual. It accumulates across a whole trip from the car to the door.
Think about someone walking on high heels. I’m sure there are listeners who have had [00:07:00] this experience before. Maybe there are kids who are barefoot or older individuals with diabetes who have numbness and tingling in their feet. Can’t you envision ankles turning or people hobbling because of it being uncomfortable?
Rebecca: I absolutely can envision this, unfortunately. So let’s talk about some other surfaces just to get a better idea of what we’re talking about here. Flagstones, pavers, and brick, for example, can create issues of their own. Depending on how they’re set, they can look even and solid while not actually being either of those things. These materials shift over time, so the ground underneath them settles with moisture and the freeze and thaw cycle. And because of this, you can end up with a surface where one stone or brick is level and the next one is tipped three-quarters of an inch up, making the gap between them wide enough to catch a caster wheel or a cane tip. Brick in particular has a tendency to settle unevenly as the mortar joints age and the base material beneath compresses. From a [00:08:00] distance, it can look pretty much fine, but underfoot it’s a very different experience.
Sarah: There’s something specific about how pavers and flagstone get installed too that I think is worth mentioning. Because we’re seeing it everywhere right now, it’s becoming a really popular DIY project. People pull up an old concrete pathway or a plain path in their yard that has turned to mud, and they lay down those pavers or flagstones themselves, and then they fill the space between them with small gravel, mulch, or they plant ground cover, moss, that type of thing over it.
It looks intentional. It looks beautiful, honestly, and it creates a surface that’s genuinely difficult for a significant number of people to cross. I’ve even seen some people take this spray glue and spray it over top of those surfaces because I think they think that it’s going to help keep everything in place, but it’s still uneven.
Rebecca: I’ve never heard of that spray kind of stuff. But let’s get back to some of the issues that some of these [00:09:00] surfaces can create. A lot of the issues are created because joints and gaps introduce the same instability as loose gravel. So a cane tip that lands in a gravel-filled joint can catch. A wheelchair caster that hits a grass-filled gap between two stones doesn’t roll over it smoothly. It just drops into it. And the unevenness isn’t just about the material itself. Over time, those joints allow the individual stones to shift independent of one another, which means the surface height variation can get worse over time.
Sarah: And I want to be specific here because it’s useful in recognizing how many people this actually affects. It’s not just people moving on wheels, which we’ve talked a lot about already, like walkers, knee scooters, and wheelchairs, even though my husband does have lots of stories of his wheelchair getting caught on a crack and his body flying forward out of the chair onto the ground.
It is true. But this is also impacting someone with a shuffling gait, which is a lot of people with Parkinson’s, [00:10:00] MS, or just age-related gait changes. It’s anyone pushing a stroller, a kid on a bike, someone using a cart to bring groceries or packages from the car to the house.
It’s rolling luggage. Anyone who has dragged a suitcase across a beautiful paver path with gravel joints knows exactly what I’m talking about. You can just feel the rolling luggage clunking behind you, can’t you? The wheel catches, the suitcase tips, and you’re suddenly bending down, managing something you weren’t expecting to manage.
Rebecca: I know I’m getting ahead of myself with solutions, but I just can’t help but mention it now. One simple improvement that something homeowners can do themselves without actually replacing anything is to fill those joints with a solid material. Polymeric sand is one common option. It binds together when it cures and creates a firm, stable joint that doesn’t shift or catch. It’s not the same as fully mortared installation, but it closes the gap between stones and eliminates a lot of the catching and tipping that happens [00:11:00] with loose fill. It also stops weed growth between the different stones. If the stones themselves are level and well set, that one change can make a meaningful difference, and it’s a Saturday project for most walkways, and after you get it into the spaces, you can just activate it with water. And I will say, my mother-in-law did this on our walkway going into our house when we first moved in, and it really did make a big difference. In addition to making the walkway smoother, it also makes it look nicer, and we’re a lot less worried about things getting under the surface in between the cracks.
Sarah: That’s awesome. I’m glad you’ve had experience with that one. There is a third topic we haven’t discussed yet, and it doesn’t show up on a dry day in good weather: slip resistance. A surface can be perfectly even and solid and still become genuinely dangerous depending on the conditions when wet.
