Understanding needs: a starting point for quality

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Abstract
Before good quality housing design can occur, the needs of human beings have to be properly understood. Drawing on a research study into the effectiveness of housing adaptations for disabled people, the paper looks at the human needs revealed by adaptations recipients when they described either satisfaction or disappointment with the work done. A model of need originally proposed by Winfield, a partner in the research, is built upon to include extra factors. The evidence suggests that material needs are not always the most important, and that need for such things as dignity, control or the need to play may take precedence over needs for access or safety. At present however, models of housing need, whether for disabled or non‐disabled people, take little account of what is known of human need.

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