The rise of remote working has highlighted the importance of office spaces that support employees’ social well-being. However, there is a lack of explicit knowledge on how to design such spaces. In order to address this gap, this study explored the strategies employed by practitioners in designing social office spaces. In-depth interviews with fifteen experienced interior designers were analysed using means-end chain theory. This revealed the designers’ common aim to encourage informal social interactions through creating attractive, spacious, recognisable, and spatially integrated breakout spaces. Additionally, communicating group identity, promoting visibility, and offering a cosy atmosphere aimed to foster a sense of connectedness among employees. These findings not only enable more deliberate design decisions but also serve as valuable insights for less experienced designers. Moreover, the framework of design components, affordances and design objectives that emerged from this study can enhance communication between designers and stakeholders involved in office projects.

Today's global context of mass-produced items has resulted in an increasing 'distance', or alienation, between people and the origins of the items they buy and use: an unhealthy human-product relationship. This observation permits the search for an alternative interpretation of well-being: a transformation that would support resilience and self sufficiency, and a better human product relationship or 'a new partnership', as advocated by various scholars. In this paper, this new partnership is considered through supporting 'Do-It-Yourself' (DIY) product design: a scenario in which professional designers facilitate laypersons to design for themselves. Anticipating (1) the designer's responsibility, and (2) the layperson's innate desire to create, this paper introduces a 'Design for DIY' framework method to help bridge the knowledge gap between the product designer and the layperson. The initial starting points of this study, complemented by a range of 'Design for DIY' studies, and an exploration of existing design frameworks and design models, resulted in the design of a 'Design-for-DIY' framework. This paper concludes with recommendations for the testing and further development of the Design-for-DIY framework.

Whether it is from the office-office or the home office, creating a physical work environment is essential for both improving work performance as well as for the physical and mental wellbeing of employees. But as jobs are becoming increasingly less active, and working adults are spending almost a third of their lives in the office, most of their time is now spent sitting behind a desk. This time in sedentary behavior is increasing rapidly on a global scale and has become a great area of concern, as research has proven that this behavior is linked to an increase in all-cause mortality. To reduce the sedentary nature of the workplace, many companies are now replacing the standard desk with sit-stand desks (SSDs). SSDs are height adjustable desks that allow the user to work in either a sitting position or a standing position. Unfortunately, even as more companies are implementing these desks in their workspace, many studies indicate that there is a lack of utilization among working adults, with many only transitioning the desks to a standing position once a month or less.This paper presents a user-centered design project examining how to reduce the long-term sedentary behavior of desk-based working adults by motivating them to utilize their SSDs to make more transitions between sitting and standing. The project involved an agile design approach based on a cyclic process where a range of design techniques and research methods were used to look deeper into the practices and habits of working adults and better understand why this lack of use occurs and how it can be changed. These design techniques and research methods include a literature study, auto-ethnographical research, and 11 interviews with both active and non-active SSD users. An analysis of the differences between active and non-active users,led to the hypothesis that to reduce the SB of desk-based working adults, the use of SSDs in the workplace should be normalized by ensuring that working adults understand the benefits and proper use of SSDs while also offering the key tools: (1) reminders of when to transiting between sitting & standing; (2) social support; (3) awareness of effects on body & mind ; (4) task-based transitions. . This hypothesis was then used to initiate an empirical research through design process. Through this process, the final concept, BMDesk Application and Controller, was created. The BMDesk showcases an interactive digital platform and controller which utilizes the previously defined design opportunities to aid desk-based working adults in becoming more in tune with their physical and mental state while also providing them with the support they need to reduce their long-term sedentary behavior by utilizing their SSDs. The platform provides the user with an interactive tool that (1) gives them control over setting up their workday and defining how many sit-stand transitions they want to make and how long they want to remain in each position; (2) triggers a light reminder indicating to the user when it is time to check in and (3) provides a step-by-step body and mind self-evaluation included in the digital application; (4) based on the self-evaluation, the application provides a personalized tip and option to “learn more” about how the user can alter their position to relieve them of any physical or mental pain they are experiencing; (5) allows the user to choose if they actually want to change position and provides an additional reminder after a preset amount of time in the case they do not switch; (6) uses a two-way LED infrared sensor to automatically track the number of transitions and how long the user is in each position; and (7) allows the user to connect with the coworkers or friends to setup challenges or select times to standup together.