There is a rating system for this. It’s called the Coefficient of Friction, COF, [00:12:00] and it measures how much traction a surface has resulting in how much slip resistance there is. Typically, you’re looking at a higher number having more grip and less likely for falls. There’s also testings and ratings for this if people are moving on a flooring or surface, or if they’re standing still. So make sure you look at the moving one. This is a wise concept to keep in your toolbox of knowledge to think through when considering different surface types, both outdoors and indoors.
Rebecca: This is something I think gets underweighted in the design conversation because people evaluate surfaces when they’re new and dry. But take a concrete pathway that got sealed with the wrong product or too much product, and you have a film on the surface that turns it into a skating rink when it’s wet. Same with certain smooth stone finishes. The material is solid and even, and in the rain it’s a hazard. These examples really hit home for me because we resealed our deck last summer and something went very, [00:13:00] very poorly, because it took our deck from a nice, easy-to-traverse walking path to a slippery mess, even with the tiniest bit of moisture.
Sarah: Oh no, that’s a bummer. You think you’re doing a good thing and then it turns into something else. We actually have a friend who has a very lovely patio entrance on the back of her house, and if anyone sprays any sunscreen on their bodies while they’re on those stone tiles that she has out there, it gets super slick.
So I’m sure there’s a lot of situations that people can relate to with this.
Rebecca: Absolutely. I’ve been on decks like that before, and it also can stain the deck in addition to making it unsafe. So there are a lot of issues here. It really doesn’t work safely or in some cases aesthetically for anyone. So another thing to consider, which is kind of along similar lines, is biological buildup.
So a pathway that runs through a shaded area or one that doesn’t get a lot of direct sun or airflow or wind will accumulate algae and mold over time. It happens [00:14:00] gradually enough that people don’t always notice it until someone slips, and by that point you’ve got a surface that looked fine for years but now requires pressure washing and maybe other treatments before it’s safe to walk on in wet conditions.
Sarah: Yeah, that’s a really good point to add because maintenance is something that people really need to think about. A material that requires annual resealing to stay non-slip or needs regular treatment to prevent biological growth is a higher maintenance commitment than most people factor in into their original decision.
But even concrete and asphalt, which, side note, are the surfaces we are generally going to recommend, are not immune to this. The ground shifts, soil compresses and expands with moisture, and if you have mature trees anywhere near a pathway or driveway, tree roots are a genuine factor.
A root growing underneath a concrete slab or an asphalt surface will eventually push up through it. I’ve seen a sidewalk where a root created [00:15:00] a hump significant enough that the city had to come in and address it. That’s an extreme example, but smaller versions of this happening in residential settings occur all the time.
A crack in a concrete path that started as a hairline and is now half an inch lip is a trip hazard by any measure. So when we talk about easy to maintain as part of surface specification, we mean choosing materials that hold up well and committing to actually inspecting those surfaces and addressing them when changes oc- occur over time.
Rebecca: For sure, Sarah. I live in a pretty old neighborhood, and we have several sidewalk squares like you’re describing, popped up so high from a tree root that they are nearly perpendicular to the ground. It’s extremely inaccessible for my neighbors who use mobility equipment, walk little dogs, use strollers, wagons, or folks like me who are just trying to take a nice leisurely run on the sidewalk. On a [00:16:00] similar note, the slope conversation is the other piece of this that doesn’t get enough attention probably. We touched on parking surface slope in our last episode, but this area or pathway that has any significant side-to-side pitch, what’s called cross slope in the specifications, is doing something that most people never notice. It’s requiring a constant correction. Your body’s working to stay upright and moving forward while the ground is tilting you to one side and trying to pull you in that direction. For most people, that’s invisible and not something you really clock. But for a manual wheelchair user, that cross slope means the chair is constantly being pulled down the hill and the person is constantly pushing against it. For someone with impaired balance, it’s an ongoing instability that they have to navigate until they’re off that surface. The specification for cross slope on a pathway is no more than one inch of rise for every fifty inches of run. That’s not very much, and a lot of residential driveways [00:17:00] and walkways exceed it.
Sarah: Definitely. I think everybody needs to have an o-opportunity to jump in a wheelchair and experience that cross slope, then you’ll really notice it. Another thing is the running slope, the forward pitch of the pathway, and that also matters. You want something gentle enough that you’re not fighting gravity going up and not moving too fast going down.
