Designing Homes That Truly Welcome Everyone with Ron Wickman

In this episode, Valerie sits down with architect, author, and accessibility advocate Ron Wickman to explore what it truly means to design homes that support independence, dignity, and lifelong connection.

Ron brings over 30 years of experience in accessible architecture—and a deeply personal perspective. His father became paraplegic in 1964 at just 23 years old and was told he would likely live in an institution and never work again. Instead, he became a city councillor in Edmonton and later a Member of the Legislative Assembly, advocating for change across Alberta.

Growing up immersed in disability advocacy shaped Ron’s professional mission: transforming accessible design from a “special feature” into the cultural norm.

We Discuss:

How Lived Experience Shapes Design

Ron shares how navigating the world alongside his father exposed the barriers embedded in the built environment—from backdoor restaurant entrances to inaccessible homes—and how those experiences led him to architecture instead of politics.

What “Accessible Design” Really Means

Ron clarifies the differences between:

• Accessible Design
• Universal Design
• Inclusive Design
• Barrier-Free Design
• Visitability

The Power of Visitability

Inspired by disability advocate Eleanor Smith, the concept of visitability ensures that every home has:

1. A no-step entrance
2. Wider doorways
3. A main floor bathroom accessible to wheelchair users

These features benefit everyone.

The 3 Critical Features of a Forever Home

If you are searching for or building a home that can be modified for accessibility, Ron recommends focusing on:

Ground-to-Front-Door Relationship

Can someone enter without steps?
If not, what modifications (ramps, lifts) would be required?

Vertical Circulation

If it’s not a bungalow, is there room for:

• A stair lift?
• A vertical platform lift?
• An elevator?

Bathroom Size & Layout

Older homes often have bathrooms that are too small to modify without major structural changes. Adequate space from the beginning makes aging in place—and caregiving—significantly easier.

Ron advocates for “wet rooms”—fully waterproofed bathrooms with sloped floors and open shower areas.

Shifting the Cultural Mindset

One of the biggest barriers to accessible housing isn’t cost—it’s perception.

Make accessibility the norm—not the exception.

Coming Next

Ron will return to discuss his work designing homes for the neurodivergent population—an area requiring even more nuanced, individualized planning.

Connect with Ron

Google Ron Wickman Architect online to visit his website and explore his publications on accessible housing.

Connect with Valerie

info@foreverhomeconsulting.ca

Music Acknowledgement: Audio Coffee - Denys Kyshchuk

Editor: Scott Arbeau

Link for book: The S.H.I.N.E. Principle: The special needs mom's path to strength, hope and happiness by Valerie Arbeau

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CW18ZXGX (Canada)

https://a.co/d/03hFdZI4 (United States)

If this episode encouraged or informed you, please share it with another parent navigating the forever home journey.

Live with I

Learn more about your host at:
https://coachingwithvalerieanne.com/

Transcript

Valerie

Welcome to this week's episode of forever home for our kids with disabilities. I am so glad you're here. And I just want to say I'm so grateful that you do listen in. And I'm even more grateful that you share the episodes with people you know will get benefit. And also some education around what might be helpful for them as they navigate trying to have a forever home set up for their child with a disability. 

So today, I have a lovely guest. His name is Ron Wickman. He is an architect and author and an activist who specializes in accessible architecture. He said he set up his own Edmonton based practice in 1995. And he specializes in providing consulting services for persons with disabilities and for projects focused on affording individuals with disabilities greater choices for independent movement. Ron is also committed to providing affordable, accessible, adaptable, and healthy housing. Ron has written many articles plus two books on accessible design. He has been a guest speaker and a participant in numerous sessions involving accessibility, innovative housing, urban and community planning. 

Welcome Ron.

Ron

Thanks, great to be here.

Valerie

We're so glad to have you here. All right. So Ron, please share with us how you became part of the persons with disabilities world.

Ron

Yeah, it actually goes all the way back to when I was born. I'll make it a short story.

I was only a few months old when my father, so this is 1964, my father was injured in a work related accident that rendered him a paraplegic. So in 1964, he was 23 himself. And basically times were much different than they are today. He was basically told that he would live in an institution. Getting schooling, working, all that kind of stuff would be kind of non-existent for him, probably not live past 50. And so yeah, kind of a bleak interpretation of that injury. 

And so I grew up around my father, who used a manual wheelchair. Again, everybody in those days had the exact same wheelchair. So there was only one style, which again is quite different today.

