Thanks to a Department of Health and Human Services Administration grant for nearly $500,000, two ISU professors are developing a universal design kitchen that can meet everybody’s needs.

Pat Patterson, associate professor and chairman of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, said this kitchen is designed with everyone in mind, whether tall, short, elderly or disabled.

The modified kitchen features flexible and reconfigurable cabinets and shelves that can be adjusted for different users.

“Many people cannot use kitchens the way they are constructed,” said Mary Yearns, associate professor of human development and family studies. “The counters are too high for shorter people, and on the other side, the counters are too short for taller people. People in wheelchairs have to work sideways with their wheels parallel with the cupboards, and they are too low to access the cupboards above the counter or use the oven range.”

The idea for a universal design kitchen evolved from the realization that elderly people and people with certain disabilities are unable to effectively use their kitchens and are moving into assisted living quarters as a result, Patterson said.

“For some people, fixing a meal in a traditional kitchen involves physically stressful movements in reaching and bending while using cabinets and appliances,” Patterson said.

Yearns said she believes people with disabilities have been segregated in our society because of their inability to effectively use or access certain places.

“Their housing has been changed by adding ramps or bars that are not appealing to non-disability persons,” Yearns said.

“We wanted to figure out a way to have a kitchen be attractive and appealing to all people but can be used by a person in a wheelchair or someone with a different disability.”

To design a countertop for a wheelchair user, the professors suspended a counter between cabinets and pulled out the base cabinet so people have workspaces they can put their knees under, Yearns said.

The countertop could be raised or lowered for people of varying heights.

Yearns and Patterson have built prototypes that they bring around the state to use for focus groups and have built a prototype in the basement of Black Engineering Building.

“We’ve used the prototypes to show how much easier it is to prepare foods when the kitchen is designed to meet their specific needs,” Yearns said. “We videotaped different people cooking their favorite meals in their own kitchen and in our universal kitchen design to define some of the problems and issues.”

Patterson said they hope to make the universal kitchen affordable and want a low-cost manufacturer like Home Depot or Lowe’s to handle the installation and manufacturing.

“Our kitchen is easier to change, and it’s more cost-effective because you can reconfigure the layout with a screwdriver,” Yearns said.