--- title: "Implementation guidebook" url: https://cavendish.space/implementation.html updated: 2026-09-20 license: CC0-1.0 license_url: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ --- # Cavendish Cards — Implementation Guidebook *How to build the room the cards ask for. Generated from the card files by `scripts/build-site.py` — do not edit this file by hand; edit the constants in the script and regenerate.* The card guidebook says what each card means. This one says how to build the room the cards ask for. A person laying cave, i need a minute, coming back has handed you a design brief for the space between one place and the next — and this is how you answer it, in cushions, light, sightlines, and floor plan. It is the facilitator layer: the materials live here, never on a card. The card names the need; you fill it with what you have. Facilitator layer. Nothing here goes on a card. ---- ## The one principle Design the space between the zones — not just the zones. Most rooms build the destinations and leave the crossings to chance, so a person still has to leap. The principle is the same for every person: gentle, continuous, warned, consented crossings, never on the room's clock. How you build the crossing changes with how a person moves, senses, and communicates — and the room is built with the person, not around them. ## Guardrails - **The turn is theirs.** A spread laid face-down stays private; turning a card up is the person sharing it, and that turn is the consent — you don't turn their cards over for them. Build the room from what they've shown, never from the cards they've kept; a spread is self-advocacy in their hands, not a reading you take. - **Build with, never to.** A padded crossing or a made niche is designed with the person and offered as a gentle nudge — never sprung as a demand, never done to them. Presume competence. - **The room is the work, not the person.** You are shaping the environment, not fixing the person. A hard transition, or a space that doesn't fit, is information about the room — never a verdict on whoever is in it. - **Not a compliance system.** Smoother days are a by-product, never the goal, and a sensory space is never containment or seclusion. Don't let “we built them a nook” become a reason to under-provide real rest, real support, or a person's actual communication tools. ---- ## Building the space The five zones are the cave (solitude), the campfire (a small, known group), the watering hole (open, ambient company), the library (reference and depth), and the habitat (the whole surround that holds the other four). Cave, campfire, and watering hole also run along a sociality gradient — solo, small group, open — lining up with the interaction moods (red, yellow, green). Build the zones so a person can move along that gradient on their own terms, and keep each reachable without a leap. - **the campfire** — A small, soft circle — a rug, a few cushions, room for a known handful rather than a crowd. Close enough to feel the warmth; never a stage. - **the cave** — Two walls and a low roof of your making — a blanket over a table, a corner with a shelf pulled across, a hood pulled up. Low light, sound down, the world kept out. A retreat, never a time-out. - **the habitat** — The whole surround: the light, sound, texture, and rhythm the other zones sit inside. Make the habitat steady and sensory-safe first, and the other places become reachable. - **the library** — Somewhere the group's figured-out things are kept and reachable — a shelf, a box, a screen — a place to go deep at your own pace. - **the watering hole** — An open, in-between spot near others — a bench at the edge of the room, somewhere to hover and drift, among people without a task or a script. ---- ## Building the niche These are the pieces you change so the space fits. Each card names a need, not a product — a den can be a pop-up tent or a blanket over a table; less to look at can be a screen, a corner, or a turned-around desk. Build for the sense the person is asking about, with whatever you have. When nobody has laid a card, walk the room and ask it yourself, one channel at a time: what does a person see here, hear, smell? What meets them when they touch something? How can they move? Ask it standing in the room rather than at a desk, and put the answers in the signposts below. Two things a sense-walk will never show you, so ask them on their own: who holds the controls, and how much a person has to say — or how fast they have to be — to get what they need. Organised here the way the deck groups it — mostly by sense, plus the two that are not a channel of the body at all. - **Being in charge** — Hand over the dial. The same input is fine when the person controls it and too much when someone else does — so give them the switch, the volume, the timing, not a fixed setting. - **Choosing** — Cut the field down. Too many options is a real cost, not fussiness — offer two or three instead of ten, settle the small things in advance, or hand over a first step to start from. Narrowing a choice is not taking the choice away. - **Sound** — Turn the world down, or fill it kindly — headphones, a