PORTABLE QUIET ROOM

 A quiet room is a space where there is less sensory, social or environmental information for the brain to process, so it can have a rest and help prevent the brain from getting 'information overload' and shutting down. It is an environment inside an environment, providing shelter from the excessive and often inescapable stimulus present in many public spaces.

The Portable Quiet Room takes a transportable object designed for creating shelter from the weather (in this case a large golf umbrella) and adding lengths of draped upholstery fabric, extending the shelter it can create enough to allow it to function as a quiet room. Upholstery fabric is heavy enough to provide good blockage of external stimulus, but more importantly it positions the Portable Quiet Room to be viewed as a piece of furniture, a functional and practical addition to a room's decor.

The portability of the piece is very important, since many high-stimulus environments are designed with no accommodation for people experiencing heightened sensitivity. For many autistic people, for example, there is always the possibility of excessive environmental stimuli leading to a sensory overload. This artwork provides a practical solution to this problem while advocating for the necessity of these quiet rooms to be incorporated into a space's architecture, much like many libraries, airports, etc. have begun to incorporate prayer rooms and other spaces designed for environmental withdrawal.