The challenges of hybrid work: an architectural sociology perspective

An unwanted experiment of prolonged periods of working away from the office was forced on many societies by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the three years since the COVID outbreak, many organisations have shifted to hybrid work practices by mixing working from home with office-based work. Unsurprisingly, a plethora of both academic and grey literature has been published on hybrid work since 2020. This paper scans that literature in order to understand some of the most important questions emerging and compares these with the experience of a small sample of UK-based participants living and managing in this rapidly changing environment. Considering different disciplinary domains (human resources, management, architecture, real estate, technology), the literature in conjunction with the lived experience highlights real tensions surfacing between individual choices, worker wellbeing and organisational needs. Stuck in the middle of these perpetual conflicts are middle managers trying to make things work day-to-day. It is argued that the implications of hybrid work are potentially as profound as those of Taylorism in the early 20th century. Based on the foundations of architectural sociology, a holistic socio-spatial approach is proposed that responds to the rapidly changing world of work

Reducing Transportation Energy Consumption by Daily Commuters

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106049/1/ME589F13Section881Project1_Report.pd

Implementing work-from-home benefits into the workplace post-COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is something the world experienced together, yet altered our day-to-day lives in countless diverse ways. Some examples include how we attend school, how and where we exercise, and how we run our typical, weekly errands. For many, the biggest change caused by the pandemic was the impact on the workplace and its interior environment. Many of these changes directly impacted on full-time employees, for instance, the way work tasks were completed, as well as the location tasks were completed in. The purpose of this study is to recognize ways interior designers, architects, and even employers can help to improve employee satisfaction and productivity levels. The study compares similarities and differences of indoor environmental qualities (IEQ), as well as other interior factors like privacy and biophilic design elements, between home and workplace office environments for employees. The study focused solely on full-time employees over the age of eighteen years old who worked any amount of time at home before returning to their workplace. The method of this study used an online survey platform which made it easy to keep the data organized. Survey participants must be older than eighteen years, as well as a full-time employee. The goals of the survey included identifying positive and negative factors relating to the interior workplace environment in hopes of improving employee satisfaction and productivity. The results of this study have reassured that this topic on improving the post-pandemic workplace to better mimic the benefits found working from home is important and critical in the guaranteed improvements to employee satisfaction and productivity regarding the post-pandemic workplace environment. Keywords: work-from-home, WFH, return-to-office, RTO, return-to-workplace, COVID-19, pandemic, post-pandemic, workplace, satisfaction, production, indoor environmental quality, biophilic desig

Input Output HMM for Indoor Temperature Prediction in Occupancy Management Under User Preferences

In this paper, a probabilistic machine learning method is proposed to predict the indoor temperature of an office environment. An IOHMM-based model is developed to represent the office environment under different circumstances of heating sources. One year of time series data is observed and studied to learn the dynamics of the indoor thermal states. The uncertainty associated with the changing aspects of the indoor temperature and its dependence on the outdoor temperature is considered in the model development. The well-known Baum Welch and forward-backward algorithms are adapted to learn the model parameters. Then, the Viterbi algorithm is used to predict the maximum path of hidden states, leading to predicting the most likely future temperatures. A numerical application is presented to demonstrate the model development steps and the training and testing results. Finally, the model's performance is validated using leave-one-out cross-validation, which shows that the model has a prediction accuracy of about 78%

A Coffee Shop Attributes\u27 Impact on Work Behavior: Perceptions of Regular Working Patrons

Coffee shops are a global phenomenon. They need to be understood as multifunctional spaces and complex social environments. A single coffee shop can serve diverse customers while offering socio-physical attributes that encourage remarkable ranges of parallel activities such as social gatherings, focused intellectual work, and creative endeavors. Coffee has reportedly been perceived as fueling the creative processes of many young professionals, creative entrepreneurs, and students (Attaianese, 2018). Fast-evolving communication technologies and the recent pandemic have accelerated existing questions and changed conventional conceptions about where one can do focused work, what qualifies as a place of work, and how workspaces should look and feel to help professionals and students be productive. Next to coworking spaces that have recently become prominent alternatives to traditional office environments, coffee shops started to house more working individuals than ever before (Yang et al., 2019). This case study was designed to understand which aspects of a coffee shop environment in a U.S. Midwest college town were important to patrons’ decisions to regularly spend extended time working there. My engagement as the participant observer was prolonged. I spent thirty-three hours over six weeks creating behavioral maps, tracing patrons’ locations and activities, and writing fieldnotes before conducting semi-structured interviews (Leech, 2002) with eight purposefully chosen ‘campers’ (Waxman, 2006). In a two-phase coding process, the data were coded for aspects that emerged from the data and concepts retrieved from the existing Dinescape (Ryu, 2005), Place Attachment (Waxman, 2006), and Servicescape models (Bitner, 1992) before studying prominent code co-occurrences to determine the overlapping patterns. The emerging themes were (1) working patrons preferred the atmosphere’s warm and familiar nature in comparison to the atmosphere their offices offered. (2) Working patrons enjoyed the lively acoustic environment as they believed it fueled their productivity. Campers reported appreciating (3) the combination of daylight and artificial diffused overhead lighting and (4) the casual and comfortable seating options. Perhaps most importantly (5) patrons, who primarily worked at the coffee shop, valued existing opportunities to socialize with fellow patrons and baristas as a secondary activity. Office spaces designed to mimic the described desirable aspects of the coffee shop work environment at the core of this study might help raise the recently considerably diminished interest of office employees attending their place of work in person. In conclusion, the researcher argues that the prominent aspects of coffee shop environments can and should inform current and future workspace design. To further grow our understanding of the popularity of coffee shops as spaces to work future research could address questions such as: What social affordances do coffee shops offer to their regular patrons that their spaces of work do not? Do coffee shops promote a sense of belonging in their working patrons and if so, how may this differ from patrons not there to work? Should coffee shops be designed around campers (Waxman, 2006) needs, or is the diverse range of users\u27 and patrons’ behaviors present an important part of the appeal to working patrons