And I guess for me at the time, I didn't think of it as unusual that that was just he was my dad, and this is how we got around. But as I started entering into my teens, and we started, you know, really traveling around, you know, you start to see how accessibility for us was always quite important and always quite different. And we would often have to enter a restaurant, let's say from the back entrance, go through sort of where they dropped off the garbage and then meet the cooks and the dishwashers and, and make our way in that way. These sorts of experiences allowed me to really figure out that something wasn't right.

My father, I guess could have done anything for a living.

Although, you know, again, he was told that there wasn't much he could do. So, bit stubborn. He was and, very forward thinking, he entered into advocacy himself. So he ended up going back to school, was in university, got involved in student politics at the University of Alberta. That led to getting more active in the community. Eventually, he started running for City Council in Edmonton, got elected and spent nine years as a City Councillor. So first, person with a disability that was on City Council, retired from that, and then continued to be an advocate. And eventually, a few years later, he decided to run provincially. At that time in the late 80s, the Liberal Party was a thing in Alberta. And he ran as a Liberal candidate and actually beat the premier of our province at that time, Don Getty, and became a Liberal MLA. And he spent 12 years in the Alberta legislature.

And so I not only grew up kind of witnessing for myself, my personal lived experience, what it was like to navigate the environment,the built environment, from the perspective of being in a wheelchair. I was constantly reminded by my father and others in the advocacy world, that this isn't right. And this is something that we need to do and create change. And seeing how hard it was to be a politician,

I decided not to completely follow in my father's pathway. And I thought architecture might be an interesting and relevant way to make a difference. In the 70s, I remember the introduction of the curb ramp in Edmonton.

And my dad being asked, like, what do you think of this? And, you know, in those days, he would actually was able to get his front wheels up on the curb, and then he'd grab onto a parking meter and pull himself up. And that's somebody if you're young and strong, and you can do that, that's fine. But if you're in a power wheelchair, that's not going to happen, right?

And and so the curb ramp is a great example of, of I guess, what we call a universal design solution, where, you know, originally, its origin started with really the power wheelchair getting up onto the sidewalk. And, and from there, now, I would venture to guess that those people building and pouring the concrete for the curb ramps, don't even know why they're there. They just assume that they're there for people who use baby carriages or bikes or other mobility devices, they wouldn't even know the origins of it. But like so many things, a lot of the benefits have come out of the desire to make things easier for people with disabilities.

Valerie

Yeah, love that. Wow. Well, thank you so much for sharing, Ron. That's amazing. And just the fact that that has been your life, all of your life, disability, you've just been around it the whole time.

You did mention with the curbs, we never noticed curbs, really, until we had a child with a disability, until we started parenting. So even having a child with a disability, just the fact that she was in a, it was called a kid cart. So it looked like a stroller, but it was kind of like a cross between a stroller and a wheelchair, but a little higher up.

Ron

Right.

Valerie

And so that's when I started to realize, oh, right, yeah, so where do we go? So I can't imagine for all those people that pushed prams and strollers and all that kind of stuff years before, what did they do? Right? And it's only because somebody in a power wheelchair wants to be able to get up on a curb that things changed. So I'm so glad that they did. But I don't know, you're probably the same, when I go anywhere now, I'm scanning to see where's the accessibility here? How do I get in? How do I get out? How do I navigate getting around? So that's something that I'm very much aware of now, now that we've had Melody-Anne who uses a wheelchair.

Ron

Yeah, and it really, it really comes down to that, that personal, somehow that personal life experience that really makes you aware of the issues.

That really what I've spent my, I guess, I just finished my 30th year in my practice.

Valerie

Congratulations.

Ron

Thank you. Yeah. And, and that's really been my mission is to is to sort of change the culture so that the curb ramp, and other, we'll talk about this coming up here, other features in home design, for example, just become commonplace that they're the norm, not the unusual. So we’re just used to using them because it just makes sense. And it's easier for everybody. And it's not this kind of specialized feature that just helps have like a small number of people, right. 

Valerie

Right. And we will get into that. So the term accessible design is used widely, but often inconsistently. So how do you define accessible design? And how does your definition go beyond the minimum code compliance?

Ron

Yeah, that's almost a talk, a podcast in itself. But in a nutshell, accessible design is very much disability focused. So it is really up to the designer and the person interpreting accessible design to really understand what disability is all about. And that's not just people in wheelchairs, but that's, that's certainly where it started. But every kind of disability that you can think of, and the other terms that people might have heard of is universal design is one, and inclusive design is the other. Inclusive design tends to be used across the world in Asia and Europe.

