In architecture, there are two major research orientations with regard to individuals who are visually impaired: spatial orientation and housing design. The spatial orientation approach, used in areas such as orientation and mobility training, provides a series of systematic strategies and skills to help individuals who are visually impaired adapt to preexisting structures and layouts (Hill & Rieser, 1993). Studies on housing design attempt to establish a system for individuals who are sighted to design internal layouts for individuals who are visually impaired, thus improving the mobility and independence of people with visual impairments at home (Long, 1995). Neither of these two orientations, however, extends to how individuals who are visually impaired design their own living areas. This case study investigated a shared living space used by four participants with severe visual impairments and their four sighted children. In 1986, the shared living space was renovated by the four participants on a limited budget. Since their children were too young to take part in the design decisions, all the decisions were made by the four adults. The four participants planned design changes to the layouts of three apartments in their building, as well as modifications to nonstructural objects, such as doors, windows, ceilings, stairs, and furniture. After their discussions, they consulted craftsmen who were recommended by friends. In the shared living space designed by the four participants, we observed the changes firsthand and interviewed the participants on the choices they had made when creating their shared living space. PARTICIPANTS AND SPACE The nucleus of the group was a married couple whose vocation was massage services. The couple had hired two additional massage technicians for their business and invited them to share their living space. The four participants were a man (Participant 1), who had had no light perception since his birth in 1941, and three women (Participants 2, 3, and 4) who had various levels of visual impairment. Participant 2 had had low light perception since her birth in 1942 but could not discern shapes, only bright colors on a large scale. Participant 3 had had no light perception since her birth in 1956, and Participant 4, born in 1960, had lost the ability to perceive light in 1970. None of the participants had a secondary disability. Participant 1 had attended an occupational training center for people with visual impairments, where he learned how to operate a lathe. However, realizing that there were few employment opportunities for people with visual impairments in factories, he became a massage technician. Participants 2 and 3 had experiences similar to Participant 1. Both had planned to be telephone operators, only to become masseuses. In 1961, Participant 1 married Participant 2, and they decided to run their own massage business. They hired Participant 3 and invited her to work and live with them. In 1973, the couple hired Participant 4 and invited her to live in their apartment as well. The four participants live together with the married couple's four sighted children, who were born in 1970, 1972, 1975, and 1979, in a four-story apartment building with one northern and one southern unit on each floor. They own three units in the apartment building, and the size of each unit is 100 square meters (about 1,077 square feet). Unit A is a northern unit, and the other two units, Units B and C, are southern units. Units A and B are on the fourth floor, and Unit C is below Unit B on the third floor. An internal staircase (D) connects the two southern units, B and C, while a corridor connects units A and B on the fourth floor (see Figure 1). The living spaces are separated into three parts: Unit A has a living room, a balcony next to the living room, a full bathroom, a pantry, and three bedrooms for the participants (one shared by the married couple). …