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Australia's guide to environmentally ustainably

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Australia's guide to environmentally ustainably

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Australian Government website

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YourHome | Australia's guide to designing, building and living in environmentally sustainable homes.

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Australia's guide to environmentally sustainable homes

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Online article: Designing a better office space

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Online article: Designing a better office space

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This story appears in the August 2014 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe "

The office of the future may not be about trappings or technology as much as the exchange of ideas, with a focus on employee engagement--what some experts are calling the "new sustainability."

You can thank the open office movement for starting that conversation, turning concepts such as collaboration and transparency into convention. But the new buzzwords on every workplace designer's tongue are incubation, cross-pollination, symbiosis and co-working--concepts that are causing even more walls to come down and hierarchies to flatten further. In today's parlance, the corner office is no longer seen as a prize.

"It's certainly not as critical as it once was," says Bruce Fisher, an architect in the New York firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. "What's becoming more important is the breadth of the floor, and as much visual continuity as possible so you can see someone all the way across the floor. It's not about Big Brother, but more about staying involved and knowing what's going on."

The open plan isn't a new concept: Frank Lloyd Wright used the scheme in the Johnson Wax headquarters building in Racine, Wis., to group employees of similar functions (in this case, secretaries). But over the decades, as corporate workers increasingly performed isolating tasks, they were insulated in offices and cubicles, working their way up to bigger and better spaces that signaled their rising status within the firm.

In today's young, technology-driven workplace, however, "all that's been turned on its head," says Brad Lynch, principal of Chicago's Brininstool + Lynch. "In my mind, it's led by a generation that starts out not knowing what an office environment is supposed to be as a real-estate model." Today's young workers, he explains, consider the office more in terms of "what it needs to do for them."

Tech firms lead the way

What works, industry experts say, is a space that fosters transparency, offers multiple choices as to how and where to work and an environment that imitates life outside the office.

And, of little surprise, technology companies set the mold and lead the pack, says Sonya Dufner, principal and director of workplace strategy at Gensler, a global architectural planning and consulting firm.

Last year Gensler randomly surveyed 2,035 knowledge workers for a study on the relationship between workplace design and business performance. "When we looked at just the tech companies, we found that people reported they were more satisfied with their work environment than in other business sectors, and when we asked why, we found that 'choice' was the key differentiator," Dufner says, noting that techies are more likely to have a say in when and where they work (41 percent, vs. an average of 32 percent in other sectors). In general, she says, employees who are able to make such choices are more likely to report high levels of workplace satisfaction.

It's a trend born of Silicon Valley and creeping eastward. In New York City, it's often combined with the sensibilities of Brooklyn's DIY maker movement, which has flourished in incubators such as the Brooklyn Navy Yard's New Lab and Industry City.

But it's also apparent in places like the midtown Manhattan office for internet music-streaming company Pandora, designed by Andrew Bartle's abastudio.

"Our design strategy played the new against the old," Bartle says. "The kids that work in those places all live in Brooklyn, and it works with their lifestyle and what they wanted to be a part of. Their separation between work and life is probably less so than in our time."

Pandora's office interweaves lifestyle amenities such as Ping-Pong, stocked open pantries and a yoga room with work areas that reflect the company's dual needs for interaction and privacy. Abastudio designed a series of chat rooms in the form of phone booths, banquette and benched seating, huddle areas and conference rooms, and a grand staircase between the two floors that doubles as seating for "all-hands" meetings. In this way, Bartle says, the plan accommodates up to 150 employees per floor, more than the typical capacity for similarly sized floor plates.

The elastic design allows the company to expand and contract as needed. When Pandora has a full house for events such as music performances or town hall meetings, employees utilize an amphitheater or other large assembly spots in the office.

"This is a body of workers that sees themselves as a whole social unit, and that's kind of a different thing," says Barry Fries, a construction executive and CEO of B.R. Fries, who worked with Bartle on the Pandora office. "Normally, companies would go on a retreat to see themselves as a whole, but I think [here] there's a greater level of awareness of belonging to something--more like the model of a college or loyalty club."

Adds Bartle: "It was fabulous fun for us, because we saw a culture and helped them develop forms so they could be productive. It was very daunting in some ways, but ... you can feel the love in the space."

Traditionalists open up

More than 75 percent of U.S. offices have open plans, say researchers from Kahler Slater, an experience-design firm based in Milwaukee. Once the domain of creative services, the studio model has trickled into professional services such as real-estate agencies and financial firms. Last year real-estate brokerage firm CBRE adopted a "free address" open plan in its 200-person Los Angeles office, doing away with assigned desks in favor of work "neighborhoods" with couches, "hot" desks (those that are not assigned to a specific employee but can be reserved for mobile workers or whoever may need it) and even treadmill desks.

Other white-collar businesses are following suit, mimicking the strategies of technology firms in order to attract and retain young employees. Financial giant Credit Suisse has started converting its European offices to "smart working," offering a series of touchdown focus and collaboration spaces, work areas styled after cafes--even greenhouses.

"Financial firms are losing employees and not able to attract MBAs who are going from school to technology companies, and that's making these pretty traditional organizations rethink the future," Dufner says. "They're looking at what some of those technology firms are doing and asking how they create culture within their workplace and what are those things that attract people. Financial firms are starting to talk about themselves as technology firms ... their business is really changing, so their space needs to reflect those changes."

In Chicago, Lynch re-created office space for two financial companies: online lender Enova and private equity firm Sterling Partners. For Enova, a technology company and prominent employer for emerging talent, the project was an upgrade within a culture predisposed to open design. "They wanted an exchange of ideas between people that wasn't happening before because of the way they were set up," Lynch says.

On the other hand, the change for Sterling Partners was a "huge risk." The 60-plus-person firm radically changed its model, moving from the suburbs to the city. New furnishings included stand-up desks and lounge chairs with 360-degree views of the city, to be enjoyed by all. The reception area was reimagined to facilitate interaction and mobility among support employees, who could act more like concierges than secretaries.

"When people came into the space, they didn't want to seem hierarchical. They wanted to seem welcoming and that [everyone] was part of the experience," Lynch says of Sterling Partners. "They created an increased opportunity for collaboration, and they really treat the space as an opportunity for mentorship."

Great minds think alike

Mentorship is also the idea behind Startup Box: South Bronx, an incubator case study that aims to combine co-working space for startup companies and individuals with after-school programming for high-school students. Conceived by Ennead Lab in partnership with a community-based economic development engine (but not yet executed), the 5,000-square-foot warehouse would provide 24 flexible workstations, a fabrication lab for prototyping and testing and space for classes or meetings.

Ennead Lab director Andrew Burdick says the program was the result of a cross-pollination of ideas between two like-minded groups: startups and students.

"Essentially, they're asking the same questions and need the same types of spaces," he says. "It starts to create an interesting overlap where the incubator businesses start to be mentors to the students, and the students become mentors to the startups because of the technological levels of abilities that youth bring to the table."

Burdick says the Ennead team studied co-working organizations like The Hatchery, General Assembly and WeWork, and consulted with educators in the maker movement.

"They get this era we're living in, and they have become a boon to these startups as a hotbox for ideas," Burdick says, adding that Ennead's designers believed "the users might do well if we created a symbiotic relationship in one space where the two populations could mix and, in fact, be the better for it."

Architect Andrew Franz is operating under a similar concept for a space he's designing for a financial company in New York. Moving for the first time in 40 years, the 70-person firm opted for an open plan that it hopes will one day accommodate like-minded businesses.