The target is one inch of rise for every twenty inches of run. That’s just over a foot and a half for every inch of elevation. You may hear some people say one to twenty in this instance. For reference, the minimum code with ADA for a wheelchair ramp is much steeper than that. It’s one to twelve.
That means for every one inch of rise, there’s twelve inches of run or length. So that’s steeper. This is commonly seen on ramps in public places. The pathway spec is more demanding because a [00:18:00] pathway is an everyday route in and out of the home, not just a one-time solution. Basically, don’t make it steep.
This is why you’ll often find ramps that have switchbacks or slopes with landing areas in between to get people from one level to the other safely when there’s a lot of height for a ramp. It provides people a place to rest because it requires a lot of effort to traverse a longer structure.
Rebecca: And while it’s ideal to use sloping pathways and routes to any entrance of the home, the side, the front, through the back patio, et cetera, we know that ramps are often part of an equation for existing homes. And a lot of folks will end up creating unique makeshift ramps with steep slopes and maybe without handles. Is that better than not having a ramp at all? Honestly, not always. With projects like this, it’s pretty important to get the slope right, especially if you’re doing it yourself. Sarah has a post in our learning community about ramp specs if you’re interested, [00:19:00] and we’ll add that in the show notes. But again, making sure that the ramp is in good shape if it’s made out of wood or engineered wood that is not slick when it’s wet and has rubber or significant texture if metal is used to reduce any slipping.
Often, wood decks need to be inspected for warping ’cause that can create uneven surfaces, too. As always in these episodes, we also wanna introduce you to a family who has had experience with this topic we’re discussing. So Sarah’s gonna tell us a little bit about Walter and his wife.
Sarah: I would love to tell you about Walter, and their situation is a common one. Walter is seventy-two years old. He retired from engineering about three years ago, and he was soon diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. His symptoms are manageable, but they’re progressing. His gait has changed. That’s the way he walks, and that’s what happens with Parkinson’s.
His stride is a little shorter than it used to be. His foot clearance is reduced. He moves more carefully now, [00:20:00] especially on outdoor surfaces that aren’t as consistent. Walter and his wife, Carol, have lived in their home for about twenty-five years. The front walk is flagstone set in pea gravel. Carol chose it because she loved the way it looked when they landscaped the yard years ago.
Walter has never said anything about it, but Carol has started noticing that it takes him longer to get from the car to the front door. He moves through that section of the path more deliberately than he used to. He watches his feet to make sure his foot is hitting the pavers and not catching the gravel.
Rebecca: The situation with Carol and Walter is so common. Carol’s noticing that Walter’s moving through their home differently, but she isn’t really addressing it out loud, and this is really normal. Maybe Carol doesn’t wanna make Walter feel bad or embarrass him. Maybe she’s nervous herself about his Parkinson’s progressing. Maybe she isn’t sure if this is even related to the Parkinson’s or just a normal part of aging. Regardless of the reason, [00:21:00] a lot of people are uncomfortable or not able to alert their partner to things that are becoming more difficult physically, and that’s really, really human.
Sarah: Very much so. And that’s what makes Walter’s situation common for many of our listeners, and that is because nothing has gone wrong yet. He hasn’t fallen on that path. He probably won’t fall the next time he crosses it either.
But what’s happening is something more gradual. The path is getting harder to navigate. Each crossing is asking a little more of him than it used to. And at some point, the gap between what the surface asks and what he can give will close. And that’s the window we wanna talk about because the decisions that are the easiest to make, the least expensive, the least disruptive, are the ones that get made before something goes wrong.
