Light and Color in Low-Arousal Design: a Review Towards Inclusive Sensory Environments for Neurodiversity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23738/180111Keywords:
Neurodiversity, Inclusive design, Light, Color, Perceptual justice, Low-arousal environmentsAbstract
The increasing attention to neurodivergent people in the built environment is exposing the limits of architectural models still calibrated on neurotypical assumptions. In many everyday settings, visual conditions are optimised for a presumed “average” user, with little consideration for how light and color can generate overload, discomfort, or avoidance for those with atypical sensory processing. This article asks how lighting and chromatic design can more effectively respond to diverse sensory profiles, and what it means to treat perceptual differences as a question of equity rather than exception. Drawing on work in neuroscience, environmental psychology, autism studies, and inclusive design, it reviews evidence on how visual environments shape arousal, attention, and participation for neurodivergent users. The paper then discusses low?arousal strategies, circadian?informed lighting concepts, and guideline frameworks such as WELL, highlighting recurring patterns such as reduced visual complexity, controlled luminance and reflections, stable and flicker?free systems, and layered user control over light and color. On this basis, it introduces perceptual justice as a way of understanding lighting design in terms of fair access to sensory conditions and to decision?making power over them, developed through participatory and co?design processes with neurodivergent communities. Light and color are thus framed not only as technical parameters, but as central levers in the ethical project of creating environments that are genuinely inclusive of perceptual diversity.
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