"The aspect they're trying to create is to foster and nurture other companies and individuals, so if they believe in another company, they can offer them desk or work space," Franz notes. "It's the sharing of ideas as they're being developed ... trying to act like an incubator so they can see what the next ideas are.

"I think there's a lot more overlap and more sharing going on with businesses developing together like a village economy, but in a more white-collar urban way," he adds. "They've been forced to concentrate on what kind of changes they really want, as well as what kind of continuity they want to preserve."

Law offices catch up

As financial firms nudge toward the great undivide, some business sectors, such as law firms, are still firmly entrenched in the traditional office layout, according to Doug Zucker, a principal at Gensler's San Francisco office. "It's really a profession that's bound by tradition and precedent, so people are loath to be the first to do something new," he explains.

However, since the recession, law firms have restructured their fees and workloads, looking more keenly at the competition. This shift, Zucker says, will translate into real estate and how it's used. Gensler's research predicts similar changes for legal offices as those already happening in other sectors--smaller, flexible, more collaborative--but Zucker cautions against too many changes too quickly.

"We've swung the pendulum toward the collaborative work environment so far that we haven't paid attention to the balance between focus and collaboration," he says, noting that open offices could be problematic for lawyers, who spend an average of half their time--more than any other industry Gensler surveyed--on work that requires sharp focus.

Indeed, Gensler's survey of knowledge workers showed a 6 percent drop in workplace performance in open offices when collaboration and focus were weighed, with 53 percent of respondents saying they were disturbed or distracted by co-workers. It's an issue even at the most forward-looking tech companies. Bartle says acoustics played a large role in Pandora's design, and careful attention was paid to balancing audio and visual privacy. "It tries to look casual and is, in fact, very casual, but the efforts that go into it are extremely detailed," he notes.

Zucker says that when workplace changes do occur in the legal sector, offices may end up resembling consulting firms, with Gen Xers and Millennials driving the changes toward collaboration and "soft" amenities like flex space and work that is creative and mission-driven over entitlement amenities like the corner office.

Wellness is the new amenity

Sustainability has taken on a new meaning for the office, shifting from a focus on the environment to one on the whole being. Reclaimed materials, toxin-free substances and energy efficiencies are "nearly automatic now," says Chicago architect Lynch, while the new sustainability is human-focused, paying attention to body and soul, thanks to growing evidence that a happy employee is a loyal and productive employee. To that end, pantries are stocked with healthful food, assembly spaces double as yoga rooms, and in-office kitchen events enable employees to prep food and dine together.

Furniture is more active, too. Gensler's Dufner says orders for sit/stand desks are on the rise, in recognition of the notion that "sitting is the new smoking." Many offices are adding treadmill desks to the mix. Also trending: the addition of outdoor spaces as areas of respite.

"In suburban locations or other parts of the world, you see more offices located near walking trails, and teams are using this during the day to refresh and get out and walk and talk," Dufner says. Even in space-challenged Manhattan, advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy commissioned an outdoor terrace as part of its recent redesign.

In Brooklyn, Eric Benaim, founder of Modern Spaces, a boutique real-estate firm with five offices and 70 employees, created a hybrid office with an artisanal coffee shop opening out to the street. His agents conduct business at either a desk or over communal tables in the shop. Benaim says the connection feeds the soul and helps business.

"It helps them more creatively, they're not distanced from the world, and they're happier when they come to work," he says. "When they're happy, they'll relay that to their clients. When our agents are happy, our clients are happy."

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This story appears in the August 2014 issue of Entrepreneur . Subscribe " The office of the future may not be about trappings or technology as much as the exchange of ideas, with a focus on employee engagement--what some experts are calling the "new sustainability."

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Web doc: 8 Top Office Design Trends For 2016

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Web doc: 8 Top Office Design Trends For 2016

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You might think that the reams of analysis done on office space would have by now turned every workplace into a humming hive of engagement and productivity. Earlier this year, we even got an advance look at a research paper that outlined alternative design strategies to make workers happier.

The paper, Ethonomics: Designing For The Principles Of The Modern Workplace-authored by Teknion, in collaboration with design expertslike Joan Blumenfeld, principal of Perkins+Will, one of this year's Most Innovative Companies-revealed that the workplace is ripe for reinvention.

As Blumenfeld told Fast Company:

Workspaces should flex to provide a variety of spaces and destinations for workers to inhabit that promote movement throughout the day. While many companies are doing a good job of incorporating some of these elements into their workplace design, there's a need for more awareness and implementation of this way of thinking holistically about the workplace.

Approaching the New Year seems like as good a time as any to say out with the old walls that block natural light, separation of departments, major investments in public spaces at the expense of the back office and other design elements that bum workers out, and in with creative solutions that bring people together in ways they can be at their best.

We talked to the design experts at Teknion, Poppin, a manufacturer of workplace furniture and accessories, and Workwell Partners, a design firm specializing in creating efficient spaces to see what they predict are the most useful trends for 2016. Here's what they told us.

Scott Lesizza, principal at Workwell Partners says one of his clients' most requested solutions is help with eliminating wires and clutter from desktops and conference rooms. "Between wires, laptops and other electronic devices, to docking stations, paperwork and personal items, there are many things that can make a room full of open desks appear very disorganized," says Lesizza. Even a $30,000 conference table can look terrible if wires are not well concealed within the table, he observes. "Luckily we are seeing more manufacturers develop solutions that are clean and simple," he says.

Lesizza says nature is having a serious moment in design. Reclaimed wood panel installations, exposed concrete flooring, and incorporating natural flora patterns in fabrics and artwork are all becoming more prominent, along with plant life itself in the form of living walls, he says. "Some of our favorite pieces and projects from the last year take a page from this trend, and also go hand in hand with one of the bigger trends: bringing the home into the office," says Lesizza. "It's the natural, cozy feeling that a lot of these finishes and details have that will continue to make this trend a popular one throughout 2016."

Lesizza observes that in his 20 years in the design business, he's never seen change happen so quickly. "Not only are cubicles disappearing," says Lesizza, "but now their replacement-the bench-is being overtaken by non-assigned seating." The executive suite is still not playing to this trend, however; multipurpose spaces can be utilized for everything from multimedia presentations to casual breakout areas. "We'll also see more oval-shaped office desks, which allow for a more convenient place for 4-6 people to meet, as well as a shift toward height adjustable tables for standing meetings," he says.

Jeff Miller, a veteran of Apple and Herman Miller who's now vice president of design at Poppin sees a move toward creating spaces that are the antithesis of rigid workstations. "Lighter, powerful, wireless technology has untethered the workspace more than ever," Miller notes, so offices can be more comfortable, which stimulates relaxed collaboration. "Offices now mandate the inclusion of dedicated lounge areas to make working more enjoyable," Miller says.

"I'm a strong believer that if you organize your work environment with color, it will help your thoughts be more organized and colorful," says Miller. He cites several studies that color boosts happiness, productivity and creativity. "We're seeing more offices integrate pops of color in unexpected ways and therefore strive to be at the forefront of offering a wide color spectrum of accessories and furniture," Miller explains.

Steve Delfino, vice president of Corporate Marketing and Product Management at Teknion says the community table reflects a cultural moment. "People are looking for more interaction at work and in other public settings, including restaurants and hotels where large shared tables are making an appearance," he observes. But the community table has been a meaningful object for centuries, a symbol of kinship or alliance that is now becoming an important part of the work environment, Delfino adds. "Today, the table emerges as a relevant feature of an evolving workplace that now exhibits many of the characteristics of a domicile-more relaxed, more congenial and collaborative," he says.