Background and aim – Lack of privacy is a prominent issue in contemporary offices. This study aimed to identify interior design features that jointly influence satisfaction with privacy and noise in the office workspace, and estimate their predictive power. This knowledge can inform strategic workplace design. Methods – Eight design features were defined that were expected to influence visual, acoustic and physical privacy, noise from other people and acoustic quality, and which would be easy to report for users. Data were collected through an online survey among office workers in the Dutch public sector (N = 323). The joint impact of design features on the experienced privacy and noise was calculated through ordinal regression analysis. Results – The data indicate that small, relatively isolated rooms predict privacy and noise satisfaction better than privacy screens, soft flooring, and visibility control. Workspace soundproofing increases satisfaction with sound privacy and acoustics, but it does not reduce noise annoyance. Originality – This study operationalizes architectural privacy along several dimensions and from a user perspective, and hierarchically relates them to specific workspace satisfaction outcomes, generating actionable insights for workplace designers. Practical and social implications – The study can serve as a source for evidence-based workplace design and management that aims to balance user needs for privacy and quiet against their need for social interaction. Currently, this balance is especially important because hybrid working may increase the need for informal interaction at the office while there still is a need for privacy and quiet spaces. Type of paper – Research paper (full).

The prolonged working from home during the recent pandemic has increased awareness of the social function of the office: employees missed informal social interaction with co-workers, face-to-face meetings, and spontaneous encounters. If the trend of hybrid working persists, one of the main functions of the physical office will be to support face-to-face interaction and social bonding for increasing well-being, innovation, and organizational commitment. This short paper explores how workplace design could support the social well-being of its users based on established theory in the field of environmental psychology. First, individual social well-being at work and social workplace affordances are defined. Next, workplace affordances for social well-being are deducted from theories on the psychology of space, such as Space syntax theory, Privacy regulation theory, Behavior setting theory, and Place attachment theory. From this analysis, three categories of workplace design features are induced which could support social well-being at work: interaction affordances, privacy affordances, and identity affordances. A conceptual framework is presented that connects social well-being components to these three categories of affordances. This framework can serve as a starting point for the collection of empirical studies, the deduction of specific social affordances from design practice, and the development of design strategies for enhancing social well-being in offices.

The literature on Design Anthropology (DA) is skewed towards discussion exploring anthropology's potential for design. In contrast, discourse on how design can contribute to anthropology is somewhat limited. This article proposes an ‘Anthropology through Design’ (AtD) approach by reflecting on a study on the emergent phenomenon of ‘energy exchange’. The AtD approach aims to generate anthropological knowledge of an emergent sociocultural phenomenon through the use of a design intervention. This article describes four intertwined tracks—Framing, Design Intervening, Ethnographic Particular Understanding, and Anthropological General Understanding—of our AtD process. The proposed AtD approach takes a strategic step in relocating ‘design’ from being an object of anthropology to becoming an instrument for doing anthropology.

