In recent years, the design community has improved by leaps and bounds in serving clients with a diverse range of needs—from the rise of upscale accommodations for aging in place to major retail brands launching collections geared toward people with mobility issues. Now, a cohort of designers is asking an important question: How can neurodiverse clients become part of the growing momentum around accessibility in design?
This fall, High Point x Design aims to ignite that conversation with a new two-day event called Design Forward: Inclusive Design for the Benefit of All (for the trade on November 12 and the next day for the community). The series of talks and presentations will be hosted in High Point, North Carolina—the site of High Point Market, but also one of only three American cities to become a Certified Autism Destination. Programming will be led by designers Shelly Rosenberg of Acorn & Oak, Lisa Kahn of Finding Sanctuary and Kristin Bartone of Bartone Interiors, along with real estate agent and autism home specialist Natalie Castro, each of whom has a personal connection to the subject as the caretaker of someone with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
For Kahn, who has been operating her firm out of Naples, Florida, for nearly 25 years, the connection between neurodiversity and design crystallized roughly a decade into her journey, when she found herself going through a particularly challenging period. Her daughter—about 11 years old at the time—had been diagnosed with intellectual and developmental disabilities on the autism spectrum, and had begun experiencing seizures associated with epilepsy, often in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, Kahn’s business was suffering.
One morning, she had an epiphany: “I was out walking my dog around the house, and I had this absolutely moment of divine serendipity,” she says. “As I stood there that morning, just asking for a sign, the sun was rising over the lake and the wind picked up, and it was as if the wind whispered this word in my ear, and the word was sanctuary.”
As Kahn pondered the word, she began to realize that it signified peace and safety—exactly what her daughter Chloe needed at the time. Immediately, she set to work creating that sanctuary in her home, designing a room that addressed all of her daughter’s needs, with features like floor-level furniture and plush carpeting to prevent injuries from falls, a soothing blue wall color that matched the sky, and sensory aids such as an aromatherapy diffuser and a built-in wall speaker for calming music. For Chloe, it became a place where she could regulate her moods—and her mother didn’t stop there.
“I looked around and decided that I really wanted to be able to create these special, peaceful spaces for each one of us in our family, and I would really concentrate on [creating] a very personalized environment that would meet each person where they were, and meet their needs,” she says. “That was really a pivotal moment as I started to understand the connection between the human experience and the built environment.”
As the designer embarked on creating sanctuaries for her family—a music studio for her husband, a calming bedroom for her son, and a reading and meditation corner for herself—she realized she could offer similar services for her design clientele. The more she shared with her community and potential clients about her own experiences designing sanctuaries for her home, the more she realized that others were interested in having their own needs addressed.
“It’s more of a continuum than a light switch. There are various shades of neurodivergence, and I think that they’re more prevalent in people than we realize,” says Kahn. “That’s the beauty of the conversations that are going on: People can be a little bit more honest about their needs and about how we as designers can support them—particularly when we ask good questions.”
For Bartone, who launched her Chapel Hill, North Carolina–based firm in 2017, the experience of accommodating neurodiverse clients has also helped her realize that tailoring a space toward a homeowner’s sensory preferences is universally beneficial, not only for those who are technically on the spectrum.
“The questions I would ask people—just because of raising my son who has autism—were things like, ‘Are you sensitive to light? Are you sensitive to noise? Do you like your lights on dimmer switches? Do you want your blinds on controls?’” says the designer. “I found that a lot of clients had those same sensitivities. They might not qualify for autism spectrum disorder or sensory processing disorder, but everybody benefits from having control over their environment.”
Within Bartone’s design practice, the focus also extends to restorative design—an umbrella term for promoting well-being in the built environment that covers neuroaesthetics, sustainability, biophilia, healthy buildings, indoor air quality and more. Along with surveying clients on their sensory preferences, she places an emphasis on natural materials and features that maintain the health of the home environment, such as an air quality monitor that records information on dust, allergens, humidity and particulate matter in the room.
“They’re all interconnected,” says Bartone. “And I understand that it’s a huge undertaking to know about all of these things—and I can’t know everything—but I know enough to know what I don’t know and I need to get help on, and [then] to be able to put it all together.”
In addition to educating attendees on designing for neurodivergence, the Design Forward event will also include a talk led by Castro on how real estate agents can work alongside interior designers to find accessible homes for their clients. Castro began her career operating a pediatric therapy office in Florida that offered services in speech language pathology, occupational therapy and physical therapy, along with training for first responders, medical professionals and teachers on modifying their practices for neurodiverse individuals. When she moved to Utah with her sister, who is on the autism spectrum, she found herself exposed to another industry in need of her services.
“While I was searching for a home, I looked for a Realtor who had any specialization in autism, and I couldn’t find anybody,” says Castro. “I started to create that for myself and say, ‘OK, what are the characteristics of a home that we need to look into? What are the design features? What are things that we have to keep in mind?’”
Before long, she obtained her own real estate license, specifically with the intention of making an impact on the homes of families affected by autism. Often, her process involves selecting a property based on available support resources in the surrounding area, as well as making sure a home has the appropriate safety features and layout for a neurodivergent person who may be entering a new stage of life—and if not, then making sure clients are connected to a designer, builder or architect who can make those modifications.
“There are so many families that want to move [houses], but the lack of education around it is why they don’t make a move. Same thing with interior design—a lot of autism families won’t consider an interior designer for their home, because they don’t believe they’ll consider the needs of their child,” she says. “I do feel the demand [for neurodivergent design services] will be there as we see a big increase in diagnoses [one study found that autism rates have tripled since 2006], but I also feel we need a balance of awareness and education.”
Across the board, the group hopes they can inspire other home and design professionals to engage in serving neurodiverse clientele even if they do not have a personal connection to someone with special needs. Despite becoming introduced to the field through her daughter’s challenges, Kahn got involved with a local nonprofit called StarAbility in order to better understand the different needs of neurodiverse and disabled individuals in the broader community—an approach she recommends for designers interested in improving the accessibility of their offerings.
“Exposing yourself to situations where you can show up and volunteer and get involved with organizations in your community that serve disabled people puts you directly in touch with them, because this isn’t necessarily something you learn from a textbook or a conversation—it’s easier to learn it firsthand,” she says. “If you are out there with those people, you can get comfortable and recognize how similar everyone is—even people who are on the neurodivergent scale—and it helps you be able to serve their needs better.”
