Lori Pinkerton Works with Charitable Enterprise

Published on : Saturday, December 7, 2013

Interior designer Lori Pinkerton-Rolet was struck by the terrible state of design in many care homes and set out to find a reason for this worrying tendency. After ten years of self-directed research and four years volunteering for the management committee of a local care home, she decided to attempt to tackle the intrinsic problems in care home design. Now, her firm Park Grove specialises in design for care and retirement homes, alongside its portfolio of high-end residential and boutique hotels – though Lori is quick to point out that designing for each of these sectors is not so different.

 

A care home, she says, “should look like a property that you or I would want to live in and invite guests to. Inclusive design is not focused on one particular issue – age, disability, whether or not you’re in a wheelchair, whether you can see or not. The idea of inclusive design is that there are things we can do within ‘normal’ design schemes that would work better for everyone.”

 

Simple design decisions such as avoiding furniture with sharp corners, incorporating highly visible easy-to-use handles and increasing contrast levels to delineate furniture and space and avoid bumps are all ways of maximising accessibility for a wide range of people. As people age, Lori says, their retinas become less responsive to light – so a dimmer switch allows light levels in a room to be easily controlled according to the amount of light needed. For many people with dementia, a strong contrast in floor colours between, for example, a bedroom and bathroom might make traversing one to the other feel like stepping into an abyss; maintaining a consistent floor colour throughout a space is a simple way of overcoming this problem.

 
Although awareness for inclusive design is growing, suitable products can be difficult to find, particularly in the kitchen and bathroom areas. A stronger dialogue between designers, manufacturers and industry bodies is vital for inclusive design to gain more traction, Lori says, because change is vital.
Lori is now working with charitable enterprise Out of the Dark on a room setting illustrating inclusive design, as part of our contract showcase at Interiors UK.

 

 

Tags: , , , , ,

Comments are closed.

Follow Us:-
 
     
 
 

Subscribe Newsletter:

Subscribe Our Newsletter!
E-mail:
 

ADVERTISEMENT