How Can Public Space Be Designed for the Neurodiverse Community?

The noise of overlapping conversations, the flashing lights of a billboard, hurried footsteps on the sidewalk, and the constant hammering of a nearby construction site: public spaces are sometimes experienced as environments where stimuli accumulate and often overwhelm us. Each person perceives and responds to these sensory inputs differently, and recognizing neurodiversity means understanding that some individuals require more time to adapt, slower-paced journeys, or more gradual interactions with their surroundings. These encounters raise fundamental questions about contemporary public space: how can it accommodate the diversity of ways people perceive and inhabit it? How can we envision it as a space that embraces all ways of experiencing it?

Located in Qingshan Village, Yuhang District of Hangzhou, Qingshan School occupies the site of an abandoned primary school. The original buildings, severely deteriorated and spatially outdated, could not be reused and were therefore demolished. Respecting the site's footprint and scale, MOMENTUM Architects undertook a complete reconstruction to reestablish a school for the community. The aim was to create a student-centered environment that reconnects learning with rural life, while preserving the cultural memory embedded in the land.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has designed the Olympic Village for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, located on the site of the former Porta Romana railway yard in Milan. Now nearing completion, the project is set for handover to the Milano Cortina Foundation in the fall, ahead of the Games. In April 2025, ArchDaily editors had the opportunity to tour the construction site, observing the progress of the residential buildings, public spaces, and restored historic structures that will define the new urban district. The village forms a key component of the Porta Romana Railway Yard Master Plan and will serve a dual purpose: housing Olympic athletes during the event and transitioning into student and affordable housing afterward.

Two-Family House is a seaside retreat, set into the cliffs above the beach on the wild North Cornish coast. The house was conceived as a gathering place to be shared by two families, along with their extended families and friends. The twin brief ensured creative solutions were found to satisfy two disparate sets of requirements, with the overarching ambition to create a sustainably designed, no-compromise family seaside home that maximizes views of the sea and sky as a backdrop to the sandy beach and the sheltered private garden.