The Wounded Warrior Home: Rethinking Handicapped-Accessible
February 14, 2012
The moving platform in Rem Koolhaas’ Maison à Bordeaux allows the inhabitant to access a series of stacked volumes without having to move. Photo via.
Some of the most memorable works of architecture have arisen from life’s unfortunate setbacks: a near-fatal car accident led a wheelchair-bound man in France to commission the Maison à Bordeaux, Rem Koolhaas’ shining example of alternative interior circulation. Frank Lloyd Wright similarly designed a home in 1948 for Kenneth Laurent, a disabled war veteran whose life was made easier by Wright’s spacious, curvilinear plan. In contemporary Tokyo, Takeshi Hosaka architects designed a peculiar home for a deaf couple and their family, enabling the parents to communicate with their young children even from considerable distances.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left no shortage of injuries and setbacks. But as NPR reports, a significant number of wounded U.S. soldiers wish to remain in uniform. At a U.S. Army fort in Virginia, developers are now overseeing a grand housing experiment called the Wounded Warrior Home, which is setting out to repair and retrofit 2,100 homes to accommodate disabled soldiers. Read on.
An ocular window installed in a ‘Wounded Warrior’ house.
