Where we are now, where we’re headed, and every step in between

Consolidating years of research into buildable module specifications. It is the largest single block of work in the whole plan — skilled, time-intensive, and largely invisible, because it produces a working foundation rather than a public event. Rush it, and nothing above it can stand.

Where it fits: this is what early, unrestricted funding chiefly buys — the dedicated time to do the foundational work properly. Everything else on this map rests on it.

The individual modules aren’t each locked yet — but the lens they’re all built through is. Every module sits on the same small set of technical choices: small open-source controllers, one universal trigger language, no corporate lock-in. Each runs independently; what unites an installation is a shared musical key, so nothing anyone plays can clash — there is no wrong note available. And nothing reaches the public without a prototype-and-bench-test phase and a sensory-safety review first.

An honest note on where this stands: the detailed specification so far covers the evening stream — the electronic layer. The daytime stream is deliberately different — instruments played directly by hand, mechanically, with no electronic middle layer — and its specification is a newer thread, being developed now.

Where it fits: this is the rigour underneath everything — the reason one year of foundation work can carry three years of delivery. Full build documentation is held internally.

Premises with two jobs woven together: storage for the modules and equipment, and a development workshop where the instruments are researched, built and tested. Not glamorous, and completely load-bearing.

Where it fits: people instinctively want to fund the finished, visible event — but it’s the invisible work, and the space to do it in, that actually needs the money. Fund the foundation and the events follow; fund only the events and there’s nothing underneath to hold them.

Formal partnerships with specialist (SEND) schools — a repeatable partnership model, not one-off relationships — and autistic co-designers named in the work, with their consent. Early partners don’t just book what we make; they shape it.

Where it fits: designing from the most sensitive nervous systems outward only works if those people are genuinely in the room. This is that promise, made structural.

The first modules, fabricated — including our first daytime, natural-light module alongside the evening modules. Each one independent and recombinable, so the library is a lasting asset: every installation that follows runs on infrastructure already in place.

Bench testing, integration, and iteration in real conditions — hardening the system before anyone stands inside it. For anything visitors experience directly, a sensory-safety review before public deployment. Budgeted as its own workstream, because discovering a flicker or an audio fault at the event instead of at the bench is not an acceptable way to find out.

Everything that turns a tested system into a public event: the venue partnership, safeguarding, insurance, licensing, and a soft opening before the doors properly open.

A small, deliberate proof-of-concept: an evening installation at a heritage garden, in winter, open to disabled and neurodivergent visitors and their families and to the wider public. Its job is to prove the whole system end to end — not to draw a crowd. Alongside it, we gather engagement and wellbeing data from consenting visitors, testing our measurement method itself so it’s ready to run at scale.

Where it fits: a small pilot that validates a structure built to scale is worth far more than a large one-off that proves nothing repeatable. Everything in Year Two is the scaling of what this proves.

Two public documents. A sensory access guide for every event — sound levels, lighting, exits, quiet space — so a family can decide for themselves, with real information, before they travel. And our first-year case study and preliminary findings, published openly.

Our flagship concept: a full evening installation through the Christmas season, designed as the calm alternative to the season’s light trails — for the families the loud events overwhelm, and for anyone who wants a beautiful evening among trees and light that asks nothing of them.

Stage-honesty, as ever: Arley AfterDark is a design concept created for Arley Arboretum — the venue partnership is being sought, not signed. The concept exists so you can picture the work; the pilot year exists to earn it.

Where it fits: the step that turns a proven system into the public, seasonal work the company was founded to make.

The daytime mode into public delivery: an interactive outdoor sensory space at a garden venue, working with natural light — instruments played directly, by hand, at each visitor’s own pace. Daytime and evening are equal halves of this work; if anything, the daytime side — schools, care settings, gardens — is where the deepest need sits.

From a handful of specialist-school and respite partnerships to a wider regional network — the relationships that feed every future season. What we learn in a specialist school shapes what we build in a heritage garden, and what happens in a garden feeds the next setting: research and delivery are the same loop.

A second heritage venue in the pipeline, and income deliberately spread: installations, schools work, and the soft launch of a consultancy — our sensory-accessible design methodology offered as paid advisory work to other organisations. By the end of Year Two, no single funder or income source should be load-bearing.

Our findings submitted for peer review and published openly, and our core concepts released under an open licence — so others can begin building on what we’ve learned before we’re anywhere near finished learning it.

Multiple installations across the year — daytime programmes in gardens and open-air settings, evening installations across the season — including a return to venues that have hosted us, and at least one new site. With a track record and published evidence behind us, we pitch for established light-festival commissions on work that now speaks for itself.

A sustained network of specialist and respite settings — the work delivered directly into the places where the people who face the greatest barriers to public attendance already are. Outreach isn’t an add-on to this plan; for many of the people we exist for, it is the delivery mechanism.

A full open-source toolkit, published — so any school, care home, hospice, gallery or fellow practitioner can apply the underlying principles in their own setting, without us in the room.

Where it fits: this is where a supporter’s contribution stops being about us at all. Everything we learn becomes a permanent, open investment in field knowledge — shaping how others design environments for the nervous systems conventional spaces fail.