Flooring for a Neuroinclusive Workplace

Around one in seven people are estimated to live with a neurological difference such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia or dyspraxia. In 2022 the architecture firm HOK and Tarkett surveyed 202 neurodiverse employees across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Seventy-seven per cent reported hypersensitivity to noise and sound. Sixty-two per cent reported hypersensitivity to visual distraction, naming movement, colour and light.

Numbers like these do not point to one material. They point to a shorter list of problems: sudden sound, visual movement, and spaces that take effort to read when you arrive.

Of the surfaces a specifier controls, the floor touches all three. That is the argument for treating it as a sensory decision and not a finish. It is also where the argument stops.

Two measurements describe what a floor does with sound, and they are regularly confused in a specification meeting.

Impact noise, stated as ΔLw, is what the floor does to the sound of a footstep or a chair. Our wall to wall flooring uses a 3.0 mm PVC foam backing and cuts impact noise by 21 dB (ΔLw, BS EN ISO 10140-3). In an office that is the difference between hearing someone walk past and registering that someone walked past.

Airborne absorption, stated as αw, is what the surface does to sound already in the room. Woven vinyl is dense. Our acoustic modular range tests at αw 0.05, not classified to EN ISO 354. A reverberant room stays reverberant.

The distinction matters more for this brief than for a general office one. Hypersensitivity to sound is usually a reaction to sudden, unpredictable noise, and footfall is the most predictable event in a building. Taking it down is worth more than the number suggests.

This is the part of a specification that rarely gets discussed, and it has the largest single effect on visual load.

What matters is the size of the repeat, not the style of the design. A pattern that repeats inside roughly 25 cm reads as texture. At two metres it resolves into an even colour, and at walking speed nothing appears to move.

A pattern that repeats at a metre or more behaves differently. As the eye travels, the design slides across the field of view and the floor appears to shift underfoot. People who notice this describe it as dizziness rather than as decoration.

On a large floor plate, the shorter repeat is the safer specification. Our range is built mostly around short repeats, in designs we call tweed, slub, moss and mono. They hold detail at close range and go quiet at distance.

The larger geometrics are not a fault. They belong where the floor is meant to be looked at, in a reception or a single room, rather than where the same people walk over it for a full shift.

A straight grain laid along a route does the work of a sign without adding an object to the wall.

Where a corridor turns, the grain can turn with it. Where one zone ends and another begins, a change of direction reads as a threshold before anyone stops to read a label. Herringbone set against a straight grain marks a boundary without a colour band or a metal strip.

Two conditions make this reliable. The grain has to run with the main line of movement, not across it. And the change has to happen once, at the boundary, not several times along the route. A floor that changes direction three times in one corridor is harder to navigate than a plain one, however well the intention reads on a plan.

Four things a floor cannot do. A brief is better for saying so at the start.

It cannot fix the lighting. Flicker, glare and cold colour temperature are reported by the same people as noise, and they are specified in a different document, by a different consultant.

It cannot rearrange the plan. Desk density, sightlines and the distance between a quiet room and the nearest printer are layout decisions. A floor laid over a noisy arrangement stays a noisy arrangement.

It cannot replace accessible wayfinding. Tactile studs, contrasting nosings and marked escape routes are regulated. A pattern is not a substitute and should not be offered as one.

It cannot suit everyone. Texture is a personal response. Some people find a firm woven surface reassuring underfoot. Others need a cushion. One product cannot resolve both, which is why format choice matters as much as design choice.

A client who buys a floor to solve a sensory problem will judge the floor by the outcome. Naming the limits at specification stage protects the project and the relationship after handover.

The documents that carry the claims above, for the product actually supplied:

• Impact noise test report to BS EN ISO 10140-3, stated as ΔLw
• Sound absorption to EN ISO 354, stated as αw, where the brief assumes any
• Reaction to fire to EN 13501-1, for the product and its backing
• CE marking to EN 14041 and the Declaration of Performance
• Colour fastness to BS EN ISO 105-B02 and 105-B04
• A full-size sample, not a swatch card, for any pattern under discussion
• Cleaning schedule and the installation document with substrate requirements

The full-size sample is not a formality. Pattern repeat is impossible to judge from a 10 cm card, and it is the property this guide is mostly about.