In September 2015, the member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The key concept of the seventeen development goals (SDG) is focused on balancing humanity’s consumption of earthly natural resources, however, three older concepts are integral components of this transition. In 2008, the UN Convention on equal rights for people with disabilities (UN CRPD) entered into force, ratified by eighty-two countries. This convention forwards three concepts for creating an inclusive society, i.e., accessibility, usability, and universal design thinking. Accessibility is primarily referring to physical measures that will make buildings and the built environment accessible to people with disabilities by removing built barriers. Usability highlights the need for aligning the conception of buildings and the built environment to actual users with their different abilities. Universal design refers to integrating considerations for a multitude of users with various abilities in the early conception of generating images for new architecture and built environment.Since 2010, the European Union has integrated the goals of both the UN CRPD and the Agenda 2030 in different policy programs. Addressing the issue of ageing and disabilities, the EU commission is preparing for a law on accessibility and usability requirements in transports and public buildings. The law is combined with a special European standard on requirements for adjusting existing or programming new types of built environment. It is the public environment that is in focus, however, built space for communal usages also comes of relevance, for instance elevators, stairwells and communal space for laundry, storage, and similar functions in residential architecture. The present study is focused on a research study that explored the contemporaneous meaning of the concepts of accessibility and usability. Some 125 expert respondents involved in national and international work of converting accessibility and usability requirements into were approached with a questionnaire on the matter. The response rate was 51 per cent, including both correctly filled out questionnaires and refraining answers that argued that the questionnaire should be sent to another group of respondents due to professional grounds.A sub-set of fifteen questions placed the concepts of accessibility and usability in three specific contexts: Firstly, relating the concepts to exemplary models of built space that fulfilled these requirements. Secondly, associating the concepts with latest information technologies as means for solving these requirements, and, thirdly, connecting residential architecture to two years of home confinement due to COVID restrictions. The respondents were found in seven European countries and two non-European countries. Disappointingly, the result indicated that the concepts had obtained a fixed meaning that prioritized a technical aspect rather than the essential outcome of an accessible and usable design. In addition, the few concrete examples of exemplary models were all found in the public environment. The study supplies a ground for formulating an overarching question – what does accessible residential architecture in the sustainable society look like?