The Australian Government has committed $1 million seed funding over three years, 2011-12 to 2013-14 to work with industry, the disability, aged and community sectors to promote Livable Housing Design.
This initiative will benefit people with disability and ageing Australians by designing Australian homes to meet the changing needs of home occupants across their lifetime. This will occur through the inclusion of key easy living features that aim to make homes more accessible, by ensuring homes are:
- easy to enter;
- easy to move in and around;
- capable of easy and cost-effective adaptation; and
- designed to anticipate and respond to the changing needs of home occupants.
On 13 July 2010, the Livable Housing Design Guidelines and the National Dialogue on Universal Housing Design Strategic Plan were launched. These documents were developed jointly by all levels of government and the disability, aged, community, building and construction sectors. They provide aspirational targets for all new homes to be of an agreed livable housing design standard by 2020.
On 11 April 2011, a new not-for-profit organisation, Livable Housing Australia, was announced to encourage Australians to voluntarily comply with the design elements of the Guidelines to make their homes more accessible.
Available formats
Livable Housing Design Guidelines - PDF [600kB]
Livable Housing Design Guidelines - RTF [365kB]
National Dialogue on Universal Housing Design - Strategic Plan.