Delfino says he's seeing an increased emphasis on using varied materials throughout the workplace to create environments that influence wellness and productivity. "Products with a rich material vocabulary provide designers with the opportunity to be original and bold-to use color and texture to create a more varied, inspiring and personalized work environment," he says.

Flexibility is something all three design experts are seeing as a growing trend as traditional office spaces, planned in advance with permanent layouts, are giving way to the needs of an ever-changing work landscape. Delfino notes that products designed to have every element move into place and fit together without rules based planning are at the forefront of the office of the future. "Modular components can be mixed, stacked and moved around, offering innumerable combinations for a dynamic and collaborative workplace," he says.

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You might think that the reams of analysis done on office space would have by now turned every workplace into a humming hive of engagement and productivity. Earlier this year, we even got an advance look at a research paper that outlined alternative design strategies to make workers happier.

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Web document: 'Physical space and social interaction'

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Web document: 'Physical space and social interaction'

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Online article: 'Workspaces that move people

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Online article: 'Workspaces that move people

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Few companies measure whether the design of their workspaces helps or hurts performance, but they should. The authors have collected data that capture individuals' interactions, communications, and location information. They've learned that face-to-face interactions are by far the most important activity in an office; creating chance encounters between knowledge workers, both inside and outside the organization, improves performance.

The Norwegian telecom company Telenor was ahead of its time in 2003, when it incorporated "hot desking" (no assigned seats) and spaces that could easily be reconfigured for different tasks and evolving teams. The CEO credits the design of the offices with helping Telenor shift from a state-run monopoly to a competitive multinational carrier with 150 million subscribers.

In another example, data collected at one pharmaceuticals company showed that when a salesperson increased interactions with coworkers on other teams by 10%, his or her sales increased by 10%. To get the sales staff running into colleagues from other departments, management shifted from one coffee machine for every six employees to one for every 120 and created a new large cafeteria for everyone. Sales rose by 20%, or $200 million, after just one quarter, quickly justifying the capital investment in the redesign.

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Reprint: R1410E Few companies measure whether the design of their workspaces helps or hurts performance, but they should. The authors have collected data that capture individuals' interactions, communications, and location information. They've learned that face-to-face interactions are by far the most important activity in an office; creating chance encounters between knowledge workers, both inside and outside the organization, improves performance.

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Web doc: External factors that influence sleep

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Web doc: External factors that influence sleep

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External Factors that Influence Sleep | Healthy Sleep

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Light is one of the most important external factors that can affect sleep. It does so both directly, by making it difficult for people to fall asleep, and indirectly, by influencing the timing of our internal clock and thereby affecting our preferred time to sleep.

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Your bedroom is your sanctuary from the stresses of the day. Use your senses to create the best environment for sleep.

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Academic journal article: The relationship between insomnia and body temperatures

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Academic journal article: The relationship between insomnia and body temperatures

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Academic journal article: The effect of indoor plants on human comfort

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Academic journal article: The effect of indoor plants on human comfort

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Academic journal article: Human Response to Window Views and Indoor Plants in the Workplace

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Academic journal article: Human Response to Window Views and Indoor Plants in the Workplace

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Academic journal article: Plants in the WorkplaceThe Effects of Plant Density on Productivity, Attitudes, and Perceptions

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Academic journal article: Plants in the WorkplaceThe Effects of Plant Density on Productivity, Attitudes, and Perceptions

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Web document: The Effect of Healthy Workplaces on the Well-being
and Productivity of Office Workers

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Web document: The Effect of Healthy Workplaces on the Well-being
and Productivity of Office Workers

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Website: Color and psychological functioning: a review of theoretical and empirical work

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Website: Color and psychological functioning: a review of theoretical and empirical work

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Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

In the past decade there has been increased interest in research on color and psychological functioning. Important advances have been made in theoretical work and empirical work, but there are also important weaknesses in both areas that must be addressed for the literature to continue to develop apace. In this article, I provide brief theoretical and empirical reviews of research in this area, in each instance beginning with a historical background and recent advancements, and proceeding to an evaluation focused on weaknesses that provide guidelines for future research. I conclude by reiterating that the literature on color and psychological functioning is at a nascent stage of development, and by recommending patience and prudence regarding conclusions about theory, findings, and real-world application.

The past decade has seen enhanced interest in research in the area of color and psychological functioning. Progress has been made on both theoretical and empirical fronts, but there are also weaknesses on both of these fronts that must be attended to for this research area to continue to make progress. In the following, I briefly review both advances and weaknesses in the literature on color and psychological functioning.

Theoretical Work

Background and Recent Developments

Color has fascinated scholars for millennia ( Sloane, 1991; Gage, 1993). Theorizing on color and psychological functioning has been present since Goethe (1810) penned his Theory of Colors, in which he linked color categories (e.g., the "plus" colors of yellow, red-yellow, yellow-red) to emotional responding (e.g., warmth, excitement). Goldstein (1942) expanded on Goethe's intuitions, positing that certain colors (e.g., red, yellow) produce systematic physiological reactions manifest in emotional experience (e.g., negative arousal), cognitive orientation (e.g., outward focus), and overt action (e.g., forceful behavior). Subsequent theorizing derived from Goldstein's ideas has focused on wavelength, positing that longer wavelength colors feel arousing or warm, whereas shorter wavelength colors feel relaxing or cool ( Nakashian, 1964; Crowley, 1993). Other conceptual statements about color and psychological functioning have focused on general associations that people have to colors and their corresponding influence on downstream affect, cognition, and behavior (e.g., black is associated with aggression and elicits aggressive behavior; Frank and Gilovich, 1988; Soldat et al., 1997). Finally, much writing on color and psychological functioning has been completely atheoretical, focused exclusively on finding answers to applied questions (e.g., "What wall color facilitates worker alertness and productivity?"). The aforementioned theories and conceptual statements continue to motivate research on color and psychological functioning. However, several other promising theoretical frameworks have also emerged in the past decade, and I review these frameworks in the following.

Hill and Barton (2005) noted that in many non-human animals, including primate species, dominance in aggressive encounters (i.e., superior physical condition) is signaled by the bright red of oxygenated blood visible on highly vascularized bare skin. Artificial red (e.g., on leg bands) has likewise been shown to signal dominance in non-human animals, mimicking the natural physiological process ( Cuthill et al., 1997). In humans in aggressive encounters, a testosterone surge produces visible reddening on the face and fear leads to pallor ( Drummond and Quay, 2001; Levenson, 2003). Hill and Barton (2005) posited that the parallel between humans and non-humans present at the physiological level may extend to artificial stimuli, such that wearing red in sport contests may convey dominance and lead to a competitive advantage.

Other theorists have also utilized a comparative approach in positing links between skin coloration and the evaluation of conspecifics. Changizi et al. (2006) and Changizi (2009) contend that trichromatic vision evolved to enable primates, including humans, to detect subtle changes in blood flow beneath the skin that carry important information about the emotional state of the conspecific. Increased red can convey anger, embarrassment, or sexual arousal, whereas increased bluish or greenish tint can convey illness or poor physiological condition. Thus, visual sensitivity to these color modulations facilitates various forms of social interaction. In similar fashion, Stephen et al. (2009) and Stephen and McKeegan (2010) propose that perceivers use information about skin coloration (perhaps particularly from the face, Tan and Stephen, 2012) to make inferences about the attractiveness, health, and dominance of conspecifics. Redness (from blood oxygenization) and yellowness (from carotenoids) are both seen as facilitating positive judgments. Fink et al. (2006) and Fink and Matts (2007) posit that the homogeneity of skin coloration is an important factor in evaluating the age, attractiveness, and health of faces.

