Kirsty Barlow- MA Graphic Design and Art Direction
Quiet Spaces / Quiet Mapping
Exploring quiet, sensory experience and inclusive environments.
Kirsty is a multidisciplinary designer, creative producer and researcher exploring how environments can shape emotional, social and sensory experience. Her practice is rooted in care, sensory inclusion and a curiosity about how design can shape how people feel, connect and participate within a space.
Cities and public environments are often designed around particular ways of moving, communicating and experiencing the world. For people with different sensory needs, busy environments can become overwhelming, making access to quiet, rest and sensory refuge an important part of navigating everyday life.
Quiet Space / Quiet Mapping explores quiet as a personal and sensory experience, shaped by sound, movement, atmosphere, materials, nature and individual needs. The research combines walking, listening, drawing, mapping and spatial design to investigate how quiet can be found and created within public environments. Beginning with the design of temporary Quiet Spaces at festivals and cultural events, the work explored how spatial conditions including sound, materiality and enclosure, might create opportunities for pause, rest and sensory regulation. This developed into Quiet Mapping: an ongoing exploration of quiet within the city through walking, listening, drawing and mapping, paying attention to spaces, sensory conditions and everyday moments of refuge. The work explores how design might support more inclusive ways of navigating and experiencing urban environments, considering how different environments can offer possibilities for pause, regulation, connection and rest.
