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Spaces meet divergent needs when they offer meaningful choice rather than forcing every person through one sensory experience. In practice, that means listening to users and project teams early, then combining quieter refuge, varied activity, legible routes, nature, and practical access within the site’s construction and maintenance limits.
This approach is collaborative and context-dependent. It is informed here by Jenny Freeman’s professional perspective in a March 10, 2025, Building Enclosure interview and by a 2024 qualitative study in Land based on 31 semi-structured interviews. Neither source establishes a universal specification, dimensional rule, or guarantee that one intervention will work for every person.
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What “divergent needs” means in a building or public-space project
Divergent needs are differences in how people experience, navigate, occupy, and recover in a space. The phrase can include mobility, communication, cultural, age-related, and sensory differences. The evidence considered for this article focuses especially on sensory experiences associated with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other forms of neurodivergence.
Neurodivergent people are not a single user type. One person may seek strong visual or tactile stimulation, while another may become distressed by the same input. Sensitivity can also change with fatigue, stress, crowding, medication, weather, or the task being performed. A successful project therefore avoids designing for a fictional “average” occupant. It provides alternatives that people can select and adjust.
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For a construction team, the implication is important: inclusion is not a decorative package added after the plan is fixed. It affects the brief, site layout, circulation, lighting, acoustics, materials, signage, operations, and post-occupancy review.
What the available evidence actually shows
Freeman’s collaborative, pragmatic view
In the March 10, 2025, Building Enclosure interview, Jenny Freeman, Group PMX Managing Director of Buildings, describes her contribution as practical and constructability-focused. She says, “I add the most value by adding a pragmatic and constructability perspective to many designs. I’m a big fan of collaboration and I like to hear all stakeholders’ perspectives to try to create a balance of the needs and wants of the project.”
She also connects architecture with social outcomes: “Architecture plays a pivotal role in designing spaces to meet divergent needs, which can foster community and inclusion.” These are Freeman’s professional views, not a formal standard or a measured outcome. They are useful because they put stakeholder listening and buildability in the same decision process.
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What the 2024 qualitative study contributes
Kathryn Angela Finnigan’s article, published May 8, 2024, in Land 13(5), article 636, reports 31 semi-structured interviews about perceived relationships between designed outdoor environments and sensory sensitivities. Participants included people with lived experience and related professional or community perspectives.
Participants described outdoor barriers including intrusive or unpredictable noise, bright light, visual overwhelm, and too few places to withdraw from stimulation. The article discusses sensory sensitivities that can be hyper-sensitive or hypo-sensitive, so a single reduction in input is not automatically beneficial to everyone.
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The authors discuss flexible, context-sensitive responses: sensory zoning, quiet or restful areas, nature-based features, clear wayfinding, pedestrian-focused access, a balance of open and enclosed spaces, and early involvement of neurodivergent people and relevant experts in co-design. The findings are qualitative. They are themes and recommendations, not an experimentally ranked menu of products or a universal design formula.
Turn stakeholder collaboration into a project method
Listening becomes useful only when it changes decisions, drawings, specifications, or operations. Use the following sequence on a new build, refurbishment, estate plan, park, or public-realm project.
- Write a needs brief before fixing the layout. Ask who will use the space, at what times, for which activities, and under which conditions. Include staff, visitors, children, older people, neighbours, facilities teams, and people with lived experience of neurodivergence. Record needs as situations—such as “a place to recover after a crowded event”—rather than as assumptions about a diagnosis.
- Map triggers and recovery opportunities. On a site plan, identify likely noise sources, glare, moving crowds, queueing, confusing junctions, strong smells, exposed waiting areas, and maintenance activities. Mark where a person can pause, leave, or reach a calmer route without asking permission.
- Offer several ways to participate. A single evening workshop excludes people who cannot tolerate crowds, travel, or fast verbal discussion. Combine one-to-one conversations, small sessions, annotated plans, photographs, models, quiet site walks, and asynchronous comments. Explain how feedback will be recorded and what decisions are still open.
- Translate feedback into testable requirements. “Too overwhelming” might lead to a route option that avoids a busy entrance, a shaded waiting point, simpler visual information, or a controllable internal room. State the intended experience, the design response, the responsible discipline, and how the team will check it.
- Review constructability and operations together. A feature that works on opening day can fail when furniture moves, planting dies, a security gate closes, or a cleaning machine creates noise. Bring the contractor, building-services engineers, landscape team, facilities manager, and user representatives into the same review.
