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Toolkit 2: New Homes and Renovations

An Autism-Friendly Home From the Ground Up

This toolkit is for whānau and individuals looking at designing a new home or making renovations to an existing home.

About This Toolkit

Toolkit 2 is for when you’re designing or building a new home (or planning to) or you’re planning a renovation to an existing home or space.

The information includes suggestions that can assist you when for discussing your needs and working with architects, designers, or builders.

Download Full pdf

Cozy living room with a gray sectional sofa, colorful pillows, a round coffee table with books, an armchair, and large windows showing greenery outside

A woman reading on a sofa with a dog lying beside her, a man pouring water in a modern wooden kitchen, and a child jumping on a trampoline outside on a sunny day

These suggestions help you make sure autism-friendly design is considered as part of the architecture, not as an after-thought.

If you are looking to modify your existing home, see Toolkit 1.

Go to Toolkit 1 →

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Toolkit Organisation

This toolkit is split into two sections.

Whole Home Sections cover suggestions that are relevant for any part of the home.

Room by Room Sections cover practical ideas for specific rooms and spaces in your home.

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Collapsible menus

We use collapsible menus. Click on these to see how they work.

Click suggestions after the arrow to show more information below

You’ll find more information about each suggestion in the text under these headings. This includes the “what”, “how” and “why” of suggestions.

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Language in This Toolkit

Sometimes this toolkit uses technical language.

This will help you talk to designers and builders in terms they understand.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand the figures and terms fully. Being able to use precise terms helps make sure things are done the way they should be.

See the Glossary for more details as needed.

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How the Toolkits Work Together

Toolkit 2 focuses only on architectural and building-specific areas.

It is designed to be used alongside Toolkit 1 for Existing Homes, which includes other suggestions for your home that can introduced over time, as you are ready.

Whole Home Sections

These suggestions are for things to think about across the whole home (whare). They are not tied to one room.

They work alongside the Room by Room sections, which give more specific suggestions for each space. Click the heading or icon to see the suggestions.

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Room by Room Sections

These sections focus on building or architectural options that are specific to individual rooms and spaces in the home (whare), and what may help each space feel safer, calmer, and easier to manage. Click the heading or icon to see the suggestions.