Jeffrey DeMure + Associates Architects today announced the publication of Livable Design: From Commodity to Community with Affordable, Adaptable, Beautiful Home Design, the first book that presents readers with the steps for building a sustainable, beautiful, livable home that changes with the needs of its occupants – from raising young children to living in place vs. merely aging-in-place. DeMure, together with his team, has spent the last ten years developing Livable Design™, a collection of simple, cost-effective elements that can be incorporated into the design of any living space to make it more fully inclusive for residents and guests of all ages and mobility profiles. The book offers practical step-by-step instructions for builders, developers and homeowners who want to create homes and communities that can transform the lives of an unserved market of more than 24.1 million Americans who live with a disability.
“In any given market, at least 70 percent of builders are building for less than 35 percent of homebuyers, so it’s no wonder there’s so much commonality and similarity among offerings,” said DeMure.
“What Livable Design allows for is a broader penetration into something that has a deeper purpose and speaks the language of the people who are actually going to buy and live in these homes while creating multi-generational communities designed to be genuinely livable and inclusive for a much greater percentage of the population.”
Moving beyond the industry’s buzzwords of “aging-in-place” and “universal design” which to date have been geared mainly toward remodeling homes, the premise of Livable Design is that we should start with the idea of making homes livable from the outset.
Livable Design is not a single feature, but a series of elements that likely escape conscious notice, but work in concert to enhance the functionality, flow, beauty and safety of your home. Livable Design has already been incorporated in more than 20,000 residences across the United States, including homes at The Cannery, the award-winning farm-to-table community in Davis, California. Demure aims to have one million Livable Design homes across the country in the next five years. The book, illustrated by Hugh MacLeod of Gapingvoid, is available for purchase on Amazon.com both on Kindle and hard copy. For more information about Livable Design please visit www.livabledesign.com.