Universal design is very much something that started in the United States, which is which is more of a North American thing.

And the universal design term, which is more commonplace, I guess, here in Canada, because we often are influenced by what happens in in the US started in 1986 by an architect, Ron Mase, who used a wheelchair. And, he really wanted to steer the focus away from disability focused and more to this idea that, you know, what we're promoting is something that benefits everybody.

Valerie

Yes.

Ron

And so 1986, now it's 2026. I think, certainly from my point of view, and some others, I think our desire, especially in the design world, our desire to achieve this idea of universal design has steered us a little bit in a different direction, certainly than disability focused. So now we're just trying to find that sweet spot that sort of satisfies everybody. But in some respects, satisfies nobody. So I'm happy to use the term universal or inclusive or accessible. To me, they all mean the same thing. And I don't like to get too hung up on, you know, what, word is the better one to use.

If you look at universal design, you'll just try to find something that, you know, might meet code, and just kind of satisfy what the books are telling you or what other experts are telling you. But you're not really in as a person, you're not delving into the real lives of people with disabilities. And that's what I've done. I try to experience the best I can what it's like to be, you know, have a visual limitation, or be hard of hearing, or be in a wheelchair. I grew up around that. So it's a little easier for me sometimes. But you know, what I also found out is that there is no real universal solution, especially when we start getting into talking about neurodivergency, and so on. So you cannot make a home universal, in a sense, because everybody's different, and everybody has different needs. So having said that, there are some features that have a more universal impact, like again, back to the curb cut, right? Or curb ramp.

So, so I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what those features are that would help, people appreciate that. Yeah, these things will just make it easier for everybody. And then there and then we can go in and really detail our home for our individual family.

Yeah, the other couple of terms that people might be aware of is barrier free design. And barrier free is something that is part of our code, our national building code. And it's really, it's really talking about removing barriers to accessibility. So that is very much disability focused.

And unfortunately, it's very focused on people who use wheelchairs. So we need to really get out of that.

And in fact, the Alberta, Alberta building code, we just changed that through the Safety Codes Council, we changed our name from the barrier free design committee to the accessibility design committee. So we had a long conversation about should we say accessibility universal inclusive, and the consensus was, and there was some great discussion about it was accessibility is probably the best term to use. 

Valerie

Right.

Ron

The other term that really relates to housing is something we call visitability,

Valerie

Okay.

Ron

And that also was started in the 80s by Eleanor Smith in Atlanta, Georgia, who used a wheelchair and she realized she couldn't visit her friends, because houses had steps.

And this is actually kind of a good segue into talking about some of the key features. So I'll just mention a couple of them. And visitability is really these key features, which really just makes life better for everybody. And Eleanor Smith is quoted as saying, “A no step entrance to a home benefits so many people and hurts no one.” Great.

If you're carrying a small baby or trying to get a baby stroller up into your entrance, those are just dangerous situations, especially where we live in Canada, where we often have icy conditions, right? So, so this idea of having entrances to our homes without steps is a no brainer to me.

And then and then the second element to visitability is just having doorways wide enough to get through, which has just become the norm. Like that is one of the things that has become the norm.

Valerie

Yes.

Ron

And, largely in part because people just have bigger TVs and furniture and so on. 

And then and then thirdly, having a bathroom that can at least accommodate somebody in a wheelchair, let's say, to be able to visit. So the whole may not be accessible to to live in and sleep in and use the kitchen in, but at least somebody can come and visit you, which is so incredibly important, especially in our day and age when we have such a large population of people who are seniors and really need to get out and socialize and visit. Stairs can be a real detriment to to all of that. Yeah. So, Eleanor was really progressive in her thinking in the 1980s. My own personal experience with that was my first book, which is just a small children's book, was based on our experience of renovating our own home. Okay, we did a quite a massive renovation, we added a second story to our bungalow. But part of that was just to make sure we report our driveway and sidewalk to our door without steps. And so the children's book is just based on that story of how I recognize that my father, who used a wheelchair would go out and get treats for my three kids every Saturday. But he would phone from his van, and they would run out and grab their treats and then run back in the house. That was the extent of his visit. So the book really tells the story of how we did this renovation, then he could get out of his van and just wheel up to the door and come in. He could actually watch the kids play with the toys that he got them and treats that he got them and all that was very significant. 