Elliot and Maier (2012) have proposed color-in-context theory, which draws on social learning, as well as biology. Some responses to color stimuli are presumed to be solely due to the repeated pairing of color and particular concepts, messages, and experiences. Others, however, are presumed to represent a biologically engrained predisposition that is reinforced and shaped by social learning. Through this social learning, color associations can be extended beyond natural bodily processes (e.g., blood flow modulations) to objects in close proximity to the body (e.g., clothes, accessories). Thus, for example, red may not only increase attractiveness evaluations when viewed on the face, but also when viewed on a shirt or dress. As implied by the name of the theory, the physical and psychological context in which color is perceived is thought to influence its meaning and, accordingly, responses to it. Thus, blue on a ribbon is positive (indicating first place), but blue on a piece of meat is negative (indicating rotten), and a red shirt may enhance the attractiveness of a potential mate (red = sex/romance), but not of a person evaluating one's competence (red = failure/danger).

Meier and Robinson (2005) and Meier (in press) have posited a conceptual metaphor theory of color. From this perspective, people talk and think about abstract concepts in concrete terms grounded in perceptual experience (i.e., they use metaphors) to help them understand and navigate their social world ( Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). Thus, anger entails reddening of the face, so anger is metaphorically described as "seeing red," and positive emotions and experiences are often depicted in terms of lightness (rather than darkness), so lightness is metaphorically linked to good ("seeing the light") rather than bad ("in the dark"). These metaphoric associations are presumed to have implications for important outcomes such as morality judgments (e.g., white things are viewed as pure) and stereotyping (e.g., dark faces are viewed more negatively).

For many years it has been known that light directly influences physiology and increases arousal (see Cajochen, 2007, for a review), but recently theorists have posited that such effects are wavelength dependent. Blue light, in particular, is posited to activate the melanopsin photoreceptor system which, in turn, activates the brain structures involved in sub-cortical arousal and higher-order attentional processing ( Cajochen et al., 2005; Lockley et al., 2006). As such, exposure to blue light is expected to facilitate alertness and enhance performance on tasks requiring sustained attention.

Evaluation and Recommendations

Drawing on recent theorizing in evolutionary psychology, emotion science, retinal physiology, person perception, and social cognition, the aforementioned conceptualizations represent important advances to the literature on color and psychological functioning. Nevertheless, theory in this area remains at a nascent level of development, and the following weaknesses may be identified.

First, the focus of theoretical work in this area is either extremely specific or extremely general. A precise conceptual proposition such as red signals dominance and leads to competitive advantage in sports ( Hill and Barton, 2005) is valuable in that it can be directly translated into a clear, testable hypothesis; however, it is not clear how this specific hypothesis connects to a broader understanding of color-performance relations in achievement settings more generally. On the other end of the spectrum, a general conceptualization such as color-in-context theory ( Elliot and Maier, 2012) is valuable in that it offers several widely applicable premises; however, these premises are only vaguely suggestive of precise hypotheses in specific contexts. What is needed are mid-level theoretical frameworks that comprehensively, yet precisely explain and predict links between color and psychological functioning in specific contexts (for emerging developments, see Pazda and Greitemeyer, in press; Spence, in press; Stephen and Perrett, in press).

Second, the extant theoretical work is limited in scope in terms of range of hues, range of color properties, and direction of influence. Most theorizing has focused on one hue, red, which is understandable given its prominence in nature, on the body, and in society ( Changizi, 2009; Elliot and Maier, 2014); however, other hues also carry important associations that undoubtedly have downstream effects (e.g., blue: Labrecque and Milne, 2012; green: Akers et al., 2012). Color has three basic properties: hue, lightness, and chroma ( Fairchild, 2013). Variation in any or all of these properties could influence downstream affect, cognition, or behavior, yet only hue is considered in most theorizing (most likely because experientially, it is the most salient color property). Lightness and chroma also undoubtedly have implications for psychological functioning (e.g., lightness: Kareklas et al., 2014; chroma: Lee et al., 2013); lightness has received some attention within conceptual metaphor theory ( Meier, in press; see also Prado-León and Rosales-Cinco, 2011), but chroma has been almost entirely overlooked, as has the issue of combinations of hue, lightness, and chroma. Finally, most theorizing has focused on color as an independent variable rather than a dependent variable; however, it is also likely that many situational and intrapersonal factors influence color perception (e.g., situational: Bubl et al., 2009; intrapersonal: Fetterman et al., 2015).

Third, theorizing to date has focused primarily on main effects, with only a modicum of attention allocated to the important issue of moderation. As research literatures develop and mature, they progress from a sole focus on "is" questions ("Does X influence Y?") to additionally considering "when" questions ("Under what conditions does X influence Y and under what conditions does X not influence Y?"). These "second generation" questions ( Zanna and Fazio, 1982, p. 283) can seem less exciting and even deflating in that they posit boundary conditions that constrain the generalizability of an effect. Nevertheless, this step is invaluable in that it adds conceptual precision and clarity, and begins to address the issue of real-world applicability. All color effects undoubtedly depend on certain conditions - culture, gender, age, type of task, variant of color, etc. - and acquiring an understanding of these conditions will represent an important marker of maturity for this literature (for movement in this direction, see Schwarz and Singer, 2013; Tracy and Beall, 2014; Bertrams et al., 2015; Buechner et al., in press; Young, in press). Another, more succinct, way to state this third weakness is that theorizing in this area needs to take context, in all its forms, more seriously.

Empirical Work

Background and Recent Developments

Empirical work on color and psychological functioning dates back to the late 19th century ( Féré, 1887; see Pressey, 1921, for a review). A consistent feature of this work, from its inception to the past decade, is that it has been fraught with major methodological problems that have precluded rigorous testing and clear interpretation ( O'Connor, 2011). One problem has been a failure to attend to rudimentary scientific procedures such as experimenter blindness to condition, identifying, and excluding color deficient participants, and standardizing the duration of color presentation or exposure. Another problem has been a failure to specify and control for color at the spectral level in manipulations. Without such specification, it is impossible to know what precise combination of color properties was investigated, and without such control, the confounding of focal and non-focal color properties is inevitable ( Whitfield and Wiltshire, 1990; Valdez and Mehrabian, 1994). Yet another problem has been the use of underpowered samples. This problem, shared across scientific disciplines ( Maxwell, 2004), can lead to Type I errors, Type II errors, and inflated effect sizes ( Fraley and Vazire, 2014; Murayama et al., 2014). Together, these methodological problems have greatly hampered progress in this area.

Although some of the aforementioned problems remain (see "Evaluation and Recommendations" below), others have been rectified in recent work. This, coupled with advances in theory development, has led to a surge in empirical activity. In the following, I review the diverse areas in which color work has been conducted in the past decade, and the findings that have emerged. Space considerations require me to constrain this review to a brief mention of central findings within each area. I focus on findings with humans (for reviews of research with non-human animals, see Higham and Winters, in press; Setchell, in press) that have been obtained in multiple (at least five) independent labs. Table 1 provides a summary, as well as representative examples and specific references.

