Amy Carpenter, Principal, SFCS (Philadelphia)
Photo credit: Laurel Harrish
Amy Carpenter has spent most of her 30-year career focused on senior living design, most recently combining her skills in research, writing, and interpreting building codes to drive consensus on new guidelines and regulations that enhance the quality of life for seniors. Sitting on the International Code Council’s (ICC) healthcare committee, she’s driven beneficial policy changes to support person-centered care, making notable contributions to code issues pertaining to senior living and steering major regulatory updates.
Specifically, in the past two years, Carpenter has focused on new language adoption that will add a section to the ICC A117.1 Accessibility Standard addressing toileting and bathing. These initiatives aim to better support seniors living in a variety of care settings and allow them to maintain independence as long as possible, as well as enable better support for caregivers. To drive change in elder toileting requirements, Carpenter drew from existing research completed by Margaret Calkins, Jon Sanford, et al., to turn the research into code language.
Additionally, she chaired a committee with representatives from accessibility groups to review and gain consensus on the code language, helping set up the new standard for assisted bathing with alternate shower configurations, increased accessibility, and better controls with shower heads to prevent caregivers from getting wet.
Research-backed toileting requirements
Backed by research, the new assisted toileting requirements move beyond the standard wall-mounted grab bar configurations, which do not work well for those with upper body strength, balance, or mobility challenges, to allow for the use of fold-down, grab bars on both sides of the toilet. Her work was included in the 2021 edition of the ICC’s International Building Code and incorporated into the A117.1 Accessibility Standard, which is expected to be published
in 2024.
Recognized by colleagues as a “Code Ninja,” Carpenter’s next focus area is researching how the industry could omit the need for door closers on assisted living resident unit entry doors, which can be difficult for frail elders to operate and often close too quickly, causing injuries.
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Anne DiNardo is executive editor of Environments for Aging and can be reached at [email protected].