Valerie

Yeah. No, it's just creating that awareness with the younger people. And it's good to start them young to be aware because they are going to be the generation that are going to continue making the change, right? And we want to normalize it. I remember when I had Melody-Anne, and one of the caregivers that we had, she made a comment, which was lovely, but she said, you know, you do so well getting your kids out, you know, more so than other families that I know that have typical kids that don't get their kids out and about. And so just creating that awareness and normalizing, yeah, it's okay to be in a wheelchair, and it's okay to not be able to speak to someone, but they can still understand you. So yeah, I love that you kind of targeted the children and you did create awareness for them. So that's, that's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. 

And I love the term, visitibility, like I love that, that that is becoming a thing because I've worked in the geriatric population as a physical therapist for many years. And I just could not get over how many steps some people would have to climb to get in an out of home. And then as they get older, because they're trying to age in place, they don't leave their home because they can't get in and out. And it's just so sad to see. So because we've had Melody-Anne, we now live in bungalows. We don't even worry about two story homes. And just making sure that there's a way to get our child in and out when she comes to visit us because she now is in her forever home. Yeah, which was built with steps. But there was a ramp inside the garage when we bought that house, but we've actually since put in a porch lift on the front and the back. And then we also have a ramp at the side of the house as well.

Ron

So yeah, that's actually a good. This is a good time for me to mention, with the forever home concept, this is something that your listener should really take note. People contact me and ask me, we want to look for a home that would be easy to modify. Or, what should we be looking for to make our homes easier to modify as opposed to building new?

It really does come down to three key things. So that the first thing is, is this idea of the visitability concept. So, you know, how easy is it to get into the home? It doesn't matter whether it's a bungalow or a two story.

Home without steps at the front door is is critical. When I drive to a home, and I just look at it from the outside, the relationship of the ground to the door, the front door is what I look at. So if I see, you know, four feet or something, then I know, well, we're talking about some kind of porch lift or some kind of ramp.

If I drive out to a house, and it's a bi level or split level, we're not going to try to renovate those, so just, just don't even entertain that idea. Right away, I can look at a home and, and get a good sense of, is this going to be easy or hard, just by that relationship of the ground to the front door. 

And then secondly, once I'm inside,

I would look at again, even with a bungalow, it would be nice to be able to access the basement, if you could, in a wheelchair. So I look at how easy it might be to add a lift to the stairs, for example, or is there, is there space to add an elevator, some kind of vertical lift inside? Of course, that becomes a bit of an expense there, the elevator. But that idea of vertical circulation is something that is the second key feature that I look at. 

And then thirdly, and maybe most importantly, is the bathroom. So a lot of old homes made bathrooms that were just big enough for somebody, you know, standing.

To renovate a bathroom sometimes means tearing down walls. And often I've turned a two or three bedroom bungalow into a two bedroom bungalow.

When you're building a new house, also, those are the three key features that you, if you just have those three things addressed, everything else will kind of follow. 

Affordable housing, that's another issue too, becomes a little bit tricky. But is really important. 

The aging population has really changed the game. In the United States, I don't know what it is something like 70 million people now or more are over 65 in the United States. So, you know, that's more than the population, almost twice the population of Canada.

So there's a big market for it as well. Right. And, what you see coming out of that is, much nicer, more aesthetically pleasing products out there to grab bars, all kinds of other features.

Because at the end of the day, that's really the biggest stumbling block in all of this, is often not cost is this perception that accessible housing is ugly, right. 

Valerie

Right.

Ron

And, and again, when you look at the no step entrance, I don't know how you can say steps look nicer than not having steps. Like I don't know the difference. I don't think most people notice the difference at my house.

Except I have to tell you, there's one story where a gentleman picked up a couch we were selling. And he came in the house and he grabbed the one end of the couch and I was helping him carry it out. He got through the door and outside and he started backing up. And then he with his foot, I could see was reaching for the steps. I go, ‘There's no step.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, really?’’ ‘Didn't you notice when he came in?’ He goes, ‘I didn't notice. I didn't even think about it.’ And he was like, ‘This is amazing. Like everybody should do this.’

I'd go to the bathroom. I promote what I would call a wet room, it’s just a waterproof room. So it's instead of having a shower stall, or a bathtub with a shower in the bathtub. It's an open area that has a drain in the floor. Essentially, the floor just slopes to the drain. Yeah. And you could have a like a glass wall with a door, or a curtain.