quieter corner, or a steady hum to cover the jagged, unpredictable sounds. The sound was the problem; lowering it is the answer, not avoidance. - **Light & looking** — Soften what reaches the eyes. Dim or diffuse harsh light, and clear busy sight-lines — a plainer wall, fewer displays, a calmer view. Clearing clutter is free. - **Touch** — A soft thing to hold — a plush, a texture, something to squeeze or keep close. A tactile anchor is a real regulation strategy, not babyish; let it stay. - **Pressure** — Deep, even pressure — a weighted wrap, a firm tuck — but only ever the pressure the person asks for, on their terms. - **Temperature** — A layer, a fan, an open window, a warm drink. Too warm or too cold fills a body up like noise does; change the air around the person rather than telling them they're fine. - **Movement** — Room to move, and things to move with — floor to pace or spin, a fidget for the hands, options to sit, stand, or wobble, freedom to stim. Bodies that move to focus are doing exactly what they should. - **Mouth & nose** — Safe oral and scent input — something to chew or crunch, a snack or a drink, a calming smell brought close or an overwhelming one taken away. Ordinary needs, met without a negotiation. - **Space & enclosure** — Cover and edges — a den to tuck under, a corner with sides, a claimed spot that stays theirs, and a visible, usable way out. Knowing the door is there is often what makes staying possible. - **Telling & talking** — Ease the language load — fewer words, a heads-up before a change, and another channel to point, write, sign, or show a card when speech is hard. A different way to communicate is not less communication. - **People & time** — Thin the social field and slow the clock — one steady person instead of a crowd, quiet company alongside, more processing time, a stopping point before a switch, permission to come and go. Speed is not understanding. - **Same & new** — Two directions on one dial. Hold the routine steady where it does not need to move — same order, same setup, same cup — and change what is inside it when it has gone flat. A person can want both at once, and usually does: a steady container with moving contents is the shape that works, not a contradiction. - **Make your own** — The gap the deck doesn't hold yet — draw or build the missing help together. ---- ## Building the crossings A transition is a crossing, and for a mind in deep focus a hard crossing is jarring and costly — attention yanked across with nowhere to land. Lily pads are the stepping stones that make it gentle: a pause, a heads-up, a held place, a graded step. Build the space between the zones so each crossing has somewhere to land, and keep the pace the person's — read from their signals when they can't set it with their feet. - **i need a minute** — A pause-place at the seam — a beanbag, a windowsill, a cushion where two zones meet — so leaving one lands somewhere before arriving at the next. - **not yet** — Let the crossing wait on the person's signal — check back rather than push — never on the room's clock. - **slowly** — A graded strip between a loud zone and a quiet one, where the light dims and the sound drops before arrival. Grade the crossing instead of forcing a single leap. - **watch first** — A place at the rim of a group, in view of it, where watching counts as being in. Keep joining optional. - **coming back** — Keep the spot, the task, and the welcome ready, and let a carried object travel the crossing as a thread of continuity between the two banks. - **ready now** — Go when they go: follow their timing, and build routes that let them move the moment they're ready. - **i want to stay a while** — Let staying stand — a spot that isn't hurried on just because the schedule wants it. - **all done** — Let a called ending be an ending — no one-more-thing, no negotiation over whether it really is. - **stuck** — A landing spot in the gap — somewhere to be between pads without being pushed across. Offer a what-helps, and let them choose; never shove. ---- ## On any budget None of this is a purchase order. A blanket over a table is a cave. A rug zones a watering hole. A turned-around shelf makes a corner. A dimmable lamp makes a decompression seam. A cushion at the join of two zones is a pause pad. The materials are yours to choose; the card names the need, and you fill it with what you have. For the full material-level how-to, see [Creating Cavendish Space on a Budget](https://stimpunks.org/2024/03/14/creating-cavendish-space-on-a-budget/) and [Nesting](https://stimpunks.org/glossary/nesting/). ## Worked examples: multi-sensory and PMLD settings Some people will never point at a card. The zones get built with them anyway, read from a different channel — what a person reaches for, turns toward, settles into, or pushes away. These are worked examples from early-years and specialist settings, where much of this practice was built with children with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities, at the level of umbrellas, projectors, and things within arm's length. Written here in the deck's own words; the source has them at length. See [Cavendish Spaces for Multi-Sensory Learners and Those with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities](https://stimpunks.org/2024/10/28/spaces-for-multi-sensory-learners-and-those-with-profound-and-multiple-learning-disabilities/). Three things carry more weight here than anywhere else in this book: - **A den someone cannot leave is not a den.