Rebecca: Right. So this is where we wanna be pretty concrete. Do you like the pun there? Um, anyway, I’ll get back to it. [00:22:00] Because the surface conversation can feel pretty overwhelming if you’re looking at a yard you’ve had for 20 years. So let’s talk about this in three layers. What can you do right now with minimal cost or disruption to your life? What could a targeted modification look like that costs a little bit more? And what does it look like if you’re starting from scratch and doing a full redo? Let’s start off with the low-cost options here. There are a lot of things that you can do. Adding temporary or semi-permanent surface coverage to basically flatten out the tricky space on a pathway. There are a few product categories worth knowing about. Where the price changes is the amount of ground you’re trying to cover, which plays into how much you need to purchase. The first is rubber non-slip mats to lay over an existing surface. You need to be diligent to choose some that don’t have a lip on the side, ’cause this could cause someone to trip, one that’s so thin on the surface that any sort of adjustment by the person moving can cause the mat to twist or move or fold over on [00:23:00] itself. So some brands are simply a large rubber mat all in one section, and some have interlocking tiles which you can connect in the configuration that you need. The second option are called access tracks mats, and they’re lightweight, easy to set up because they fold out in panels, and you can configure the orientation as the hinges are removable. So I can see this being used as a quick placement over a grassy area, sand, or dirt to get from one hardscape to the next. The third temporary option is roll-out mobility mats, which are exactly what they sound like. This is a continuous flexible mat that unrolls across the surface and provides a stable, even path. I’ve seen these at beaches with sand that allow people to get closer to the water. This honestly depends on the surface you may be trying to cover. It could fall into a mid-range option, or it might not, but I wanted to keep it here with the others since they’re in the same solution category. MobiMat is a brand name that you’d wanna [00:24:00] look up for that, and we’ll put a link in the show notes.
Sarah: All of these are really great options. They create a firmer, flatter surface to roll over grass, dirt, sand, or irregular stone. They can be moved if something changes or stored elsewhere if only putting down for a temporary situation. Another low-cost option is surface inspection and management. If you have flagstone pavers or brick, walk over it, crouch down, look at it from a different angle.
Find the stones or bricks that are tipped, shift, or creating a lip. A lot of these problems can be improved by resetting individual pieces or shaving them down, which can be done without professional help if the materials are manageable in size, and you have the right tools. Rebecca mentioned that DIY option of adding in the polymeric sand.
Remember, that’s a great option to lock in those pavers, to get those in place, but make sure it really smooths out the gravel in between. You don’t want uneven [00:25:00] pieces sticking out. Lastly, look at your cross slope. Take a level and check the side-to-side pitch of your driveway and primary pathway. If you have a significant pitch, you may not be able to change it without regrading, but knowing it’s there is a really good starting point. Just like Walter and Carol, they’re in this observation phase, noticing what’s there and what might need to be adjusted, even if nobody has said anything out loud.
That’s helpful in just noticing what could make the space better before anything happens, like an unwanted fall. I love it when people have the mindset to notice these things before something happens.
Rebecca: Of course, that’s the ideal situation. So, let’s talk a little bit more about some mid-range options you could explore. If you’re ready to commit some budget and labor, the goal in this middle tier is replacing the problem surface with something that actually meets our three criteria: even, solid, and non-slip conditions over [00:26:00] time. Poured concrete is the simplest answer in most situations. It’s durable, it’s maintainable, and it provides a surface that a wheelchair, a walker, a stroller, a person with Parkinson’s, and more can all cross without feeling the surface fighting them. When considering typical front walkways in concrete, you’ll need to consider the length, the material costs, labor, plus demolition of the existing surface. So this can rack up quickly and might even fall in the higher tier depending on what you’re looking at. One finish worth knowing about specifically is aggregate concrete, where small stones or pebbles are embedded into the surface and exposed as this top layer. It’s genuinely slip-resistant, which matters for wet conditions, and it’s pretty low maintenance.
Those are real advantages. The trade-offs are worth naming too, though. If a section cracks or gets damaged, it’s harder to repair than standard concrete because matching the aggregate mix is difficult. You often end up with a visible patch, and it’s a rough surface underfoot, which most people don’t think [00:27:00] about until they’re walking across it in bare feet or if a child is playing on it. It also tends to trap debris, leave leaves, dirt, small stones in the texture of the surface, it does need regular sweeping to stay clear, especially in a location with lots of trees above. For a pathway that gets foot and wheel traffic, those are manageable trade-offs, but definitely worth knowing going in. The objection I hear about concrete generally is, “But concrete is boring,” and I get that. Which is why the style guide becomes genuinely useful. There are concrete finishes, stained concrete, stamped concrete, aggregate, and these provide traction, visual interest, and color. These are not institutional looking.
They look like intentional design choices because they really are. The style guide has examples specifically in the parking and pathway chapter, and I’d encourage anyone who’s resisting concrete because they think it means a plain gray slab to look at those. make sure the finish is not glossy. Having it look wet can play tricks on [00:28:00] your eyes and create glare from the sun, which is definitely not helpful.
