Design for All

BY DEBORAH PADDISON

Building an Award-Winning "Livable Community"

Armory Park del Sol. At Armory Park del Sol in Tucson, universal design is a standard feature. Homes offer open interior spaces for easy navigation and are customized to meet the specific needs of each homeowner. Photography by Adrienne Lake, John Wesley Miller Companies.

When Tucson, Arizona homebuilder John Wesley Miller was honored recently with a 2007 Communities Award, co-sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders and AARP, no one who knows him was a bit surprised. The awards, presented at a gala reception in December in Washington, D.C., recognize builders, remodelers and developers for forward thinking in home and community design.

Miller has been a forward-thinking homebuilder since he built his first home in Tucson in 1953. He got his start working for his father Wesley H. Miller's company, Miller Homes. At that time, some of their customers were veterans returning from Korea in wheelchairs who needed accessible homes. The younger Miller was in charge of final walk-throughs and inspections.

He remembers one day he was on a walk-through and the homebuyer began to cry. Miller recounts, "He said to me, 'You know John, I've never been able to enjoy a home, because I couldn't get around. I couldn't turn around in the bathroom, and some rooms I couldn't even get into. I'm going to have a life now that I haven't been able to have since I've been in a wheelchair. It's just so overwhelming that I can't help but cry.'

"We both were crying," Miller continues. "I was so glad we could play a part in giving him a new life. That was how I first started learning about accessibility."

Miller and his father went on to build 33 "wheelchair houses," as they called them back then, and today universal design remains a key component in all of Miller's projects.

Homes That Fit Like a Glove

One of those projects is Armory Park del Sol, for which John Wesley Miller Companies received the Livable Communities Award. Armory Park del Sol is an urban infill development of some 90 homes on about 14 acres in downtown Tucson's historic Armory Park, a once-posh, turn-of-the-20th-century neighborhood that was home to executives and employees of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The colorful models sprinkled throughout the parcel reflect the area's historical architectural styles, including Pueblo, Craftsman and Mission.

Inside, each home not only meets but exceeds accessibility requirements, with features such as:

step-free entryways
three-foot-wide doorways
four-foot-wide hallways
hard-surface flooring of concrete, wood or tile
42-inch turnaround space in kitchens and bathrooms
roll-in and walk-in showers
six-foot-wide sidewalks
extra-wide patio access gates

But that's only the beginning. Miller meets with individual homeowners to further customize their homes, addressing optimal counter heights, kitchen and bathroom cabinet heights, lavatory heights, grab bar placement and other elements.

"All of the model homes and spec homes we build are very accessible and modifiable to meet each owner's needs," Miller says. "We don't even put certain features in until we sell a home and find out who is buying it."

And accessibility doesn't end at the front door; Armory Park del Sol features wide, flat sidewalks, and its central location offers convenient access to downtown offices, the University of Arizona campus, art galleries and restaurants on Fourth Avenue, and the Tucson Convention Center. One homeowner, a lawyer, regularly travels from her house to her office in her wheelchair; she drives her van only in bad weather.

Ahead of the Curve

In the early 1970s, Miller became interested in energy efficiency and solar power. That's why each home at Armory Park del Sol also has at minimum 1,500 watts of photovoltaics generating electricity, Energy Star appliances and a solar water heater. One model, called the "Net Zero Home," boasts 6,930 watts of photovoltaics and generates more energy than it uses.

In addition to the Livable Communities Award, Miller also received the 2007 Arizona Innovation Award from Governor Janet Napolitano as an innovator in low-energy housing, and Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup presented John Wesley Miller Companies a certificate of appreciation and recognition "for providing exceptional standard and optional accessible and visitable home construction features, and provisions for individuals with disabilities in our community."

As a longtime board member of the NAHB Research Center and a speaker at industry meetings, Miller stays on the cutting edge of new developments in homebuilding. He humbly sees himself as an instrument to help educate and inspire builders to do good things.

"Builders need to learn how to incorporate universal design and energy efficiency into their homes in such a way that they can still find a market and make a profit," Miller says. "As an industry, we've been slow to innovate and catch on. There are still people who just want to do things the old way. But it's getting better."

Now that Armory Park del Sol is nearly sold out, Miller is in negotiations with Habitat for Humanity, Chicanos Por La Causa of Tucson and a national homebuilder to develop a new residential community that will feature solar energy and accessibility while adding another factor into the equation: affordable housing.

Armory Park del Sol. Step-free home entryways, wide sidewalks and a central location allow residents to engage with their neighbors and the downtown Tucson community.