Design for sensory choice, not a single “calm” setting
The study’s recommendations can be used as prompts during concept and technical design. The table below turns those themes into project questions while making the trade-offs explicit.
| Design theme | Questions for the team | Possible response | Trade-off to resolve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiet refuge | Where can someone pause or retreat from a busy area without becoming isolated or unsafe? | Provide a visible, low-traffic alcove, small room, shaded bench, or alternate route with comfortable egress. | Privacy, safeguarding, supervision, and usable capacity must be balanced. |
| Sensory variation | Does the site offer more than one level of activity, brightness, enclosure, and social intensity? | Arrange a gradient from active to quieter zones and retain more than one route where feasible. | More options require space, signs, cleaning, and maintenance. |
| Open and enclosed space | Can a user choose exposure or shelter as conditions change? | Combine open gathering areas with covered edges, rooms, canopies, planting, or screened seating. | Enclosure affects visibility, ventilation, security, heat, and cost. |
| Nature-based features | Can people access planting, daylight, natural textures, or views without being forced into one sensory condition? | Use varied planting, shaded paths, gardens, water-free natural elements, and places to observe rather than participate. | Allergies, irrigation, seasonal change, slips, biodiversity, and maintenance need review. |
| Wayfinding | Can a first-time visitor understand where to go, what happens next, and how to leave? | Use a consistent hierarchy of routes, landmarks, signs, colour or material cues, and previews of destinations. | Too many signs, patterns, or competing colours can increase visual load. |
| Pedestrian-focused access | Are walking, wheeling, crossing, waiting, and drop-off movements practical and predictable? | Separate conflicting flows where possible, provide resting points, and protect routes from vehicle movements and temporary obstructions. | Servicing, emergency access, deliveries, and parking still require safe integration. |
These are design prompts, not substitutes for applicable accessibility, fire, planning, health-and-safety, or public-realm requirements. Confirm the final solution against the rules governing the project’s location and use.
Use zoning and circulation to create real alternatives
Build a gradient of activity
Place the loudest or most social functions where their noise and movement can be managed, rather than allowing them to spill unpredictably through every route. Between an active hub and a quiet destination, use transitional space: a widened landing, planted edge, vestibule, covered walkway, or lower-intensity waiting area. A gradient gives users time to anticipate the next condition.
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Make retreat possible without stigma
A refuge should not look like a punishment area or a dead end. Keep it easy to find, allow a clear way back to the main route, and consider sightlines and supervision appropriate to the setting. In a workplace or school, provide an ordinary reason to use the space—reading, waiting, private conversation, or focused work—so no one must disclose a diagnosis to access it.
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Coordinate plant rooms, refuse storage, loading, amplified sound, bright display lighting, and high-traffic doors with the locations of quiet rooms and primary routes. Review reflections from glazing and hard paving at different times of day. Check whether alarms, announcements, door closers, fans, and security equipment create sudden or continuous stimuli. The objective is not silence or darkness; it is a choice of conditions and fewer unnecessary surprises.
Make routes legible
People should be able to understand a route before committing to it. Use a small, consistent set of cues rather than a patchwork of signs. Show destinations, decision points, accessible alternatives, toilets, exits, and quieter options. Test the route with someone unfamiliar with the building and with people who process information differently. If a route changes during construction or events, update temporary signs and communicate the change in advance.
Co-design with neurodivergent people and relevant experts
Involvement is more credible when participants can influence choices early enough to matter. Invite people with lived experience before the concept is locked, compensate them where appropriate, and explain constraints honestly. Do not ask one participant to represent every autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, or otherwise neurodivergent person.
A practical engagement plan can include:
- Discovery: walk the existing site, collect examples of comfortable and difficult places, and document time-of-day changes.
- Concept: compare alternative layouts using simple plans, models, photographs, or virtual views. Ask participants to identify preferred routes, refuge locations, and confusing transitions.
- Technical design: review lighting scenes, acoustical treatments, surface finishes, door hardware, signs, planting, furniture, and control interfaces. Confirm that the intended experience survives value engineering.
- Pre-opening: run a quiet-hours visit and a busier trial. Check that routes remain available, signs are visible, and staff know how to explain options without making assumptions.
- After opening: gather feedback through several channels, including anonymous and low-stimulation options. Record recurring problems, not just individual preferences, and adjust operations where the design cannot change.
