Co-created housing design for inclusive living
One London borough recently set out to create an evidence-based housing design guide for neurodivergent residents and those with learning disabilities. Marney Walker describes how the project brought residents, planners and service providers together to co-create practical tools that could shape more inclusive and accessible homes.
I n 2024, The Occupational Therapy Service( TOTS) was commissioned by the London Borough of Newham Planning Department to conduct a project, led by Director and OT Lucy Leonard, to create an evidencebased housing design guide for neurodivergent residents and those with learning disability.
Occupational therapists Dr Rachel Russell, Dr Jan Healey and Dr Marney Walker applied their combined experience to working with all stakeholders – Newham residents, planners and service providers at strategic and operational levels – to co-create a design guide.
The value of an OT perspective on housing design
An understanding of how the design of the environment impacts on physical and psychosocial aspects of health and wellbeing is familiar territory for occupational therapists.
This project was a brilliant opportunity to use our experience to collaborate with planners to create practical tools that could influence the design and delivery of inclusive and accessible housing for neurodiverse people and those with learning disability.
We brought a unique combination of specialist experience to this project( see box out).
Newham’ s housing needs and provision
Newham is an inner London borough that comprises residential and formerly industrial areas serving the now closed Royal Docks. Faced with significant challenges in meeting housing needs, Newham has one of England’ s highest homelessness rates, London’ s largest waiting list, and severe overcrowding issues.
It also has a rapidly growing culturally diverse young population, multigenerational families and older residents, many of whom are experiencing health and wealth inequalities.
In response to this identified need, a largescale regeneration of the former industrial areas aims to provide over 50,000 new dwellings between 2023 and 2038.
The 2022 Newham Strategic Housing Needs Assessment identified a significant number of residents with learning disability( 6,591) and Autistic Spectrum Disorder( 2,884), projected to increase by approximately 14 % by 2040.
The Newham Planning Team saw the regeneration programme as an opportunity to provide additional design guidance to accommodate these residents and their families. The project aimed to:
• Identify and analyse the housing design
12 OTnews September 2025