The following is a transcript of the video "How should a builder market a home with Universal Design features? A PCBC Conversation" :

Nigel: So, then should the builder look at a list of things that he can do, or she, to a project, and say, rocket switches you know, wider doors, make it easy to bring in a bed, or should they just do those things in a unit, condo, or single family house, and then have the homeowners experience it and enjoy it?

Susan: Yes, I think it's all about selling how the inhabitants use the space. Wider doors are actually more aesthetically pleasing, but they change the scale of a hallway. They change the scale of a room. They change your perception of the scale of the room when you walk into a room.

Beth: And the enhanced maneuverability.

Susan: Exactly.

Beth: So as you're doing whatever you're doing, you've got that open space to be able to work with.

Susan: I mean, I would suggest maybe selling it as a flex home. You know, not that you're going to be old and won't be able to move around. You don't sell that piece of it, but you say, "It's gonna flex with your family.” You know, you're a millennial and you're just married, but you don't have kids, but you might wanna think of your bathtub a little differently when you're thinking of giving two kids a bath at 8:00 at night, you know, so you're selling a flexible home.

We're gonna be hearing a lot about adaptable homes. And part of that happens with receding walls, and half walls, and modular systems, so that a dining room can become an office. So it's gonna be a lot more people working at home, so how do we make that room flex? Homes are getting smaller, spaces are getting smaller, so how do we create products and designs that are gonna be flexible? And I think I would sell to that, you know.

Beth: Multi-purpose.

Susan: Especially because the expectation for a millennium is that they're not, you know, much like when I was a millennial, or that age anyway. We bought a house thinking we'd be in it for two or three years, and then we'd move on to the next one. But the concept now is millenniums really do understand that they'll probably be in that first house for 10 or 11 years.