PEARL

PEARL (Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory) is UCL’s first net zero carbon building and is a unique facility that explores the way people engage with their environment. It is a massive space in which they can create life-sized environments under controlled conditions to explore how people interact with their environments. PEARL can manipulate the ground, simulate different lighting conditions, create soundscapes and concoct smells to create a truly immersive space.

In the past they have housed all sorts of different environments such as a train station, high street and town square, and this year we will be working with them to host our Sensory Supermarket. We want to explore our findings from the focus groups in an interesting way and inspire businesses to learn how to make public spaces such as supermarkets more enabling for people with sensory processing differences.

The PEARL facility is in Dagenham, with the nearest underground station being Dagenham East.