My roommate and I are both Autistic as are like 99% of people who ever enter our apartment so we've basically designed our apartment around being the ideal autism environment. In Unmasking Autism there was a reference to neurodivergent interior design which was coined by Marta Rose who hasn't actually written any kind of long-form text about it just a lot of instagram posts which I find to be completely inaccessible. I think a more mainstream manifestation of the same principals are becoming popularized by KC Davis who in addition to publishing a best-selling book about it has also been interviewed by the New York Times and so forth.
I've been getting really into this idea lately (which is also how I fell down a feng shui hole) and a lot of it seems focused on how to stay organized or tidy. But there are a lot of other things that make a home catered to Autistic brains which my roommate and I have come up with even before we both heard about Marta Rose and KC Davis, and I thought I'd share them because I'm really proud of our living room and kitchen and want to talk about it.
- We have a bowl of stim toys on our coffee table for anyone to use.
- Our living room has two dim warm lamps on opposite ends. You can turn on just one lamp for a very dim environment or both lamps to make the room evenly lit a pleasant warm and gentle level of brightness that still keeps you feeling awake.
- On the wall of the living room we've hung a framed poster of the ASL manual alphabet. We found one where the hands are all monster hands which felt fun and geeky and aligned with our interests; but it also is incredibly useful when someone is non-verbal because it provides an available reference for anyone not proficient in ASL.
- We have a big BLÅHAJ who lives on the couch and is available for people to hug.
- The couches have two throw pillows, one that is light and one that is weighted.
- We have created a "hot bar" in the kitchen over the prep counter. Things we use a lot naturally end up on the "hot bar" because we never bother putting them away, which makes them conveniently available instead of becoming clutter.
- We have a second very large dish rack on top of the fridge because when you're clearing a dishes backlog there's never room for everything in the dish rack. Instead of being aspirational that we'll never had a backlog, we created room to make it easier to clear a backlog when one inevitably arises. It also makes it easier to clean large bowls that we are constantly using for popcorn.
- We haven't done this yet but we're going to put a recycling bin near the entrance of the apartment so that we can immediately recycle mail we don't want when we come into the apartment instead of having to walk it all the way to the kitchen. This prevents mail from cluttering the coffee table or the big desk for leaving mail on near the entrance. Also will help us deal with Box Mountain from packages.
- In someone is really overstimulated, we have sound-proofed a closet and we can just stick someone in the completely pitch black and completely quiet sound proof closet which sounds terrifying but it does work.
The end result is that our living room just has immaculate good vibes and people love coming over even though our apartment is super tiny and can only comfortably hold a maximum of six people and there's nowhere to eat besides the coffee table.
Now if only I could figure out what to do with my bedroom.