Q: What is neurodiversity in your own words? 

Lucy: Neurodiversity is a concept developed by neurodivergent people in the 1990s, and it’s a broader term that refers to a variety of learning, cognitive, and psychosocial disabilities, including but not limited to ADHD, Autism, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. While similar, neurodivergence refers to an array of disabilities that cause people to experience and navigate the world in a way that is different from “normal.”

Q: What are the core principles guiding the design of parks and play spaces for neurodiverse users? 

Lucy: Firstly, we need to design for the diversity of ways people want to interact with the world. We need to consider sensory stimulation, which can both happen in terms of overstimulation — which designers mostly consider — and understimulation. Overstimulation, for example, would be creating a park next to a fire station where there are firetrucks moving in and out adding loud noises and flashing lights. Understimulation, on the other hand, would be the park not having enough bright colors. Maybe it’s designed in a completely neutral color palette, with only browns, greens, or earth tones that are not visually stimulating. Another stimulation variation that designers can consider is light. Some may enjoy being under direct sunlight for warmth, but others might prefer shade because direct sunlight is uncomfortable to them. 

Secondly, we should prioritize designing with neurodiverse communities and not just for them. Neurodivergent people have immense expertise and knowledge grounded in their lived experiences. It’s invaluable and necessary to include neurodivergent people in every step of the design process, to determine problems and ideate solutions, instead of designing solely based on what non-neurodivergent people believe to be issues. 

Q: How exactly do you involve neurodivergent people and their families in the design process? What are some challenges?

Lucy: Neurodivergent people should be involved from beginning to end. Design Trust has been engaging with neurodiversity organizations (Center for Independence of the Disabled-NY, INCLUDEnyc, AHRC) and self-advocates to determine the challenges that matter most and receive input throughout the intermediary steps of iterating on different designs. 

Neurodivergent people have agency, expertise, and preferences for what they want. However, when working with families of neurodiverse children, sometimes that agency is lost. It can be helpful to speak with family members, especially when working with families with young children, but ultimately it’s important to respect and acknowledge the agency of each child as having their own insights.

Q: You spoke about sound and light. What other design features help create a sense of safety and security?

Lucy: Dutch Kills Playground at P.S. 112 comes to mind. They created little pods to shield out traffic noise for the kids, which the students found to be safe and enjoyable for gathering. 

When interviewing one of the neurodiversity self-advocates working with Design Trust, they also mentioned that the unpredictability or lack of clarity of a space can be a barrier to begin with. Sometimes, it’s not even about the accessibility of a public space once you’re there — it’s that you don’t know what to expect before you arrive. That was the core of the work we were doing this summer: crowdsourcing experiences in public spaces so that people can be better equipped and make more informed decisions on how to get to a space, where to go within the space, and what sensory stimuli to expect.

Q: What inspired you to focus on accessibility research [in urban design]?

Lucy: I first got involved in accessibility research as an undergraduate, and I thought it was so interesting to be able to apply computer science concepts to advancing social good. While I worked on some accessibility research as an undergraduate, I didn’t work on any urban accessibility projects until starting graduate school.

Something that catalyzed my interest in urban accessibility was a paper called “Project Sidewalk” that focused on crowdsourcing information — basically gamifying the process of labeling sidewalks as accessible or inaccessible in different cities. That was my first insight into how urban design can intersect with accessibility. 

A lot of people think of that intersection pertaining to only mobility and physical disability. However, when I moved to Ithaca, NY, in 2022, I started thinking about blind and low vision urban accessibility. In my first few weeks in Ithaca, I noticed so many murals around the city, and as a sighted person, I was able to appreciate the art. For blind and low vision people, though, there were no indicators that there was artwork on these walls. I ended up working with VocalEye, an art accessibility organization in Vancouver, Canada, and connected them with the Ithaca Murals organization. We worked on a project to crowdsource descriptions for these public works of art, collaborating with blind and low vision people involved with VocalEye and giving in-person tours to reach the local population in Ithaca as well.

The Neurodiverse City project piqued my interest because New York City is a very sensory city. Usually, it’s on the overstimulating side with all the noises, people, sights, and flashing lights, but there are still enclaves of the city that are calming and peaceful. I became curious about how designers, architects, and even the general public can work together to make public spaces more accessible.

Q: How do you envision the future of inclusive play spaces evolving in the near future?

Lucy: Across different populations, there can be conflicting access needs. These can sometimes be remediated more easily in digital-only spaces, but physical public spaces will need to have some sort of way to support varied access needs so that people with very different preferences can coexist and engage with each other in a space at the same time. Making sure that there are multiple options for people to curate their own experiences is a good first step!

Q: What do you hope to achieve with this project? 

Lucy: With this project, my goal is to validate how a survey can be used as a method to crowdsource information about public space accessibility. My personal goal with urban accessibility for neurodivergence is to empower people to comfortably and confidently engage with public spaces.

Neurodiverse City is planning on-site and online public space surveys for this Fall to evaluate the accessibility of shared spaces. You can find more information on The Neurodiverse City and its project team here.