Where is your office today? A research-led guide to effective hybrid working

This is the final version. Available from the University of Leeds via the link in this recordThis research examines the changes to workplaces and ways of working spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to understand the implications of the changes: learn lessons, share good practice, and provide guidance for organisations adopting hybrid working or adapting offices to support their future ways of working. In this interactive report, we share insights from a range of stakeholder and employee interviews, industry workshops, cross-industry surveys of UK office workers, employee diary data and reviews of published guidance and case studies.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC

VDT workplace design and effects on muscle disorders and eye strain among students at an educational institute

The advancement of information technology encouraged schools, universities and other educational institutions to use visual display terminal (VDT) in conducting lectures rendering services and developing various systems. The use of personal computer (PC) and laptops are common among students. Classrooms are equipped with liquid crystal display (LCD) screens for lecturers to display their lectures for students. Many cases have not been reported because of lack of awareness and understanding on ergonomic. However, Poor ergonomics of the physical environment of VDT can cause musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs); the inappropriateness of school design may influence student achievement negatively. The viewing distance and position of the screens have been found as the main factors causing MSDs. The students’ satisfactions on VDT used in the education institute were determined. The effects of VDT workplace design parameters on muscle disorder and eye strain among students were determined. Ergonomically positions of VDT for safer and comfortable use among students were proposed. Data obtained from 215 LCD projector users and 103 desktop monitor users were analyzed using frequency tables, one sample t-test and Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficient. The frequency analysis for the level of satisfaction among LCD projector users showed that most of the users (88.4%) were satisfied with the viewing distance, and were least satisfied with the lighting(51.6%). For the monitor user, the users were highly satisfied with user/ screen position (80.6%) and least satisfied with the viewing distance (61.2%). Most of the LCD projector users (36.7%), experienced eye pain while performing study tasks on the projector screen, and the least pain were for head pain (22.8%). Most of the desktop monitor users (54.9%) were experienced head pain while performing study tasks on the monitors, and only (32%) experienced back pain. The relationship between the level of satisfaction for physical environment and MSDs was determined using Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficient. Results showed that, there were a significant and negative relationship between satisfaction of lighting and the level of back pain (rs = - 0.213, p < 0.001), head pain (rs = - 0.266, p < 0.001), neck pain (rs = - 0.119, p < 0.034) and eye pain (rs = - 0.292, p < 0.001) levels. Significant relationships were found between the level of distance satisfaction and the level of back pain (rs = - 0.148, p < 0.01) and eye pain (rs = - 0.151, p < 0.04). The results of association between satisfaction of position and MSDs pain indicated that only the relationship between satisfaction of position and the eye pain (rs = - 0.151, p < 0.005) was significant and negative. The results implied that the eye is the part of the body which is affected by all the other variables (lighting, distance, and position), but particularly more affected by problems with lighting in the study hall. In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that there is a lack of satisfaction with respect to some items within the physical environment, and there were MSDs disorders associated with VDT use, especially the lighting. These all likely to play a significant role in affecting the user’s health, and subsequently their performance. Thus providing enough lighting sources above the students and nearby the ( monitor/ p- screen), added to the windows in the classrooms and libraries. Also, ensure the proper distance like an arm's length for monitor users and (2 to 10 ) meters for the presentation screen users added to the students position directly in front of the monitor or p- screen with considering the study hall design ( sloped or flat) to provide viewing angle ( 0° to -20°), which allow the students to read the text at or slightly below eyes level, all of those are suggested to reduce the MSDs among UPM students

Finding headspace in green workplaces : the restorative value of science park open space

Person-environment relationships in five urban-fringe science parks in central Scotland were investigated through the application of a mixed method case study design. The study sought to explore the impact of greenspace at these knowledge-sector workplaces on employee wellbeing, with particular focus on restorative effects of viewing and spending time in green environments. The thesis also aims to develop understanding of how workers at these sites engage with, and relate to, the outdoor environment at their workplace. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected; the former through an online questionnaire (n=366), and the latter through in-depth semi-structured walking interviews (n=16) conducted on and around the sites. This research is the first to provide evidence of wellbeing benefits of greenspace in the context of UK workplaces. Its focus on the landscape of science parks is of particular relevance given the prominence of this development model in planning policy to promote regional economic growth, as well as the central role of employee functioning in the productivity of innovative knowledge-sector businesses. The insights gained through the research point to a number of conclusions for the planning and design of future business sites at the urban fringe. The research also makes an original contribution to the international research on restorative environments in its exploration of how different types and designs of open space impact on the wellbeing of workers and, in particular, how individual factors influence responses to elements of open space design and management in the workplace context