Adaptable Design: How to Build a Home for a Lifetime
Last Updated: Feb 11, 2025Selling a home can be an arduous and difficult decision. Especially for homeowners who devote a large amount of time, energy, and resources to convert their homes into sustainable, energy-efficient, and healthy spaces for themselves and their families. For instance, if you have a net-zero home with an array of solar panels and a powerful battery that offers your home an autonomous source of clean and renewable energy, it will be much harder to move away from than a house connected to the local energy grid. Similarly, a yard filled with fruit and nut trees that were planted and cared for, and now yielding an abundant organic food source for your household will also be harder to abandon than a home with a simple lawn.
While sustainable and energy-efficient homes do command price premiums on the housing market, some homeowners commit to their sustainable home as a lifetime venture of dedication and love. For these types of homeowners, adaptable design is an essential strategy to help design sustainable homes that can remain functional, comfortable, and habitable for a lifetime.
Table of Contents
- What is Adaptable Design?
- What Are The Benefits of Adaptable Design?
- Factors to Be Considered When Using Adaptable Design for a Building or Renovation Project
- Bottom line
What is Adaptable Design?
An adaptable design accommodates lifestyle changes without the need to demolish or substantially modify the existing structure and services." In some cases, haphazardly designed homes will oblige homeowners to change their residence due to life situations. For example, perhaps a two-story house may have bedrooms located only on the second story and a steep set of stairs. This layout will often mean that elderly couples will need to move to a home with easier bedroom access. Similarly, a smaller house that has only one room that can practically act as a bedroom will often force young couples to change homes once children come along.
On the other hand, adaptable homes are specifically designed so that a single space or room can cover several different functions and roles throughout the lifetime of the house. A room used as a home office during the first years of occupancy be converted into a child's bedroom, a teenager's private retreat space, a family study, or an extra bedroom for a guest during different periods.
Dr. Avi Friedman is a renowned architect and writer who advocates for flexible, adaptable home design. In his book, The Adaptable House, Dr. Friedman mentions that "a conflict exists between the dynamic nature of people's lives and the homes in which they choose to reside." Instead of trying to fit their lives to what their home design allows for, Dr. Friedman believes that "a close fit between the evolving space needs of occupants and their homes ought to be simpler."
So, adaptable home design should really be a central component in designing and constructing new homes, but it rarely is. A greater sense of adaptability can also be achieved after a home is complete through a series of thoughtful renovation strategies.
Adaptable design includes a wide range of approaches, considerations, and tactics. These include home dimensions, facades, interior design, surface finishes on interior walls, and individual rooms' functions. And, due to the climatic and environmental uncertainty in our future, adaptable design should also include considerations on how to make a home more resilient in the face of climate change and extreme weather events.
Factors to Be Considered When Using Adaptable Design for a Building or Renovation Project
Whether you are searching the market for your first home or are already an established homeowner looking to renovate, there are several considerations when implementing adaptable design.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
