© Chase Daniel
Forget about walk-in dressing rooms, dressing table/home office desks, and wall-hung artworks, ADUs (accessory dwelling units) are the only luxury accessory to splash out on this season. Far from the short-term trends found in the fashion world, however, various factors including an increasingly squeezed housing market, changes in the perception of multi-generational and shared living spaces, and the improved comfort of connective outdoor environments – with warm, covered, and weatherproof outdoor seating, dining, kitchen and even bathroom areas – ADUs are a relatively simple way, without many of the regulatory wranglings involved in other types of renovation/construction, to improve a home’s usability.
Contemporary family living setups mean parents and grandparents in need of care, teenagers and young adults in need of independence, and homeowners in need of the financial security of a guaranteed passive income, are finding themselves under the same roof. With little extra space to move into, and little choice to move out to in a critical housing market, the most obvious solution is simple. To add another roof.