Why designers and therapists are teaming up to make accessibility beautiful
For decades, installing mobility aids in the home has meant making an uncomfortable compromise: your independence or your interior design. Grab rails came in institutional white. Stairlifts screamed "medical equipment." And homelifts? They looked like they belonged in a hospital, not a home.
But a quiet revolution is happening in the accessibility world - one that's being led by an unlikely alliance of occupational therapists, interior designers, and even luxury brands.
Kate Sheehan, an occupational therapist who works with people adapting their homes for mobility challenges, has witnessed this shift firsthand. "We're challenging the outdated notion that accessibility means compromise," she says. "Mobility aids are changing; they can be both functional and beautiful, fitting seamlessly into any home's aesthetic."
It's a philosophy shared by interior designer Ayisha Onuorah, who believes the very premise of choosing between form and function is flawed. "Design should never be about choosing between form and function," she explains. "When we design mobility aids that people actually want to showcase rather than hide, we're not just changing interiors, we're changing lives and empowering people to age gracefully in the homes they love."
The pair have recently joined forces with homelift specialists Uplifts to demonstrate exactly what this looks like in practice, creating bespoke fabric designs that transform homelifts from purely functional equipment into statement pieces that enhance rather than detract from interior spaces. It's an approach that treats mobility aids not as medical necessities to be hidden away, but as integral parts of home design.
This isn't just designer rhetoric. Recent research by Uplifts, surveying 2,000 people, reveals that appearance genuinely matters when it comes to home accessibility. Seventy-one per cent say the look of mobility aids is important when deciding whether to install them, with 28 per cent calling it "very important".
The shift towards beautiful accessibility isn't confined to specialists in the field. Luxury brands are beginning to recognise that mobility aids represent a design opportunity, not just a medical necessity.
Porsche, a brand synonymous with sleek design, recently launched a grab rail that looks more like a piece of modern sculpture than a safety device. It's a far cry from the utilitarian chrome rails that have dominated bathrooms for generations, and it signals that the stigma around mobility products may finally be lifting.
When a brand built on performance and aesthetics enters the accessibility market, it sends a clear message: these products don't have to look medicinal. They can be aspirational.
But the resistance to "medical-looking" equipment has real consequences. The same research found that 31 per cent of people believe sleeping downstairs is more cost-effective than installing proper mobility solutions - a choice that often means giving up bedrooms, disrupting household routines, and surrendering parts of one's home.
Forty per cent of respondents said they wanted products designed to look like everyday furniture, particularly for visible areas of the house. Yet misconceptions persist: 38 per cent admitted they don't know how much solutions like homelifts actually cost to install, suggesting that assumptions about price, combined with concerns about appearance, are preventing people from exploring options that could genuinely transform their quality of life.
"People shouldn't have to exile themselves to the ground floor or hide their mobility aids in shame," says Sheehan. "The industry is finally catching up to what users have been saying for years: we want solutions that work with our lives, not against them."
This convergence of therapy and design represents something more fundamental than just prettier grab rails. It's a recognition that dignity, independence, and aesthetics are not competing values, they're complementary ones.
As Onuorah puts it: "We're creating spaces that work for real life." And increasingly, real life means homes that can adapt as we age, without forcing us to choose between staying put and living in a space that feels like ours.
The message from both the healthcare and design worlds is clear: accessibility is not the opposite of beauty. And the sooner the industry embraces that truth, the sooner people can stop hiding the very things designed to help them thrive.