The idea of universal design in housing is not new. Despite academic research proving the need, and practice guidelines based on real lives, we are still a long way from achieving access for everyone at home. Here are some resources with reasons for universal design in housing.
Housing Design for the Ageing: Struggle Toward Supporting Age-in-Place Instead of Special Housing. Discusses the attempts made in Japan, UK and US to introduce universal design features but with little success.
The Home is for Every Body takes a planning perspective.
Flexible housing offsets risk discusses the need for innovation in home design.
Designs for Quality of Life explains the value of home modifications
No Place Like an Accessible Home has qualitative and quantitative research by London School of Economics.
Is there a market for accessible homes? is another UK study based around wheelchair users.
The value of home modifications is a report by AHURI
WHO Housing, Health & Accessibility is a comprehensive guide with a chapter on accessible homes.
You can access the full list in the Housing Research section of this website.