Environment: How to integrate care in workspacess
Environment considers how spaces, whether physical or digital, formal or informal, are designed to welcome a diversity of bodies, needs, and ways of participating. From the arrangement of seating to the inclusion of quiet spaces, play areas, and flexible working zones, each decision shapes how accessible, inclusive, and connected a space feels.
Within the Procreate Project platforms, the focus remains on centering artists and their work while ensuring that care and caring responsibilities are integrated into the design of every Work Space. This begins with a mindset shift, recognising that the presence of children or the inclusion of resources for caregivers does not compromise professionalism or artistic quality.
A broader understanding of ‘workspace’ invites us to design for a range of needs across all areas of cultural work, making every stage, from application to exhibition, more expansive and supportive. The work space can take many forms, including a lecture theatre, studio, classroom, gallery, or event venue, as well as the less visible contexts where artistic work unfolds, such as funding applications, open calls, online meetings, and organisational planning. Recognising the specificity of these spaces allows care and accessibility to be embedded from the earliest points of engagement.
The physical environment in an Integrated Care setting is not a neutral backdrop, it is a co-creator in the collective experience. Here, architecture is reimagined as a living, breathing entity that embodies and promotes care, adaptability, and interdependence. This approach moves away from static, rigid, or purely functional design, and instead envisions space as an active participant in holding, responding to, and nourishing the people within it. The space itself becomes an additional carer.
Layouts that go beyond conventional galleries, theatres, event spaces, and lecture rooms can hugely help reduce barriers for people of different ages, mobility needs, or neurodiverse ways of engaging. Gardens, corridors, foyers, and multi-purpose halls allow participants to move, pause, and re-engage at their own pace. These spaces can host both social interaction and programme activities, with artworks and events integrated throughout. This way, instead of being limited to one static room, programmes extend into dynamic areas, encouraging more fluid participation and creating opportunities for diverse, intergenerational encounters.
Children’s Space / Family Room
In an Integrated studio or event setting, a dedicated space for children and their caregivers is essential, and is to be conceived not as a place of separation, but as a site of relational co-presence. Thoughtfully designed and equipped, it supports younger participants in ways that reflect the values of care, creativity, and responsiveness, ensuring a connection with the wider working environment.
Rather than functioning as conventional childcare, the space is ideally held by a facilitator who creates a welcoming environment with varied materials, opportunities for play, quiet rest, and open-ended exploration. The facilitator’s role is one of attunement and observation, enabling children to engage at their own pace without directing or instructing.
Parents and carers remain actively involved, not only for safeguarding, but to sustain the relationship between work and play. Depending on a child’s needs, the parent/carer may stay nearby or be fully present in the space. Where one-to-one support is required, the primary carer remains the main point of care, ensuring that connection and familiarity are maintained.
In one-off contexts such as exhibitions, conferences, or public events, the Family Room might be a pop-up space in an unused gallery, a side room near the main programme area, or a sheltered outdoor spot. Activities and materials can respond to the theme of the event, with live-streaming, printed scripts, or visual content linking back to the main programme so parents can follow proceedings while with their children.
In longer-term settings such as Mother House Studios, the children’s room is carefully embedded in the overall spatial design, maintaining visual or physical proximity to the workspaces to enable easy movement between them. An open-door practice promotes flexible access when needed, creating continuity and fluidity between children’s and adults’ spaces. This ensures that children are woven into the studio community and that care is actively integrated into daily studio life.
In both one-off and long-term contexts, the Family Room is more than a support service, it is an active part of the wider workspace, a co-created environment where children, carers, and facilitators contribute to a shared culture of making, learning, and mutual caring.
Family Room vs Crèche
Rather than separating children entirely from the working environment, as seen in traditional crèche settings, family rooms or play rooms create integrated, care-informed environments that support both children and caregivers to participate meaningfully. These spaces are equipped with materials for different ages and may be supported by a facilitator or care worker. Parental presence is encouraged and, depending on the age or individual needs of the child (especially where one-to-one support is required), may be necessary at all times.
An integrated or adjacent playroom, where parents remain present or nearby, is a practical, affordable, and sustainable alternative to a registered crèche. Setting up a legally registered crèche in the UK typically requires registration with Offsted, adherence to stringent staff-to-child ratios, employment of qualified childcare professionals, and compliance with health and safety, safeguarding, as well as record-keeping protocols. This significantly increases administrative workload, insurance requirements, and operational costs.
By contrast, a facilitated playroom does not require registration if the care is provided for fewer than two hours per day and parents remain on the premises. This set-up supports affordability and flexibility, making it more feasible for grassroots, artist-led, or short-term projects. It also aligns with the principle of Integrated Care by allowing children and parents to stay connected, and enables parents to participate in cultural and professional activities without the need for formal separation.
This approach speaks to our principle of sustainability by reducing barriers to participation for caregiving practitioners, allowing them to avoid the prohibitive costs of formal childcare. It also contributes to fostering a culture of shared responsibility and mutual support, aligning with our Self Care (link) principle.
Quiet and Debrief Zone
Creating a dedicated low-stimulation area for rest, reflection, or decompression is essential to create an Integrated space. This may be used by anyone, whether for emotional processing, breastfeeding, sensory regulation, or moments of calm. Ideally, the space includes soft lighting, cushions or mats, water, and minimal noise to support different forms of rest and recalibration. Ensure the space is clearly signposted, step-free where possible, and located close enough to the main activities so participants can easily step in and out. Provide a short description of its purpose in event materials so people know it is open to all and does not require explanation or permission to use.
Especially in the context of conferences and events that hold dense and potentially challenging contents, consider dedicating a budget and space for an Integration area.This space offers participants the opportunity to process and be witnessed while processing, whether through quiet reflection, peer-to-peer support, or facilitated grounding practices.. Ideally, a trauma-informed facilitator guides the space, preferably someone with experience in somatic approaches rather than solely verbal processing. Including this space in the event planning and budget acknowledges the emotional labour often present in cultural, critical, care-centred, or justice-oriented work, and helps cultivate a safer, more sustainable collective environment.