Health and wellbeing
May/June 2020
circadian stimulus from natural light. Does this introduce a long-term problem for developers? As office workers become more educated about the positive impact of daylight and therefore the detrimental impact of no daylight, will they accept a job with an employer who has signed a lease on a deepplan office? Will deep-plan offices ultimately have to be knocked down as they are unlettable? Can anything be done to change the buildings to improve access to daylight?
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One answer could be to push the adoption of agile working and task-based design. Research has shown that we are more tolerant of sunlight and daylight when undertaking certain tasks compared to others. For example, when we are on the phone we are ok sitting in direct sunlight, whereas if we were at our fixedscreen computer we would pull the blind down. If we think about how we may lay out the interior of an office to make use
Last year, an eight-week post-occupancy study at the offices of facilities management company Mitie in London’s Shard building attempted to assess the impact of biophilic design and lighting on workers’ wellness and productivity. The study was led by Dr Marcella Ucci, associate professor at UCL's Bartlett School, and the experimental environment was created by DaeWha Kang Design. It comprised the Living Lab (below left), an immersive working environment, and two ‘regeneration pods' (left) used for short breaks and meditation. It involved 'circadian lighting', together with a strong component of natural light. The lighting in the Living Lab was linked to an astronomical clock: cool blue in the morning, brilliant white in the afternoon, and fire-like orange towards the end of the day. The light also subtly shifted in intensity, giving additional dynamism. The enclosed space opened out to broad views of sky and city. The materials used for screens, floors, desks and integrated task lighting included varying shades and textures of bamboo. Luminaires were embedded in the bamboo screens and wall cladding, both diffusing the artificial light and catching natural light. The pods were a form of break-out space, enveloping users for 15 minutes at a time in a sound and lightscape designed for reflection and mindfulness. Occupants found the experimental area more conducive than a more conventional space used as a control, says Dr Ucci. 'The study found that, in comparison with the control space, participants in the Living Lab experienced an improvement in selfreported feelings of enthusiasm – using words such as "excited" and "inspired" – and comfort – "at ease", "relaxed" – and a reduction in feelings of anxiety. While it was not possible to disentangle the specific impacts on wellbeing of individual environmental factors such as lighting, the study did find that the satisfaction with the visual comfort was much greater in the Living Lab compared with the control.' 'The overall level of satisfaction with environmental quality was quite dramatically higher in the Living Lab,' confirms DaeWha Kang. 'The lighting would be a factor in this but we looked at it through the interplay of the lighting with the textures and natural materials of the space, rather than isolating light fittings as a single factor.' ww w.daewhakang.com/project/ www.daewhakang.com/project/ the-shard-living-lab/
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