Sarah: Yes, I love the stamped concrete option. Asphalt is another solid option in the right context, particularly for longer driveways. It provides an even solid surface, though it requires more maintenance over time than concrete and can soften in extreme heat. Pavers, flagstone, and brick are more complicated.
Individual pieces set in sand or gravel, like we’ve said, can shift and create the same problems that we’ve already described. If you’re going to use any of those materials, they need to be set in a rigid bed, mortared or set in concrete with tight joints filled with that polymeric sand or mortar.
Installed that way, they can meet the standard. The closer together the stones are set and the more solidly the joints are filled, the better the surface performs for everyone crossing it. With brick especially, even a well set surface warrants regular [00:29:00] inspection as the mortar changes. The one thing I want to say about slope in this tier, if your existing pathway has a significant running or cross slope problem, resurfacing without regrading doesn’t fix it.
You may be installing a beautiful, smooth surface that’s still pitching at the wrong angle. That’s worth the conversation with whoever does the work.
If you’re building or if you’re doing a full landscape redesign, is where you can get it right from the ground up. The structural tier here is really about regrading and comprehensive surface planning, maybe even looking at finding a landscape architect. If a site has significant elevation change between where a vehicle parks and where the door is, and if a ramp or a lift is not the right solution for that context, the answer is often to reexamine the site plan entirely.
Rebecca: Where is the parking in relation to the entrance? Can the pathway route be adjusted to use a gentler slope? Is there a way to design the approach so that the grade change happens gradually [00:30:00] across a longer distance rather than at a single set of steps? For new construction, this specification is worth stating directly. Parking surfaces should be asphalt or concrete. Pathway surfaces should be solid and easy to maintain. Running slope no greater than one inch in twenty. Cross slope no greater than one inch in fifty. These aren’t really aspirational targets, they’re the baseline that we’ve set in our specifications. And at the design stage, tree placement relative to pathways and driveways is a decision that’s easy to get right and very expensive to fix later. A tree planted three feet from a concrete path is a root problem in fifteen years. Trust me, I know. In my neighborhood, we have a lot of those. That’s a conversation worth having with a landscape architect before anything goes in the ground. The style guide coverage here is worth pulling up before any design conversation with a builder or landscape architect. The chapter on parking and pathways has specific examples of accessible [00:31:00] surface treatments that look like high-end residential landscaping. Stamped concrete, aggregate finishes, composite decking for pathways in certain contexts. The argument that accessible surfaces are visually limited is not supported by what’s actually available. It just requires knowing what to ask for. And I wanna close with one more thought that we’ve come back to several times, even in just these first few episodes. The cost to get this right at the design stage is minimal compared to the cost of redoing it later. So for our builders and construction folks out there, this is a great conversation to have with your clients, and make sure you’re making it work for them now and in the future.
Sarah: Great points, Rebecca. So if you take one thing from this conversation today, I want it to be the three questions Rebecca put on the table earlier: does the surface vary in unexpected ways? Does it shift? Does it become slick when wet or when it hasn’t been maintained?
If it does any of those things, it’s asking more of the person crossing than it [00:32:00] should. If you want to go deeper on surfaces, the specifications chapter on parking areas and entrance routes is at universaldesign.org/specifications, and that will be in the show notes, too. Next time we’re staying outside, but we’re taking a closer look at what happens when the light goes away.
Because a path that works perfectly in the daylight can become completely different in the dark, and who that affects and why is a conversation we haven’t had yet.
Rebecca: Indeed. And if you’re an OT listening to this and you’ve got a client whose family’s trying to figure out the best way to get their family member from the parking area and onto the pathway to the most accessible entrance to the home, this episode may be helpful to keep in your back pocket. Sometimes that temporary solution is all that’s needed to help someone get inside independently. Thanks for spending time with us, listeners. We’ll see you next week.
Sarah: Thanks for listening to Good Fit Poor Fit. If you want to learn more… first, find more episodes with transcripts and show [00:33:00] notes at goodfitpoorfit.com. Don’t forget to subscribe! Second, check out our courses at universaldesign.org.
We cover housing topics like advocacy, collaboration, home modification, universal design and task adaptations. Lastly, if you have questions or topics you’d like us to discuss, email us at [email protected]. Thanks for fitting us into your day.
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