What happened
Workplace designer Kay Sargent has published Designing Neuroinclusive Workplaces, a Wiley book released in 2025. It considers how offices can serve people whose sensory responses and cognitive profiles differ, instead of being organised around an assumed typical user.
The book’s framework centres on three factors: allowing people to select where they work, providing a variety of settings, and enabling users to adjust conditions around them. It applies these ideas to workplace planning and sensory zones, alongside choices on sound, lighting, finishes and furniture.
For workplace, property and design teams, the immediate next step is to assess whether their offices provide sufficient setting options and meaningful control over local environmental conditions.
Why it matters
The publication states that one in five people is neurodivergent, but says relatively few workplaces have been designed with this in mind. This makes cognitive accessibility a practical question for organisations planning refurbishments, relocations or changes to office operating models.
Sargent argues that work environments accommodating different cognitive needs may help organisations recognise capabilities that can otherwise be missed and support existing staff to work more effectively. The book positions cognitive accessibility alongside the more established consideration of physical access.
Design approach and evidence
Sargent has worked on workplace design for four decades and has led HOK research on neuroinclusion for the past 10 years. Her focus on the subject began after a 2016 client question about designing space for someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Case studies from Arup, AstraZeneca, KPMG and Fidelity illustrate the framework in practice. The book also includes around 20 Spotlight interviews with researchers, advocates and neurodivergent professionals, connecting design decisions with lived experience.
What organisations can do next
The material does not specify compliance deadlines or formal requirements. Organisations can nevertheless use its three-part framework when briefing designers or reviewing workplaces: test the range of available work settings, identify sensory pressures, and determine where occupants can control their immediate environment.