Background and aim – While remote working is not a new phenomenon, Covid-19 has forced many office workers to work from home for long consecutive periods. Recent research shows that while most of them say they can work productively from home, many feel less connected to their colleagues. This study explores how these experiences may influence employees’ needs towards the office workplace. Methods – Cross-sectional data were used from an online survey among four Dutch public sector organisations conducted between November 2020 and February 2021. These data include perceptions of 567 office workers regarding their workplace, both at home and at the office, and their motivations for working at the office. Results – The survey data show that the main reason to (want to) work at the office has shifted from meeting expectations to the need for informal social interaction. On the other hand, many still need the office for doing concentration work. Although the home workplace feels more comfortable, ultimately it is not rated better than the office workplace. The respondents indicate several shortcomings of their current office regarding support of socializing, belongingness, and privacy. Originality – While in the media different assumptions have been made about consequences of Covid-19 for future office use, few empirical studies have been conducted to substantiate these expectations. Practical implications – This study shows that Covid-19 has increased the need for in-person interaction at the office without decreasing the need for silence, and indicates how offices could better support socializing balanced with concentration work. Type of paper – Short research paper.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to aid conceptualization of social well-being at work by identifying its components in a contemporary office context, so adequate measures can be developed to monitor social well-being and to assess the impact of interventions in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach: This study used existing interview data from recent post-occupancy evaluations of two large activity-based flexible offices in the Dutch public sector. Data-driven concept mapping of 182 different employees' statements on social aspects of well-being was used to find communalities in their perceptions. Findings: From the data 14 key concepts emerged referring to employees' social needs, reactions to (anti-)social behaviour of others and perceived social affordances of the work environment. Contrary to established theory, social well-being appeared to be a context-bound phenomenon, including components of both short-term hedonic and long-term eudaimonic well-being. Research limitations/implications: The findings serve as an inductive source for the further development of adequate measures of social well-being at work. Limitations concern the specific (cultural) setting of the cases and the use of existing data. Practical implications: Preliminary suggestions for fostering social well-being include change management, participatory design, being alert of the identified risks of activity-based offices and supporting privacy regulation, identity marking and a sense of community, as well as a diversity of informal face-to-face interactions balanced with quiet spaces. Originality/value: This article contributes to the conceptualization of social well-being in contemporary offices by discussing established social well-being theory and analysing real-world data, using a method novel to management research.

Purpose: The covid-19 pandemic has increased awareness of office workers’ need for real-life social interaction, connectedness and belongingness at work. The purpose of this paper is to present a way to study this important, but still under-examined, social dimension of employee well-being in relation to workplace design. A conceptual model outlines how the physical work environment might support or inhibit perception and behaviour related to social well-being of individual office workers. A research strategy is presented to develop a framework for guiding the design of workplaces. Theory: Several well-being theories consider relatedness a basic human need. Fulfilling this need requires satisfying social interactions, leading to positive relationships and feelings of belonging. Spatial characteristics could encourage or discourage social interaction by influencing natural movement, visibility and privacy. In the workplace social interaction can be a support as well as a burden, depending on, for instance, privacy preferences and work activities. Therefore, the conceptual model presented here includes spatial characteristics encouraging or discouraging social interaction as well as the employee’s perception, behaviour, personal and situational factors. Methodology: First, workplace design and social well-being are defined and their relationship is depicted in a conceptual model. Subsequently, a mixed-methods approach is proposed to develop this model into a framework of relationships between specific workplace design elements and components of users’ social well-being. The proposed research strategy starts with an exploratory phase of additional literature study, analysis of case-study data, and pilot studies to identify parameters and try out methods. The subsequent phase of main data collection and analysis includes (a) a large-scale quantitative study using statistic modeling to identify significant relationships between outcome and predictor variables, and (b) a series of field experiments applying empirical research through design for studying ways to manipulate key predictors of social well-being using design interventions. The third phase synthesises the findings and translates them into a framework to guide workplace designers and other stakeholders. Findings: The model states that workplace design influences social well-being through actual and perceived affordances and behaviour, influenced by organizational and personal factors. Therefore it is acknowledged that measures for both the actual and the perceived work environment need to be developed. Similarly, measurement of both actual and perceived social interaction adds value to the insight in the relationship between workplace design and social wellbeing. Collecting data in real-life settings in contemporary offices will enhance the internal and external validity of the framework. Originality/value: The concept of social well-being at work has not yet been well defined and studied in a comprehensive and systematic way, nor has it entirely been connected to actual and perceived characteristics of the physical work environment. This paper makes a start with unravelling the complex relationship between workplace design, social interaction and social well-being, and offers a framework and practical suggestions for further research.

