The Neurodiverse City, led by WIP Collaborative, Design Trust for Public Space, Verona Carpenter Architects, and a network of disability advocates, is reimagining New York City public spaces — streets, playgrounds, plazas, and more — to better support neurodiversity.

Most people would claim to feel “overstimulated” on a typical New York City street, bombarded with loud traffic noises, fast walkers on crowded sidewalks, and bright lights. 

For neurodivergent New Yorkers, families, and visitors, the cognitive, sensory, and social overload can make essential public spaces, like our streets, parks, playgrounds, and transit systems, difficult to access, if not unusable.

Nearly 20% of the world’s population is estimated to be neurodivergent – a term that includes people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, intellectual disabilities, and other mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Nearly 1 in 5 NYC students is diagnosed with a disability, and 95% of these disabilities are non-physical. Many more go undiagnosed. 

Despite neurodiversity representing normal variations in the wide diversity of human minds and brain functioning, and increasing acceptance that there is no one ‘right’ way of thinking, learning, or behaving, our cities and neighborhoods are often not designed for or by neurodivergent people. Neurodiversity is not yet widely considered in laws or codes that establish accessibility compliance.

Access to public space and public resources is key for quality of life and community. Design strategies that are essential to some will create environments that work better for everyone, and where the widest range of people can thrive.

That’s why the Neurodiverse City coalition has set out to learn what makes a space inaccessible, through workshops and public space sensory audits led in partnership with city agencies, NYC public schools, and disability advocates. 

Leveraging this knowledge, project partners Verona Carpenter Architects, award-winning architecture and interiors firm, and WIP collaborative, a shared practice of independent designers who work together on projects that engage community and the public realm, have unveiled two pilot interventions to test what neuroinclusive design could be. One prototype is designed for city streets and plazas, while the other looks to play spaces and schoolyards. 

These pilots aim to better understand what works and doesn’t work for shared spaces, and build new knowledge that can inspire future public policy and urban planning practices.

A Sensory Play Garden for an NYC Public School 

Verona Carpenter Architects (VCA) partnered with P.S.112 Jose Celso Barbosa, an NYC Public School hosting the Autism Spectrum Disorders Nest Program that offers a specialized accessibility curriculum. Through workshops and vision boards created with the Harlem elementary school students and staff, VCA developed a sensory playscape concept.

Setting up the design pieces with a different Nest program on the other end of Manhattan this past Fall, the pilot project transforms P.S.42 Benjamin Altman’s concrete schoolyard into a flexible 'garden' with mobile sensory zones, featuring a wheelbarrow bench as the main building block  adorned with shade extensions, canopy structures, musical chimes, scented mobiles, and cushions. Children can rest on benches, doubling as boundaries between the different sensory environment options, or find comfort and joy in outdoor lawn-like rugs, cushions, bean bags, and mats. Replica bamboo is installed along the brick and stucco walls that form two edges of the play yard, softening the hardscape and providing an interactive texture. The movable pieces enable agency for the children to re-configure their environment. 

The pilot will stay with the school for the coming months during outside playtime and provide insight for best practices and new ideas for future design. As VCA Founding Principal Jennifer Carpenter told City Lab, “People talk about engagement a lot, but you are not just doing the engagement because you want people to feel like they are part of the process. The ideas are going to be better, and they might not be the ones you would have.”

A Streetscape Haven Downtown

Guided by sensory audits and design workshops in partnership with AHRC NYC and neurodivergent self-advocates at a privately-owned public space, Rockrose 200 Water Street, WIP identified some key design opportunities to improve streetscapes. Participants expressed interest in being closer to trees, enjoying long views, engaging with tactile elements, and experiencing semi-sheltered spaces.

Installed at Louise Nevelson Plaza in September, a DOT-operated pedestrian plaza in Lower Manhattan, the street prototype features touchable plants, nature soundscapes, and architectural elements fabricated by Thirdkind Studio from birch plywood with recycled rubber surface applications and nylon rope attachments, inviting passerbys to touch, sit, lean, lay down, or climb on the pieces. As the New York Times put it, the design creates a “room-like” refuge that transforms “one small patch of the hectic Wall Street area into an experiential refuge for neurodivergent New Yorkers.” 

The plants, curated by local artist and gardener Landon Newton, include grasses, perennials, and small shrubs selected to provide layered sensory experiences through sight, sound, touch, and smell—creating environments that are both stimulating and restorative. Visitors can enjoy the movement and shifting light of grasses, touch the velvet softness of lamb’s ears, and breathe in the fragrance of hyssop, goldenrods, and mountain mint, all species that thrive in NYC.  The sounds introduced by biodesigner Mischa Kuma add another dimension to the prototype, enveloping people in natural soundscapes or the grounding vibrations of brown noise—the deep, soothing frequencies most commonly heard in nature, from thunderstorms and ocean waves to gentle rainfall— creating a soft contrast to the chaotic soundscape of busy downtown Manhattan.

The yellow dots applied to the plaza’s hardscape connect and expand the presence of the plants and built pieces through visual placemaking. As a playful ‘field’, they invite passersby to step or hop closer to the elements, and to take a pause from the hustle and bustle of city life. Visitors were encouraged by signage to share their feedback, before the design pieces were moved to AHRC’s offices across the street for further engagement and data collection

Imagining a Neurodiverse City

As the Architect’s Newspaper wrote about the project’s mission, “public space in New York is often thought of as democratic, open to all at all hours. The Neurodiverse City begins with the idea that accessibility is not only about ramps and elevators, but also cognitive and sensory experiences.”

The experiences documented via the two pilot projects, in addition to two public citywide surveys shared last year, offer a vision for more inclusive city planning. The Neurodiverse City will seek new partnerships for community organizations to bring the design pilots to their neighborhoods, and create a final publication of learnings, best design practices, and accessibility policy recommendations that will be published early next year. 

Explore photos of the pilots below! This project is a winner of the Design Trust’s 2021 Request for Proposals, The Restorative City, themed around building community wellness through public space. Learn more about our latest RFP: Water.