** A cave works because the person chose it and can end it. When leaving needs somebody else's hands, the way out is not a doorway — it is a person who checks, on the person's signal rather than the room's schedule. Without that, a sensory space is seclusion with nicer lighting. - **Whatever a person talks with comes into the space.** A switch, a book, a talker, a signing partner, a card — it goes into the cave with them, stays in reach, and stays charged. A space that separates a person from their voice is the wrong space, however soft it is. - **Reading is not scoring.** You build from what a person reaches for and what they turn away from. That reading is a design brief for the room, exactly like a spread. It is not a record of the person, it does not go in a file, and there is no state anyone is supposed to reach. Then, zone by zone: - **the cave** — Enclosure, at whatever height the person already is. Over a bed: a frame carrying lights, soft materials, and things to reach for without moving. On the floor: a tent big enough that a wheelchair, a standing frame, or a physio wedge comes inside — the equipment goes in the cave, never parked outside it. At floor level: a large umbrella, which is the portable version, opened where the person already is, with things hung from the spokes. Overhead: a hoop or a curtain track, with a curtain that changes with the theme and takes a projection. - **the campfire** — A small known group around one shared thing, with somebody telling it. A basket of natural objects to pass and explore. Multisensory stories, told the same way each time so the next part can be anticipated — rhyming versions when the rhythm is what carries it. Story Massage and Dance Massage, where the story arrives through touch and movement instead of words: offered, paused when a person signals, never done to somebody. Messy play graded by temperature and texture rather than by activity — dry, wet, warm, cool — and by scent. A theme to go into together: moon sand, percussion, switch-activated toys placed within reach of the person using them. - **the watering hole** — The same materials, shared, with nobody leading. Trays or mats of paint big enough for more than one person, explored with hands, feet, or whatever part a person explores with. A hanging rail or a basket of instruments and sensory toys, at a height people can take from themselves. A projected scene with a scent to match — a woodland, a seaside, a winter — held long enough that people can come into it, be near each other in it, and leave without the scene ending. What passes between people here is what they show each other by doing it alongside: a splash, a sound, a handful of paint somebody then tries. The source works three zones — cave, campfire, and watering hole, which are Thornburg's three. The library and the habitat are Cavendish's own additions, and it does not work them, so neither does this. That is a gap in the examples, not a sign the zones don't apply: the habitat in a room like this is the whole sensory surround the other three sit inside, and it is still the first thing to get steady. ## How it pairs with the play modes Two play modes map the rhythm; this book builds the room that lets it happen. Run Map the edges with the person to find where the crossings bite — focus to talking, rest to joining in, home to out the door. Run Moving between to see the shape of a day, alone to together and back. Then build the padding where the map shows it's needed. The person maps; you build it with them; the room changes, not the person. ## Lineage - **Physical niche construction in the early years** — Helen Edgar. Much of the budget and building practice here comes from twenty years teaching children with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities, where children and adults shaped the space together. (Credit wording to confirm with Helen.) Written up with Ryan Boren in [Cavendish Spaces for Multi-Sensory Learners and Those with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities](https://stimpunks.org/2024/10/28/spaces-for-multi-sensory-learners-and-those-with-profound-and-multiple-learning-disabilities/). - **Nesting as the physical architecture of lily padding** — David Gray-Hammond. - **Lily padding, and transitional trauma for monotropic minds** — Tanya Adkin. - **Caves, campfires, and watering holes** — David Thornburg's learning-space metaphors; the case for cave spaces in schools, Prakash Nair, The Language of School Design. - **Cavendish Space, intermittent collaboration, niche construction** — Stimpunks Foundation. https://stimpunks.org/glossary/lily-pad/ ---- Dedicated to the public domain under [CC0 1.0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). Home: https://stimpunks.org/projects/cavendish-space-project/