Industrial designer bruce hannah has a big problem with products and environments designed for what he calls the "Martha Stewart niche." This market segment, populated by 35-year-old millionaires, is just too small and exclusive. What's more, adds architect/industrial designer Tanya Van Cott, even occupants of this rarefied demographic stratum leave it by raising families and growing old. The designed world, Hannah and Van Cott argue, should be accessible to people of many different ages, levels of strength and agility, and degrees of affluence.

To celebrate the approach they advocate-dubbed "universal design" -Hannah and Van Cott have designed an engaging new exhibition for the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. In "Unlimited by Design," Hannah and co-curator George A. Covington bring together examples of universally designed interiors, consumer goods and recreation systems, all meant to enhance everyday activities. Many items on display are commercially available today; others begin to define the household of the future.