The energy and building research community acknowledges the importance of including occupants' wellbeing in the evaluation of building energy performance. Particularly in office buildings, occupants' comfort assessment is not yet a common practice, partially due to the shortcomings of the comfort assessment activities. Contextual factors such as the organizational culture, occupants' personality traits and emotional states, and the building and research measurement infrastructures do interact with occupants' motivation to report and influence their actual reporting behaviour. By means of an in situ mixed method approach combining real-world research and user-centric methods, this study investigates the impact of a reporting-based comfort assessment. Two buildings, representing different organizational cultures, were selected to study the influence of reporting behaviour on comfort assessment. The buildings were equipped with innovative indoor climate monitoring and in situ comfort reporting infrastructure and 2-week field studies were conducted in both buildings. By discussing results from these studies, this paper contributes to the development of building research methodologies of indoor climate and comfort assessment by providing practical experience in embedding comfort reporting behaviour in the analysis of comfort assessment. A contextual typology of reporting behaviour is introduced and its implications regarding the reliability and validity of comfort reporting techniques are discussed.

Shorter hospitalisation is a strategy that healthcare services have adopted to solve the problem of high demand for hospitalisation under conditions of insufficient resources. Early discharge demands patients to self-manage their recovery at home, while recovery is still perceived a clinician’s responsibility. This often results in an extra emotional and psychological load on patients. Due to the lack of measurements to include the emotional and psychological state of a patient in the home context, clinicians often oversee these issues in the evaluation of patients' recovery during hospital visits. This paper outlines the development of esther 1.0, an electronic tool based on Experience Sampling Method, that encourages senior patients of Total Hip Replacement (THR) to self-report their experiences related to their perceived physical and emotional state during the first weeks of recovery at home. This paper describes the emotional assessment of a THR patient and reflects on the value of this knowledge to develop professional support beyond the clinical recovery.

Within the areas of distributed, off-grid, and decentralized energy, there is a growing interest in local energy exchanges. A crucial component of an energy exchange is a return provided by an energy-receiver to an energy-giver for the energy provided. The existing energy literature on such returns is primarily limited to monetary returns and lacks a critical discussion on the different types of monetary and non-monetary returns possible and variation in people’ preferences for these. Based on an ethnographic ‘research intervention’ study conducted at two off-grid villages in rural India for 11 months, this article presents a sociocultural understanding of returns. The article presents a classification of returns consisting of three types, i.e., in-cash, in-kind and intangible, and proposes a conceptual model of ‘returns-continuum.’ The article showcases how people's preference for a type of return varies with the nature of their social relationships with each other and suggests that configuring a return is not merely an economic act but a complex sociocultural process. Finally, the article recommends to energy researchers and practitioners to enable diversity in returns, to acknowledge dynamics of social relations in returns, to interconnect energy economy with the local in-kind economy, and to engage with ethnographic approaches.

A good indoor environment in classrooms is important because school children spend a significant amount of their time at schools and children are more susceptible than adults. It is also clear that a school indoor environment can affect the wellbeing and performance of students but a comfortable and healthy school indoor environment consumes energy. In the last decades, indoor environment optimization and energy efficient measures have been introduced to reduce this problem. However, although those standards are met, the IEQ as experienced by occupants is still not acceptable. Also, even with the implementation of energy efficient measures, energy consumption keeps rising while health seems to decrease. Based on a review of literature, this paper identifies the causes for the discrepancies and future directions of research are proposed. It is concluded that future research should focus on holistic assessment of IEQ factors and take into account students’ needs and influence.

In this chapter several aspects in the design of home energy feedback are discussed along with the presentation of energy feedback design examples. The examples include the Ampul interface that was tested in the SusLab Concept House. Ampul was designed to enable users to maximize the use of available solar energy. A second example referenced is an aquarium metaphor in which plant, water and fish qualities are coupled to energy consumption and climate sensor data, which was developed as a demonstration and thirdly Powercord is described as an interface able to translate energy consumption into auditory sounds.

This chapter presents an approach for organising research and innovation in the Living Lab context, where context research instruments, as well as conceptualised, developed and tested prototypes are integrated in one hardware and software platform (BOCS platform). The BOCS platform allows collecting of sensor and building management data, self-reporting of subjective information by users and providing feedback to users through a variety of channels. By this, the platform supports iterative cycles of context researching, co-creating, implementing and testing of solutions. The initial goal for the use of the platform is to enable creation of solutions aiding office occupants in improving their comfort while reducing building energy use. This goal is attained by enabling iterative identification and a gradual build-up of in-depth understanding of involved social practices, and incremental introduction and evaluation of ways to support the change of these social practices through monitoring, self reporting and feedback in office environments. The chapter outlines the organisation of the proposed process in detail. The approach is further positively evaluated based on the outcomes of a preliminary case study. It is finally suggested that in the future the approach may be applied to other Living Lab situations where complex challenges are faced and fast results are expected.

