DAY 2 • WEDNESDAY 16 SEPTEMBER • 16.45 – 17.30
Panel discussion: Designing sensory environments: Lighting, acoustics and colour in practice
A cross-disciplinary discussion exploring how lighting, acoustics, and colour combine to shape human experience in the built environment.
Rather than treating these elements separately, the session focuses on how they interact in real spaces - reinforcing, conflicting, or compounding one another — and how designers can create environments that better support comfort, clarity, and wellbeing.
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Gain a clear understanding of how lighting, acoustics, and colour interact to shape overall spatial experience
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An insight into common design pitfalls when sensory elements are considered in isolation
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Practical strategies for reducing sensory overload and improving comfort in real-world spaces
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A more integrated approach to evaluating and improving built environments for human wellbeing
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Representative, Society of Light and Lighting to be confirmed
Dan Bailey, Associate Director, Acoustician – Buro Happold
Dr Cathy Dalton, Inclusive Designer, Digital Tech Innovator/ Consultant – Muse Design
Dan Bailey
Daniel Bailey is an Associate Director at Buro Happold and a specialist acoustician with over a decade of experience helping clients create places that work better for people.
His work spans workplaces, education, residential, cultural and infrastructure projects across the UK and internationally, with a particular focus on the relationship between environment, wellbeing and human performance.
Daniel has played a key role in the development and delivery of neuroinclusive design strategies, helping multidisciplinary teams understand how acoustics, alongside light, air quality and spatial design, can influence concentration, comfort and cognitive load.
He is passionate about translating complex technical concepts into practical design solutions that support a wider range of users and create environments that are not only compliant, but genuinely inclusive and enjoyable to use.
Dr Cathy Dalton
Dr Cathy Dalton is an architect and researcher with a career-long involvement in Universal and Inclusive Design, advocating for inclusion through both design and research, which evolved from her design practice. Current work is in the area of Design for Neurodiversity/sensory design, and in particular its intersection with existing practice and standards in Universal Design.
As a founding partner of Dalton & O’Donnell Architects & Interior Designers, her portfolio included innovative healthcare design and Universal Design projects for state clients. She was awarded UCC’s first PhD in Architecture in 2014, for research into responsive sensory environments and long-term residential accommodation for elderly people with dementia. She subsequently held an EU MSCA post-doctoral research fellowship in Assistive Technologies, researching and prototyping therapeutic immersive multisensory environments for autistic students.
Dr Dalton has lectured and contributed to design conferences in Ireland, the U.K. and Europe, and most recently India, and publishes and reviews papers and articles on architectural and digital design. Sh has contributed to housing policy in Ireland, most recently in relation to housing adaptation grants, and also in promoting systematic adaptation and re-use of vacant buildings as an initiative to address the housing crisis. She is affiliated with Cork Centre for Architectural Education, jointly operated by UCC and MTU.