Resolve conflicts and protect inclusive decisions during construction
Projects often face competing requirements: a transparent foyer versus visual refuge, an open-plan workplace versus acoustic control, a direct route versus a planted buffer, or security screening versus a calm arrival. Treat these as explicit decisions rather than allowing the most visible requirement to win by default.
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Create a decision register with five fields:
- Need or risk: describe the user situation and the potential consequence.
- Options: show at least two viable responses, including an operational response where relevant.
- Impacts: record safety, access, cost, programme, energy, maintenance, staffing, and user-experience effects.
- Decision and owner: name the person or team responsible for approval.
- Verification: state how the choice will be checked in drawings, a mock-up, commissioning, a trial, or post-occupancy feedback.
Keep this register live through procurement and site work. If a quieter finish is replaced, a canopy removed, or a route narrowed, revisit the user need that the original element addressed. “Value engineering” should compare whole-life consequences, not only the initial invoice.
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Inclusive intent can be lost in coordination. Before issuing construction information, review:
- Whether acoustic separation, reverberation control, and equipment noise have been coordinated with the rooms and routes intended to be calmer.
- Whether lighting can avoid glare and abrupt changes, and whether controls are understandable to users and staff.
- Whether finishes, patterns, reflections, smells, and tactile changes are predictable and maintainable.
- Whether furniture, planters, barriers, and temporary displays can block a refuge or reduce route choice.
- Whether doors, thresholds, ramps, crossings, and waiting areas support pedestrian and wheeled movement without forcing people into conflict with vehicles.
- Whether signs remain readable from the actual approach, including at decision points and after future tenant or event changes.
- Whether planting, shading, drainage, irrigation, cleaning, pest control, and seasonal maintenance preserve the intended sensory variety.
Do not assign performance numbers or product specifications solely from the themes above. Select and verify them under the standards and regulations applicable to the project, with qualified specialists where needed.
Evaluate the space after people use it
Opening-day approval cannot reveal every sensory problem. Plan a post-occupancy review at a defined interval and after the space has experienced ordinary weather, occupancy, events, and maintenance.
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- Which places are easiest to understand and use?
- Where do people unexpectedly stop, turn back, or avoid going?
- Are quiet or lower-stimulation options actually available when the site is busy?
- Do signs, lighting, planting, furniture, and controls still work as intended?
- What operational changes would help immediately, and what capital changes are justified?
Combine observations with voluntary feedback, and protect privacy. A qualitative comment is not a universal finding, but repeated patterns can identify a design or management problem worth correcting.
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Limits and responsible interpretation
The 31-interview study offers valuable accounts of perceived sensory barriers and possible responses, but it does not prove that every quiet area, nature feature, or zoning strategy will benefit every person. Its authors identify the need for further work, and the article does not provide a tested formula for resolving conflicting requirements.
Likewise, Freeman’s comments describe one experienced professional’s approach. They support collaboration and pragmatic coordination; they are not a substitute for consultation with users, qualified access professionals, building-services engineers, or the authorities having jurisdiction.
There is also no single cost, product, or construction package that defines divergent-needs design. Cost and feasibility depend on the site, programme, building type, existing fabric, servicing, land, procurement route, and operational model. Make those constraints visible while preserving the underlying goal: people should have understandable choices in how they arrive, move, participate, pause, and leave.
Project checklist
- Have the brief and engagement plan included people with lived experience and relevant professionals?
- Does the plan provide more than one sensory and social condition?
- Can a person find a lower-stimulation route or refuge without special permission?
- Are noise, glare, visual complexity, smell, crowding, and unpredictable transitions mapped?
- Are open and enclosed options balanced for the site and climate?
- Are pedestrian, wheeled, servicing, emergency, and event movements coordinated?
- Are wayfinding cues consistent, tested, and maintainable?
- Have operational controls, furniture, planting, cleaning, and temporary arrangements been included?
- Are decisions, trade-offs, substitutions, and verification steps recorded?
- Is post-occupancy feedback funded and scheduled?
A practical standard for the design team
Designing spaces to meet divergent needs is less about adding a special room than about giving people control over intensity, information, movement, and recovery. Start with stakeholders, convert lived experience into spatial decisions, preserve alternatives through construction, and check the result in use. The strongest project is not the one that promises one perfect environment; it is the one that makes several safe, legible, and dignified ways to use the place possible.
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