TABLE 1. Research on color and psychological functioning.
In research on color and selective attention, red stimuli have been shown to receive an attentional advantage (see Folk, in press, for a review). Research on color and alertness has shown that blue light increases subjective alertness and performance on attention-based tasks (see Chellappa et al., 2011, for a review). Studies on color and athletic performance have linked wearing red to better performance and perceived performance in sport competitions and tasks (see Maier et al., in press, for a review). In research on color and intellectual performance, viewing red prior to a challenging cognitive task has been shown to undermine performance (see Shi et al., 2015, for a review). Research focused on color and aggressiveness/dominance evaluation has shown that viewing red on self or other increases appraisals of aggressiveness and dominance (see Krenn, 2014, for a review). Empirical work on color and avoidance motivation has linked viewing red in achievement contexts to increased caution and avoidance (see Elliot and Maier, 2014, for a review). In research on color and attraction, viewing red on or near a female has been shown to enhance attraction in heterosexual males (see Pazda and Greitemeyer, in press, for a review). Research on color and store/company evaluation has shown that blue on stores/logos increases quality and trustworthiness appraisals (see Labrecque and Milne, 2012, for a review). Finally, empirical work on color and eating/drinking has shown that red influences food and beverage perception and consumption (see Spence, in press, for a review).

Evaluation and Recommendations

The aforementioned findings represent important contributions to the literature on color and psychological functioning, and highlight the multidisciplinary nature of research in this area. Nevertheless, much like the extant theoretical work, the extant empirical work remains at a nascent level of development, due, in part, to the following weaknesses.

First, although in some research in this area color properties are controlled for at the spectral level, in most research it (still) is not. Color control is typically done improperly at the device (rather than the spectral) level, is impossible to implement (e.g., in web-based platform studies), or is ignored altogether. Color control is admittedly difficult, as it requires technical equipment for color assessment and presentation, as well as the expertise to use it. Nevertheless, careful color control is essential if systematic scientific work is to be conducted in this area. Findings from uncontrolled research can be informative in initial explorations of color hypotheses, but such work is inherently fraught with interpretational ambiguity ( Whitfield and Wiltshire, 1990; Elliot and Maier, 2014) that must be subsequently addressed.

Second, color perception is not only a function of lightness, chroma, and hue, but also of factors such as viewing distance and angle, amount and type of ambient light, and presence of other colors in the immediate background and general environmental surround ( Hunt and Pointer, 2011; Brainard and Radonjić, 2014; Fairchild, 2015). In basic color science research (e.g., on color physics, color physiology, color appearance modeling, etcetera; see Gegenfurtner and Ennis, in press; Johnson, in press; Stockman and Brainard, in press), these factors are carefully specified and controlled for in order to establish standardized participant viewing conditions. These factors have been largely ignored and allowed to vary in research on color and psychological functioning, with unknown consequences. An important next step for research in this area is to move to incorporate these more rigorous standardization procedures widely utilized by basic color scientists. With regard to both this and the aforementioned weakness, it should be acknowledged that exact and complete control is not actually possible in color research, given the multitude of factors that influence color perception ( Committee on Colorimetry of the Optical Society of America, 1953) and our current level of knowledge about and ability to control them ( Fairchild, 2015). As such, the standard that must be embraced and used as a guideline in this work is to control color properties and viewing conditions to the extent possible given current technology, and to keep up with advances in the field that will increasingly afford more precise and efficient color management.

Third, although in some research in this area, large, fully powered samples are used, much of the research remains underpowered. This is a problem in general, but it is particularly a problem when the initial demonstration of an effect is underpowered (e.g., Elliot and Niesta, 2008), because initial work is often used as a guide for determining sample size in subsequent work (both heuristically and via power analysis). Underpowered samples commonly produce overestimated effect size estimates ( Ioannidis, 2008), and basing subsequent sample sizes on such estimates simply perpetuates the problem. Small sample sizes can also lead researchers to prematurely conclude that a hypothesis is disconfirmed, overlooking a potentially important advance ( Murayama et al., 2014). Findings from small sampled studies should be considered preliminary; running large sampled studies with carefully controlled color stimuli is essential if a robust scientific literature is to be developed. Furthermore, as the "evidentiary value movement" ( Finkel et al., 2015) makes inroads in the empirical sciences, color scientists would do well to be at the leading edge of implementing such rigorous practices as publically archiving research materials and data, designating exploratory from confirmatory analyses, supplementing or even replacing significant testing with "new statistics" ( Cumming, 2014), and even preregistering research protocols and analyses (see Finkel et al., 2015, for an overview).

Conclusion

In both reviewing advances in and identifying weaknesses of the literature on color and psychological functioning, it is important to bear in mind that the existing theoretical and empirical work is at an early stage of development. It is premature to offer any bold theoretical statements, definitive empirical pronouncements, or impassioned calls for application; rather, it is best to be patient and to humbly acknowledge that color psychology is a uniquely complex area of inquiry ( Kuehni, 2012; Fairchild, 2013) that is only beginning to come into its own. Findings from color research can be provocative and media friendly, and the public (and the field as well) can be tempted to reach conclusions before the science is fully in place. There is considerable promise in research on color and psychological functioning, but considerably more theoretical and empirical work needs to be done before the full extent of this promise can be discerned and, hopefully, fulfilled.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

Cuthill, I. C., Hunt, S., Cleary, C., and Clark, C. (1997). Color bands, dominance, and body mass regulation in male zebra finches ( Taeniopygia guttata). Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. Sci. 264, 1093-1099. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1997.0151

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Color and psychological functioning: a review of theoretical and empirical work

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In the past decade there has been increased interest in research on color and psychological functioning. Important advances have been made in theoretical work and empirical work, but there are also important weaknesses in both areas that must be addressed for the literature to continue to develop apace.

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PhD thesis: 'Towards sustainable workplaces:
Effects of indoor environmental quality on occupant
comfort and work performance'

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PhD thesis: 'Towards sustainable workplaces:
Effects of indoor environmental quality on occupant
comfort and work performance'

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journal article: How IEQ affects health, productivity

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journal article: How IEQ affects health, productivity

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Academic journal article: The effects of moderate heat stress and open-plan office noisedistraction on SBS symptoms and on the performance of officework

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Academic journal article: The effects of moderate heat stress and open-plan office noisedistraction on SBS symptoms and on the performance of officework

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Academic journal article: Smart home design and operation preferences ofAmericans and Koreans

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Academic journal article: Smart home design and operation preferences ofAmericans and Koreans

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Online newspaper article: Building design and engineering for well-being

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Online newspaper article: Building design and engineering for well-being

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Caroline Paradise is the head of Atkins design research. Here, she reveals how her architects are now incorporating a sense of well-being into building designs.

Creating buildings that respond to the needs of end users is becoming increasingly important for architects and engineers. Design and engineering consultancy Atkins is putting this at the forefront of its designs, particularly when it comes to designing for people's well-being.

From West Hall Care Home in Surrey (built for people living with dementia) to the Easter Bush Campus at the University of Edinburgh (designed to bring together students and researchers from the University, the public and wider industry within one building) Atkins is creating outstanding spaces that help create a sense of community.

"Buildings can enhance emotional as well as physical well-being," says Caroline Paradise, 34, head of design research at Atkins. "How we design them influences both to a huge degree."

How do aspiring architects and designers start to incorporate well-being into their building designs? Here are five of the areas Paradise touched on in a wide-ranging discussion about helping future architects design spaces that start to improve people's well-being.

Get active

"There is a direct connection between increased movement and health and well-being. Buildings should support people being active and moving throughout the day. Typically we would design buildings for efficiency and simple wayfinding - now we are also exploring ways in which we can add a level of complexity to our designs, where appropriate, that encourages people to increase the amount they move around the building.

"As well as promoting physical health, this encourages a greater level of interaction with other people. Providing environments both inside and outside buildings that encourage movement will go a long way to improving well-being."

