Past Event

London, UK

At Clerkenwell Design Week 2026, we gathered at KI’s showroom for a conversation that quietly revealed something. A business performance strategy and a design imperative, rooted in the simple, radical understanding that we all experience space differently.

Led by an incredibly thoughtful panel: Gurvinder Khurana (M Moser Associates), Megan Dobstaff (Gensler), Roseanna Hart (Cast Group), Zoe Yakubu-Sam (M Moser Associates), moderated by Harsha Kotak, (WOD).

The brilliant Megan from Gensler opened the conversation by presenting her thinking behind neuroinclusive design, with the Virgin Media O2 case study standing out as a masterclass in inclusive-by-design thinking.

Our highlights from the panel discussion:

• Neurodiverse is almost an outdated term, because every brain is different. We should design for variation rather than a fictional norm.

• Variety as the foundation, giving real choice, real agency and real control over how and where you work.

• Acoustics as inclusion. Every background noise can register as a separate distraction, leading to cognitive depletion. Acoustic considerations are not luxuries, they are preconditions for people to do their best work.

• The cost of presenteeism – people being physically present but not actually able to function, engage or contribute. The time lost when a space cannot hold the people in it.

• We also learnt about stimming – short for self-stimulatory behaviour, the small repetitive movements or sounds that help people regulate, focus and feel at ease.

• An idea of quiet rooms positioned at the front, not tucked at the back, so that anyone needing to step out of the buzz can do so without disappearing from the community. A small move with enormous emotional weight.

Design is rarely a single answer. It is conversation and the courage to ask the people in the space what they actually need. This was a panel that left us all a little more thoughtful, and a lot more committed.

A huge thank you to KI for hosting, and to Gurvinder, Megan, Roseanna, Zoe and Harsha for such openness, expertise and care.