It just makes life so much easier even for cleaning the bathroom. You can stand in it if you want. You got like elbow room to to move around. If you needed to have like a little bench, you could sit or if you had to wheel in, you could shower right from your wheelchair. My father didn't have a lot of choices in his day when he first got hurt. So he just got used to transferring into a bathtub. And as he got close to 60, he just couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't transfer from his wheelchair into the bathtub and especially get back out of the bathtub into his wheelchair.

Finally, his shoulders just kind of gave out on him. So we did a small addition to the bathroom where we had the shower area. He goes, I don't know why I wasn't doing this, like right from the very beginning. I probably wouldn't have bad shoulders now right. 

Valerie

At Melody-Anne's place, at her forever home, people that previously owned the home were very thoughtful in how they designed the home. So Melody-Anne has this amazing bathroom that is massive. And she has a roll-in shower like a wet room. And so we have glass blocks that kind of come around the corner of it, right, just kind of blocks it off a little bit. But she just rolls in, she goes from the toilet on a commode, and then she just wheels right into the shower to have a shower. And it just makes it so much easier. And as the for the cleaning, totally, like I'm not there with her now because she's in her forever home, but the staff that are there, makes it so much easier. There is a great big tub, because I guess the lady of the house, liked to have a tub, but the ceiling track is there that they could have lowered her into the tub, but Melody-Anne doesn't use that. But we have so appreciated that roll-in shower, the height of the toilet. And the other thing that's really been beneficial is the height of the counters. And the fact that they have been open, so we can store things easily in there. And we can see what's there. So yeah, they were really thoughtful with the design. And she's got glass block window, she's got a skylight in there. It's beautiful.

Ron

Yeah, it sounds. Yeah, it sounds amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, as you were sharing that story, too, it got me thinking about the fact that parents of children with disabilities want to stay active in their lives as long as possible. And, you know, I've been around doing this work long enough that I, you know, I do talk to a lot of parents that are aging themselves. And they're like, that their biggest concern is what happens if I'm not around or if I can't take care of my child anymore. And you know, I'm talking about an adult child now, but still.

And so again, all of this, this accessibility, these features really allow us to stay engaged with our family members as long as possible. I don't know how to put a price tag on that. It's convincing the industry and our decision makers that, that we should do this right. And, our governments, they have the power to influence the industry the most.

Valerie

Whether it be government, moving things forward, or whoever needs to move this forward, it has been really encouraging to see more toilets that are higher. When I first came to Canada, because I'm from England, seriously, I thought everybody must be midgets because the toilets were so low. What is this? So I'm glad to see that that's happening. I'm also glad to see that bathrooms are a little bit bigger. I think there's still a lot more work to do. Our house that I'm currently living in here now with my husband and our younger child was built in 94. And the bathroom, the bathroom is so tiny in comparison to the bedroom. The bedroom is massive. I'm thinking all I'm doing in here is sleeping and storing my clothes. I need to be able to move in my bathroom. Like it's difficult for Scott and I to be in at the same time. I can't imagine trying to get a walker in there, or a wheelchair or a commode in there. So we are actually looking to renovate our bathroom. But I just wish the builders at the time had thought this through, took off a lot of space out of the bedroom and made more space for the bathroom and made it more accessible.

Ron

Yeah, that's a great point. That's a really great point.

Ron

I think, I think your last comment is, is a great one is that, you know, better, better operation and better planning in the beginning. So, you know, we do rely a lot on the home building industry to, to develop our homes. And yeah, I scratch my head to about seeing these homes, where the bedroom is massive, and then the bathroom is tiny. And, you know, just take it just give the bathroom like two more feet. And, and it's not even going to affect the bedroom. And so, you know, again, it's that kind of the, the attitudinal shift in the market needs to be there. For sure.

Valerie

Where can our audience go to find out more about you?

Ron

I guess the easiest way is to google Ron Wickman architect and my website is there.

Valerie

Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

Ron

Oh, you're welcome.

Valerie

So Ron, thank you so much for being here. Do you have a quick word of encouragement for our audience that are listening?

Ron

My only advice is just, I know it's hard, but try to really enjoy this time because you can get so stressed out about everything that life is, can be very complicated, but often I think we make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Just do the best you can to be curious and make yourself aware of this great world that's out there.

Valerie

Yes. Well, thank you so much, Ron. It's been a pleasure chatting with you. And I just want to say to our audience that Ron will be coming back because Ron has a special interest also in working with housing for our neurodivergent population. So that will be the topic of our next conversation. 

Thank you so much, Ron. We so appreciate you being here.

Ron

Oh, you're more than welcome.

Valerie

And audience, I want to remind you Live with Intention - Embrace the Journey.