Own it

"Creating an environment that supports a sense of belonging can also have a significant impact on people's emotional well-being. This is more typical in working environments such as offices, but also applies to educational buildings. Feeling a sense of joint ownership over the space that you inhabit brings with it a sense of responsibility to support and maintain the environment. Connected to this sense of ownership is an opportunity for end users to choose the right environment for their activities.

"To help make this happen, we try to incorporate a variety of spaces that people can inhabit into the buildings we design. We want to create buildings that allow people to adapt and change the spaces to support their daily lives, making people feel that part of it is 'theirs'. Overall, our philosophy is to design not just for the collective, but for the individual."

Interaction inspires

"Many businesses and organisations acknowledge the benefit of collaboration and encourage different departments to work together and share ideas. We know that buildings can't make people interact, but they can be a catalyst to collaboration instead of a barrier. We work hard to understand the daily activities of the different building users to ensure our designs provide adjacent and shared spaces which promote interaction.

"We also understand that the way people move around a building can play an important part in supporting collaboration. We analyse people's movement in buildings, as well as designing circulation spaces that provide places to stop and talk."

Stimulate the senses

"People understand the world around them through the information they collect via their five senses. One of the most obvious is the light we receive from the spaces we inhabit. Designers work hard to provide the right lighting environment, and understand that light is important for our well-being, as well as to support the activities we undertake.

"The design of our buildings need to take into consideration light strength and colour as well as the variability of light throughout the day. We also try to ensure we give people varied views from within their buildings. By shifting our focus to a distant view, in particular to a natural scene, we are engaging a different part of our brains which provides much needed rest. Looking at natural scenes has also been shown to reduce stress levels, so we try to incorporate well developed landscape within our designs, whether that is externally or internally, with things like courtyards or winter gardens or green walls."

Noises off

"A lot of research has shown the adverse effects of noisy environments, including increased stress levels. As well as reducing intelligibility of conversations, in environments with high levels of noise, we have to work harder to channel out unwelcome sounds and focus our attention on what we are doing. By designing spaces which reduce the impact of external as well as internal sounds - taking into consideration spaces that are adjacent to each other as well as the layout of each space including reverberation times - we can help to improve people's physiological well-being.

"Overall our aim is to design for the end user. At the end of the day, great building design is not only about aesthetics or energy performance, but about the well-being of the people using the building."

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Is your office stopping you from interacting with colleagues?

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Caroline Paradise is the head of Atkins design research. Here, she reveals how her architects are now incorporating a sense of well-being into building designs. Creating buildings that respond to the needs of end users is becoming increasingly important for architects and engineers.

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Global study connects levels of employee productivity and well-being to office design

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Global study connects levels of employee productivity and well-being to office design

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Libby Burton spoke to Gareth Jenkins as part of the What Makes Us Happy series, following conversations with Sarah Stewart-Brown, Claire Haworth and Andrew Oswald and Eugenio Proto.
Elizabeth 'Libby' Burton was the Professor of Sustainable Building Design and Wellbeing at the University of Warwick, working in both the School of Engineering and Warwick Medical School. After being diagnosed with cancer, she wanted to talk about how she brought together her own pursuit of happiness and her twin passions for the built environment and a desire to make a difference to the world, to bring happiness to people's lives and to make their lives better. Sadly, Libby passed away in November 2014. Originally a qualified architect, Libby was frustrated by an industry that encouraged her to look solely at the aesthetics of a building rather than how it would make people feel. She moved into research and her work investigated the social aspects of sustainability and how the built environment (architecture and urban design) influences our wellbeing, quality of life and mental health.
Q) How does the world around us, the architecture and urban landscape, affect our wellbeing and mental health?
We all have our favourite spaces and places. Where do you like to go on holiday? Where do you like to sit and relax in your home? We know that some places make us feel happy and uplifted while others make us feel decidedly less so. So, what makes the difference? What is it about our favourite places that make them so appealing? This is what I have spent the last 15 years investigating, in my research unit, WISE (Wellbeing in Sustainable Environments). I'm interested not just in what makes us feel instantly happy, but what is good for us in the long run - what places help us to flourish as people.

We need much more research but, from the evidence we do have, it seems there are environments that support people's wellbeing better than others.

Q) So, buildings should be more than just functional structures?
For sure. Buildings and places should be attractive. I have a feeling that whether or not an environment is ugly or attractive affects our wellbeing greatly, but very little research has been carried out on this, probably because attractiveness is so difficult to define and measure. During the Renaissance it was thought that beauty in buildings stemmed from their proportions. Maybe there is truth in that. I wonder, too, if beauty stems from having depth in facades, human-scale details, using natural materials, incorporating greenery and from drawing on images that have positive associations. More research is needed though.

Q) Most people, I think, will be familiar with the concept of population density but there's also research into urban density - with the urban sprawl of some American cities at one end versus the more 'compact' cities and towns of Europe at the other. Does the extent of our urban areas play into our state of happiness?
There has been a lot of debate about ideal densities of development. What appears to work well, in the UK at least, is a relatively high density of development. This encourages a number of things including walking or cycling and physical activity has been shown to be good for wellbeing. Where possible in residential areas, it is beneficial to incorporate local facilities and amenities - shops, cafes, pubs, bus stops, GP surgeries and so on. This encourages walking as well as social interaction. Relatively high densities are also required to ensure the viability of local public transport and amenities.

Q) Are there any downsides to more compact densities?
It can be too compact and there is a balance to be struck. High-rise housing appears to be detrimental for wellbeing so it is best to aim for medium to low-rise development, such as semi-detached and terraced houses. It is also wise to ensure very good sound insulation in buildings to avoid noise nuisance from neighbours.

Q) I was watching an old TED talk by Kamal Meattle recently and he was advocating the use of plants to improve the indoor air quality at the New Delhi business park where he works. It was really interesting and I was wondering if I should be adding a bit more greenery to my home.
I can be confident in recommending that as much greenery as possible be integrated within urban areas and not just your home; even in high-density areas it is possible to include green balconies, streets trees, grass verges, roof terraces and 'living walls'.

Again, there is a balance though. During the 1960s, the modernists wanted to make the whole city a park, with buildings raised up on columns. We know that this doesn't work well; spaces need to be clearly defined and it should be obvious whether they are private, public or semi-private/semi-public so that people can take 'ownership' and use those spaces appropriately.Natural elements in the built environment help people recover from stress and mental fatigue and generally lift their mood. Parks and recreation grounds should be provided but attention also needs to be paid to the maintenance and quality of these spaces.

Q) You mentioned that a reasonably dense layout works well, at least in the UK - is there anything more urban planners can do besides keeping our urban areas compact?
Yes. The layouts of our streets is a factor and research suggests that an irregular grid is the ideal. A regular grid can create a monotonous environment but a grid is still helpful. A grid layout gives us choices and makes identifying the shortest route from A to B simple; this, in turn, encourages walking, which, as I've said, has been shown to be good for wellbeing. We are also more likely to know your neighbours on a curved street; the more front doors we can see from the front of our home, the wider our social network tends to be.

Another reason to favour an irregular grid pattern is to support people with dementia. I have particular expertise in ageing research, including dementia-friendly design, and it's been found that people with dementia tend to become lost at crossroads so I think it's best to avoid them. They also tend to lose their concentration on long, straight roads with little variety in urban form.

Staggering junctions, creating T junctions and making the streets gently winding, so the view gradually opens up in front of people, keeps a pedestrian's interest. This helps people with dementia maintain their concentration and remember what they are doing and where they are going.

Q) At a smaller scale, is there anything about our own homes that we can look at - or that home builders should consider when building new homes?
I found in my research that people living in housing with small front gardens tended to report greater community spirit. The front garden space sets houses back from the street, therefore protecting privacy. At the same time, it is a space within which people can chat to neighbours.