Many energy researchers and practitioners envision householders to have an active role in local energy distribution in emerging energy systems. In the energy literature, the dominant view of local energy distribution, grounded in the rational choice perspective, sees exchanges of energy between households as energy trading. The existing energy literature lacks conceptualization of social and personal exchange of energy between households that is mutually structured and negotiated. This article builds on the theoretical works of an economic anthropologist, Stephen Gudeman, to conceptually discuss such energy exchanges. This article reports from an ‘ethnographic intervention’ study conducted at an off-grid village in rural India for three months (1 February–30 April 2016). The ethnographic data analysis reveals how social relations and diverse cultural values influence on energy exchanges between households in the village. The article introduces ‘circle of mutual energy exchange’ as a conceptual, analytical and descriptive unit for understanding such energy exchanges. The article describes two co-existing and dialectically connected modes of energy exchanges: ‘mutual energy sharing’ and ‘mutual energy trading.’

Ampul is a home energy management system (HEMS) designed for the emergent group of home energy prosumers (producers and consumers of energy at home). The innovative visualizations and interactions provided by Ampul offer prosumers timed, situated and appliance specific information on the energy that is produced and consumed. Ampul has been developed by applying in-situ interventions in real homes and Concept House Prototype 1, a home living lab facility located in a neighbourhood in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Residents of the same neighbourhoods were invited to actively collaborate in the design process. Ampul is presented in this section as an inspiring example of how Living Labs methods facilitate the role of future users as active collaborators in gathering insights and experimenting earlier concepts in homes and home living labs.

A key goal of LivingLabs is to provide industry, including large companies and SMEs, knowledge institutes and policymakers with a unique new infrastructure in testing and the co-development of sustainable products, services, legislation and combinations of these, takes place directly with users. The threeTier Model of living lab research which aims to connect industry, academic, and public stakeholders, while facilitating user-centred studies, is presented in this section consisting of: (a) insight research involving the study of current practices in existing homes, (b) studies in prototype houses equipped with innovative products and services focused on sustainable living, and (c) field testing, in which research prototypes are up-scaled such that existing homes can be equipped with innovative sustainable technologies.

There are an estimated 170 active living labs across the globe. All have common elements but not all of them contribute to the delivery of sustainable living. Here we consider the business models of sustainability in living labs (SusLabs). Specifically we review four active living laboratories that are part of the SusLab North West Europe network. We show that the business cases are different for at least two reasons. One is that each SusLab project has a specific focus even though all are seeking to develop energy efficient innovative products, services or systems. Examples of focus include demonstration projects, knowledge generation through research and business to business development. The other is that each came about for different reasons which might include significant public or private sponsorship, or through academia-business co-creation, and this too is reflected in the business case. We also show that the business cases are not static, but may evolve over time as opportunities are created and as partners develop a clearer understanding of the potential of each SusLab. We propose that, based on a common definition of a SusLab, theoretical considerations and societal needs, as well as insights from the cases, it should be possible to build a business case for a SusLab which draws on knowledge rather than learning-by-doing.

Indoor comfort was earlier viewed as driven exclusively by the physics of the body’s heat exchange with its immediate thermal environment. There is now widespread recognition that a person’s thermal comfort and adaptation level, including behavioral aspects, physiological and psychological processes, including sense of control, influence comfort [1]. A stronger emphasis has been given not only to psychological parameters and their impact on satisfaction and productivity, but also to possibilities of energy saving in buildings while maintaining a high comfort standard [2]. A field study was conducted to consider the relationship between localized comfort control capabilities and self-reporting behavior. A significant effect was found for subjects’ frequency of self-reporting in relation to heating control behavior.