i+D - July/August 2018 - 36

Closing the Gap - By Diana Mosher

Housing by the Numbers
The post-war housing boom was driven by nuclear families, a demographic
that accounted for 43 percent of all households in 1950. "That number
remained at 40 percent in 1970 so you can understand why in the
'50s, '60s, and '70s we were just building those single-family homes,"
says Chrysanthe B. Broikos, an architectural historian and curator at
the National Building Museum, in Washington, D.C., who organized the
exhibition Making Room: Housing for a Changing America. "But, when
you look to see what's happened since then, that single-family percentage
has dropped in half basically, and all the other categories have shot up."
Broikos believes housing should be more responsive to what's happening
in the market. "We're seeing more acceptance of universal design,"
she explains. "I would like to think that. However, we're not seeing it
everywhere." Some counties are mandating a visibility standard that requires
at least one no-step entrance into the home for wheelchair access, as well
as one accessible bathroom on the main level. Arizona, Florida, and other
areas with older populations are experimenting with that.

Housing Statistics 2016 (U.S.)
7%

28%

Single-parent
families (one parent,

Single people
living alone

children 21 and under)

20%
Nuclear families
(two parents, children
21 and under)

20%

25%

Adults sharing
with other adults

Couples
(no children)
*Source: National Building Museum

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i+D - July/August 2018

Living with several different
generations of family under one
roof is even more rewarding when
everyone has a private place
to call their own.

Broikos notes that people are frequently surprised when they
see actual statistics, such as 50 percent of all households are
either one or two people. "That's pretty powerful," she says.
Other unexpected takeaways from data compiled by the Citizens
Housing Planning Council (CHPC), a nonprofit education and
research group based in New York, is that not all of those single
people are millennials; more 18- to 34-year-olds live at home with
parents than any other type of housing arrangement; and one out
of every three kids is in a single-parent household. "That shocks
folks. They react to these figures the most," adds Broikos.
According to Nora Spinks, chief executive officer at The Vanier
Institute of the Family in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the two
fastest-growing types of households in Canada are single
person and multigenerational. "We're looking at a number
of trends, including cohousing, where unrelated adults
or families share a household without being in a romantic
relationship." One example might be five widows in their
late 60s who share a home. Spinks also watches with
interest the design evolution of family living spaces like the
disappearance of the bathtub.
The Vanier Institute of the Family has seen a focus on
progressive developers and designers in the early 2000s
looking at ways of creating homes that recognize the needs
of co-parenting and joint custody. These cleverly designed
townhouses have a common living space in the center
where the child resides and each parent has his or her own
private space. Another concept that recognizes the need for
intergenerational housing is "nanny" or "granny" flats-with
independent but not necessarily separate living quarters in
the back of the house, lower level, or upper level.
i+D - July/August 2018

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