It is highly beneficial to incorporate, where possible, 'soft edges' or transition zones in the built environment. Soft edges are buffers between the private space inside our homes and the public realm of the street. They are spaces in which we can linger, where we can interact with our neighbours or simply sit and watch the world go by.

Q) What about inside the home?
When it comes to the design of our interiors, I would not advocate open plan living, at least not for families; individual spaces are needed for different activities to take place without causing friction.

It helps if the more private rooms (the living room and bedrooms) are located at the back of the house, away from the street. I would also recommend kitchen-dining rooms rather than living-dining rooms as these make it more likely that you'll eat together around a table and this is likely to be positive for family life and relationships.

Q) Anything else?
Always, always, maximise daylight! In some ways, we have lost the art of using daylight. The Victorians were brilliant at it. So many of the features from Victorian housing are related to effectively using daylight. The kitchen extension, for example, was to allow light into the depth of the house.

It is also essential to design homes that are easy to keep warm in the colder months. Cold housing affects not just our physical health but also our mental wellbeing. Being cold makes us tense and irritable. We also use more of a house when it is warm; if only one or two rooms are warm, the house becomes, in effect, overcrowded as people flock to those rooms. Of course, the same house may also need to be kept cool in the summer months, which can be tricky.

Q) What should the research be looking at next?
We need to know more about how our environments affect our wellbeing. We need more, better-quality research. But more than that, we need our evidence to be used and adopted in practice. Environments are being changed and created all the time. Let's take the opportunity to ensure these environments are ones that make us happy and help us to flourish, now and in the future.
More articles in this series:
Professor Libby Burton's Legacy Lecture: The Pursuit of Happiness
Images by Paul Daly, University of Warwick
Can we measure happiness? Sarah Stewart Brown, Warwick Medical School
There's something about the Danish Andrew Oswald and Eugenio Proto, Department of Economics
Is happiness in our genes? Claire Haworth, Department of Psychology

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Libby Burton spoke to Gareth Jenkins as part of the What Makes Us Happy series, following conversations with Sarah Stewart-Brown, Claire Haworth and Andrew Oswald and Eugenio Proto. Elizabeth 'Libby' Burton was the Professor of Sustainable Building Design and Wellbeing at the University of Warwick, working in both the School of Engineering and Warwick Medical School.

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Overview

Indoor environments have strong positive effects on occupant well-being and functioning, especially attributes such as the amount and quality of light and color, the sense of enclosure, the sense of privacy, access to window views, connection to nature, sensory variety, and personal control over environmental conditions. Designing to enhance psychological well-being will therefore have positive impacts on work effectiveness and other high value outcomes, such as stress reduction, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.

To reap the fiscal, physical, and psychological benefits of healthy buildings, projects must have a comprehensive, integrated design and development process that seeks to:

Indoor environments also strongly affect human health. For example, the EPA estimates that the concentration of pollutants (like volatile organic compounds) inside a building may be two to five times higher than outside levels. A 1997 study by W.J. Fisk and A.H. Rosenfeld (Estimates of Improved Productivity and Health from Better Indoor Environments. Indoor Air Vol. 7, pp. 158-172) reports that the cost to the nation's workforce of upper respiratory diseases in 1995 was $35 billion in lost work plus an additional $29 billion in health care costs. The study estimates that more healthful indoor environments could reduce these costs by 10%-30%.

Implementing sustainable design principles will also help achieve these objectives.

Recommendations

Provide Maximum Access to Natural Daylight and Views to the Outdoors

Provide Superior Ventilation

Design the ventilation system to exceed ASHRAE Standard 62: Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality.

Minimize recirculation while assuring energy efficiency through energy recovery. See also WBDG High-Performance HVAC.

Ensure that ventilation air is effectively delivered to and distributed throughout the 'breathing zone.' Consider individual controls.

Provide local exhaust for restrooms, kitchens, janitor's closets, copy rooms, etc.

Consider installing CO₂ sensors to provide real time monitoring of air quality.

Consider separating thermal conditioning from ventilation in order to vary delivery of air volume separate from temperature for better comfort.

See also WBDG Natural Ventilation.

Control Sources of Indoor Air Contamination

Test the site for sources of contamination: radon, hazardous waste, fumes from nearby industrial or agricultural uses. See also WBDG Air Decontamination.

Locate air intakes away from sources of exhaust fumes (e.g. from buses, cars, or trucks).

Consider security implications of the location of building air intakes.

Consider recessed grates, "walk off" mats, and other techniques to reduce the amount of dirt entering the building.

Specify green products and materials and furnishings that are low emitters of indoor air contaminants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Allow adequate time for installed materials and furnishings to "outgas" before a new workplace is occupied. Assist the process by running the HVAC system continuously at the highest possible outdoor air supply setting after materials and furnishings have been installed to adequately "flush out" the facility. (The exact timing may vary for different materials and different environmental conditions.)

Consider "modular zoning" for air distribution in order to avoid cross contamination, including providing mail handling center with a separate ventilation system.

Install proper barriers between occupied and construction zones in renovation projects in order to protect worker health.

Prevent Unwanted Moisture Accumulation

Design the ventilation system to maintain the indoor relative humidity between 30% and 50%.

Design to avoid water vapor condensation, especially on walls and the underside of roof decks, and around pipes or ducts or windows.

Design buildings with proper drainage and ventilation.

See also WBDG Mold and Moisture Dynamics and Air Barrier Systems in Buildings.

Enhance the Psychological Effects of Space

Design to allow workers to move freely from solitary work to group action as work requires.

Provide mobile technologies (phones, computers, wireless connectivity) that support new work styles and work practices.

Design to reduce stress and facilitate mental rest breaks.

Provide workers the means to make meaningful changes in their immediate environments (e.g. through personalization and control over the immediate environment to the extent possible).

Provide spatial features that support visual and acoustical privacy but allow opportunities for informal encounters.

Provide an interesting visual environment and, at the same time, design for a balance between visual access and visual enclosure. Provide views of natural vegetation, indoors or outdoors, when possible.

Strive to create a 'sense of place' such that the workplace has a unique character that engenders a sense of pride, purpose, and dedication for individual workers and the workplace community.

Additional Resources

WBDG

Building / Space Types

Applicable to all building types and space types, especially those regularly occupied or visited.

Design Objectives

Accessible, Aesthetics, Cost-Effective, Functional / Operational, Historic Preservation, Secure / Safe, Secure / Safe-Ensure Occupant Safety and Health, Secure / Safe-Provide Security for Occupants and Assets, Sustainable, Sustainable-Use Environmental Preferable Products, Sustainable-Enhance Indoor Environmental Quality, Sustainable-Optimize Operational and Maintenance Practices

Project Management
Project Planning, Management and Delivery
Building Commissioning
Building Commissioning
Tools
Building Life-Cycle Cost (BLCC)
Provide Maximum Access to Natural Daylight

Provide Superior Ventilation

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Indoor environments have strong positive effects on occupant well-being and functioning, especially attributes such as the amount and quality of light and color, the sense of enclosure, the sense of privacy, access to window views, connection to nature, sensory variety, and personal control over environmental conditions.

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TED talk: Julian Treasure 'Why architects need to use their ears

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TED talk: Julian Treasure 'Why architects need to use their ears

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Julian Treasure: Why architects need to use their ears

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Because of poor acoustics, students in classrooms miss 50 percent of what their teachers say and patients in hospitals have trouble sleeping because they continually feel stressed. Julian Treasure sounds a call to action for designers to pay attention to the "invisible architecture" of sound.

