Experience-Driven Design of Ambiences for Future Pop Up Workspaces

Knowledge work is in transformation and new means for supporting workers’ wellbeing and productivity are needed. Pop Up workspaces are temporary and often social working environments where people can modify their environment to suit their current work mode. The aim of the present research was to explore the opportunities of future Pop Up workspaces, and specifically their technology-mediated ambiences that can provide meaningful experiences for the workers. We employed the Experience-Driven Design (EDD) approach to gain insights of the desired experiences in Pop Up workspaces. We first conducted three participatory group sessions to ideate experience types for Pop Up workspaces. We then run a multidisciplinary concepting workshop in which we designed concepts for technology-mediated ambiences. Five experience categories for worker mindsets were identified, namely Liberty, Fellowship, Determination, Retreat and Recovery. We present ambience concepts that utilise the mindsets and related target experiences, and how they can be supported by ambient technologies.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Business begins at home

One of the most significant trends in the post-industrial era has been for the home to become an important focus for work. The boundaries between work and home are now increasingly blurred, reversing the forces of the industrial era in which places deemed suitable for each were clearly demarcated and physically separate. The most recent published figures available from the Labour Force Survey (2005)1 indicate that 3.1m people now work mainly from home, 11% of the workforce. This represents a rise from 2.3m in 1997 (9% of the workforce), a 35% increase. The majority of homeworkers (2.4m or 77% of the total) are 'teleworkers' – people who use computers and telecommunications to work at home. The number of teleworkers has increased by 1.5m between 1997 and 2005, a 166% increase. Clearly, it is the growth in the number of teleworkers which is driving the increase in homeworking

TOWARDS TWIN TRANSFORMATIONS AND SPACES – Convoluted Conversations on the Green and Digital Futures of Work

This publication is a co-created compilation of various conversations concerning our possibilities and pathways towards futures of work. A series of interviews conducted so far within the T-Winning Spaces 2035 project have been documented here to give food for thinking and discussions concerning transformations of work and spaces. The questions of the interviews were tailor-made to address the expertise of each interviewee, while the core of the interviews touches upon the exuberant topic of futures of work in its all dimensions as well as the issues of forward-looking thinking and action. Within the interviews we also addressed the topics of creeping crises and paradoxes as regards futures of work. Altogether eight interviews were made, many of them during the International Conference organized by Finland Futures Research Centre in Turku in June 2023, plus some interviews conducted after that. The interviews are documented here as entities for readers to grasp the whole interviewing contexts, where-from thematic analyses will follow in the next phases of the project to provide narratives of future work and workspaces

A contribution of product design for promoting health and well-being at home office work: Adressing the role of psychological detachment

Esta dissertação do Mestrado em Design de Produto e do Espaço, procura responder a uma problemática atual, que tem que ver com o impacto do trabalho remoto, a partir de casa, na saúde mental dos "trabalhadores do conhecimento" em particular. Uma das maiores dificuldades que as pessoas relatam ter é não serem capazes de se desligar do trabalho, por forma a alcançar um estado conhecido no campo da psicologia como Desprendimento Psicológico. Neste contexto, o principal objetivo deste trabalho foi criar um produto capaz de ajudar as pessoas no processo de desconexão do trabalho em casa. Para isso, estabelecemos uma investigação interdisciplinar, onde se destacou o contributo da psicologia. Após a realização de uma revisão da literatura, que culminou na definição de um quadro teórico, realizámos pesquisas com utilizadores, começando com inquéritos para conhecer aos utilizadores que estão a ser afetados e concluímos esta etapa com um grupo de discussão/oficina, onde os utilizadores foram encorajados a conceber soluções para os ajudar a desligarem-se do trabalho. Deste processo colaborativo e iterativo resultaram várias ideias, que emergiram juntamente com o quadro teórico, e que culminaram com a proposta de três conceitos de produto especificamente destinados a ajudar as pessoas a desligarem-se. Estes foram subsequentemente avaliados pelos utilizadores e, de acordo com as suas percepções, um dos conceitos foi escolhido para refinamento. Devido a constrangimentos impostos pela pandemia de COVID-19 não foi possível produzir um protótipo deste conceito para avaliação com utilizadores, o que limita este estudo

Rapid review on covid-19, work-related aspects, and age differences

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the labor market and multiple aspects of work and workers’ life. The present rapid review analyzes this impact considering the effects that COVID-19 pandemic had on employment and work-related aspects across different age groups. A comprehensive literature search was performed on scientific contributions published between 2019 and March 2021, resulting in 36 papers pertinent to the scope of this review. Findings were grouped according to different topics, all linked to age: occupational risk, implications on the labor market (i.e., job loss and reemployment, job insecurity, turnover intentions and retirement, and healthcare workers’ return-to-work phase), remote work, and key individual and organizational resources and strategies. Overall, the review revealed variability across age groups in the impact this pandemic had on employment and several work-related aspects (i.e., occupational risk, remote work). Findings supported an age-differential effect of normative history-graded events such as the current pandemic, highlighting different responses and consequences depending on workers’ age

Workplace Futures: A Case Study of an Adaptive Scenarios Approach to Establish Strategies for Tomorrow’s Workplace

Workplace change and innovation will become critical to the organisation’s future in a dynamic, knowledge-based economy and society. As such, anticipating and managing future change is fast becoming a vital dimension underpinning the successful transition – to new work styles, patterns and locations; yet traditional workplace planning methods are rather limited in their ability to fulfil this task. This research, therefore, examines how the potential application of Futures Studies, and more specifically the ProspectiveThrough Scenarios process, can address this issue in order for the workplace to be actively sustained to stay effective for the organisation in the long-term.Using a case study methodology, this research: explores the changing context and nature of the workplace from past and present perspectives and scans the potential changes of the future workplace; reflects the need to create conditions for excellence, promote innovation and manage risk at the workplace provision level; examines how the future is constructed in workplace planning; appraises the future studies field and employs a scenario planning approach in a real world context to establish strategies for tomorrow’s workplace. To achieve these objectives, a combination of research methodsare employed, namely documentary review, semi-structured in-depth interviews, horizon scanning, strategic conversations, futures workshops, illustration, and web forum discussions. The results of the case study gives rise to the development of a futures framework forworkplace planning, based on the Prospective Through Scenarios process, designed to assist property and facilities professionals in: anticipating future user demand requirements as well as what cannot be expected; understanding the complexities of the workplace environment; and, developing a mechanism for communication and collaboration between stakeholders in the workplace provision process. Ultimately, thisresearch enables the creation of a new transformative mindset, based on awareness, responsibility, creativity and knowledge development, in order to change how the physical environment of work adds value for organisation

Mixed-methods research: a new approach to evaluating the motivation and satisfaction of university students using advanced visual technologies

The final publication is available at link.springer.comA mixed-methods study evaluating the motivation and satisfaction of Architecture degree students using interactive visualization methods is presented in this paper. New technology implementations in the teaching field have been largely extended to all types of levels and educational frameworks. However, these innovations require approval validation and evaluation by the final users, the students. In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of applying mixed evaluation technology are discussed in a case study of the use of interactive and collaborative tools for the visualization of 3D architectonical models. The main objective was to evaluate Architecture and Building Science students’ the motivation to use and satisfaction with this type of technology and to obtain adequate feedback that allows for the optimization of this type of experiment in future iterations.Postprint (author’s final draft