Developing design guidelines for inclusive housing: a multi-stakeholder approach using a Delphi method

Increasing interest and investment in inclusive housing for people with complex disabilities has resulted in a greater focus on research evidence and industry replication. In the absence of practice standards and regulatory structures, building design principles and guidelines for purpose-built supported housing have an important role within the sector. The current project was a first attempt at developing a set of principles and design features that have the potential to inform future inclusive housing guidelines. The researchers applied a multi-stakeholder Delphi process to generate nine design principles to guide future supported housing, and a parsimonious set of design features (n = 247) across ten design spaces. The framework such as developed in this study can be further tested to develop a more robust understanding of what works in supported housing design, and therefore what can be replicated over time.