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TED talk: Marc Kushner 'Why the buildings of the future will be shaped by...you'

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TED talk: Marc Kushner 'Why the buildings of the future will be shaped by...you'

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Marc Kushner: Why the buildings of the future will be shaped by ... you

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"Architecture is not about math or zoning -- it's about visceral emotions," says Marc Kushner. In a sweeping - often funny - talk, he zooms through the past thirty years of architecture to show how the public, once disconnected, have become an essential part of the design process.

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Academic journal article: 'The effect of indoor office environment on the work performance, health and well-being of office workers'

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Academic journal article: 'The effect of indoor office environment on the work performance, health and well-being of office workers'

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Academic journal article: 'The impact of office environments on employee performance: The design of the workplace as a strategy for productivity enhancement'

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Academic journal article: 'The impact of office environments on employee performance: The design of the workplace as a strategy for productivity enhancement'

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BBC article: 'How the tech industry is redesigning the future workplace'

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BBC article: 'How the tech industry is redesigning the future workplace'

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First, the technology sector gave us Google's bean bags and Facebook's feted ping-pong tables.

Now these companies are raising jousting skyscrapers into the Silicon Valley skyline.

Facebook has just this month moved into new headquarters designed by Frank Gehry, designer of Spain's Guggenheim Museum.

Its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, describes it as the largest open-floor plan in the world. Atop it lies a nine-acre rooftop park.

Google, Amazon, and Apple are also creating their own new colossal headquarters.

Google, searching for more space, will move shortly into its new "Googleplex".

Apple's "spaceship", a vast watchstrap fashioned like a flying saucer, has already attracted the moniker of 'death star' from the unkind.

And Amazon's Seattle glass-dome biospheres, planned to open in 2016 and 2017, play none-too-subtly on its name.

Each is a stab at capturing an imaginative futuristic high ground - and employees - from competitors.

But they also hark back to vaunted tech structures like Bell Labs' buildings and MIT's Building 20, hastily erected in 1943, but flexible and forcing people working on very different projects to meet.

Tech has grown out of the garage.

The audacious scale of these spaces is a bid at bettering the odds of the serendipitous encounters - bumps in Silicon Valley vernacular - which helped Building 20's occupants share ideas across specialisms.

Shiny new workplaces are springing up from San Francisco to Shoreditch and Shenzhen.

It 's not just technology behemoths who have embraced this way of working. The BBC's new Broadcasting House, for example, encourages hot desking, with 460 workstations in its open-plan newsroom alone.

But this brave new world of work has critics.

For some, open plan spaces suggest managers on the room's sidelines, watching workers huddled in the middle like prey on the African savannah.

Flex desk

Seattle architecture firm NBBJ is behind the Google and Amazon buildings, as well as the new Guangdong headquarters for Chinese internet titan Tencent.

Offices are moving away from the idea that time at a desk is a measure of how productive you are, says Ryan Mullenix, an NBBJ design partner, and the chief designer of the new Google building.

And more broadly, away from ideals of industrial efficiency associated with early twentieth-century American mechanical engineer Franklin Taylor.

Sometimes a longer walk to get coffee may be better than a shorter one.

"It's who you see on the way to coffee, and movement which charges your brain, which is really valuable and part of work," says Mr Mullenix.

The social side of work may soon be the only reason we have office buildings, says Scott Wyatt, NBBJ's chairman.

"Getting together with people in teams is where innovation happens, and makes us happy," he says. "You're not going to be happy holed up at home doing all your work."

"The company which gives the employees the choice at any given moment to optimise their effectiveness is going to win," says Mr Wyatt.

And a recent all-night hackathon, where ideas are developed, sponsored by NBBJ produced an app to let employees find available working spaces nearby, arranged by variables such as light, ambient noise, and the number of people around.

Crucial in all this is the new mobility which stems from more portable devices and cloud computing.

"If you sit at your desk for more than twenty minutes, you start getting stupider," says the chairman.

His architecture firm posts maps next to lift doors, suggesting outdoor walking routes for meetings of various lengths.

Pixel while you work

Technology, media, and telecommunications firms set trends in the future design of the office, because they are the first sectors with members of Generation X - those born from the early sixties to the early eighties - in the boardroom, says architect Nicola Gillen.

She specialises in performance and the built environment at the firm AECOM.

She says many of the newest ideas about the office trace their origin to British architect Dr Frank Duffy CBE, who in the 1960s brought Northern European ideas of flexible office landscaping (or Bürolandschaft) into the English-speaking world.

Influenced by Scandinavian egalitarianism, these theories encouraged different levels of staff to work together in non-hierarchical environments in an open floor.

They appealed to many in postwar Europe. They also seem to appeal to the youngest graduates of today.

Millennials "are used to different ways of working, sharing, and collaborating, even from an early age," says Elaine Rossall, head of London market research for property consultants Cushman & Wakefield.

She thinks there has been a retreat from the last decade's enthusiasm for working from home, and points to growing so-called "worktivity" amenities, from running tracks to social, play, and eating areas, "to kind of keep people in the building".

The youngest workers also are digital natives, who come into the workplace expecting to have the latest type of tech, says Paul Phillips, head of consultancy services at the workplace consultancy Assurity Consulting, based in West Sussex.

He thinks wearable technology will soon lead to new ways of presenting information about a building to its users.

And increasingly globalised businesses and markets will spur new development in telepresence and teleconferencing, to cut costs and help the environment, he says.

Working like a dongle

With acute skill shortages in certain areas of the tech sector, to attract and retain young graduates it is increasingly important for employers to adapt to their habits, Mrs Rossall says.

And also to where they are.

Millennials have gravitated to grittier urban areas with lower housing costs, like East London.

This in turn opens up new areas of London to employers, who can draw their workforce from a different catchment.

Companies like Amazon, with its Seattle office, are moving away from suburban business parks, and back into cities.

"It's where their young and hip employees want to live, of course, but walkable urban campuses are also much more environmentally sustainable than suburban office parks," says Seattle-based Scott Bonjukian, who writes a blog called the Northwest Urbanist.

At the same time, he is worried this move will lead to rapidly rising rents, and lessen the very diversity of our neighbourhoods, places, and people which makes urban environments attractive.

Open and shut

Another challenge for designers of the future office is catering for workers from four generations, Millennials, Generations X and Y, and Baby Boomers in senior management.

Open-plan offices can be cheaper for companies to set up, by up to 20%, according to Dr Vinesh Oommen, at the Queensland University of Technology.

But despite the efforts of some architects, they can easily be done badly.

90% of studies found open-plan offices were associated with higher levels of stress and elevated blood pressure, Dr Oommen found.

And older generations might particularly relish having a room of their own.

Mr Mullenix says whether the open office is good or bad is "probably the wrong question".

It is the ability to create different areas within a campus and building, catering for different working styles that is important, he says.

Architectural and design innovations quickly radiate from buildings like Google's to shape the office of the future.

And tellingly, the tech sector has made Office a byword for software as much as bricks-and-mortar hardware.

So don't be surprised if in the future you soon find yourself working in a wifi biosphere, a deathstar, or a bean-bag.

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First, the technology sector gave us Google's bean bags and Facebook's feted ping-pong tables. Now these companies are raising jousting skyscrapers into the Silicon Valley skyline. Facebook has just this month moved into new headquarters designed by Frank Gehry, designer of Spain's Guggenheim Museum.

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Kamal Meattle TED talk: 'How to grow fresh air'

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Kamal Meattle TED talk: 'How to grow fresh air'

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Researcher Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air.