Creating the Productive Workplace

Places to Work Creatively

Derek Clements-Croome, Derek Clements-Croome, Derek Clements-Croome

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317332237
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture générale

The built environment affects our physical, mental and social well-being. Here renowned professionals from practice and academia explore the evidence from basic research as well as case studies to test this belief. They show that many elements in the built environment contribute to establishing a milieu which helps people to be healthier and have the energy to concentrate while being free to be creative. The health and well-being agenda pervades society in many different ways but we spend much of our lives in buildings, so they have an important role to play within this total picture. This demands us to embrace change and think beyond the conventional wisdom while retaining our respect for it. Creating the Productive Workplace shows how we need to balance the needs of people and the ever-increasing enabling technologies but also to take advantage of the healing powers of Nature and let them be part of environmental design. This book aims to lead to more human-centred ways of designing the built environment with deeper meaning and achieve healthier and more creative, as well as more productive places to work.

Part I
Health, well–being and productivity landscape

Chapter 1
Effects of the built environment on health and well–being

Derek Clements-Croome

Introduction

We live through our senses. What we see, hear, touch, taste and smell affects our human system physiologically and psychologically. At a basic level we need fresh air to live, to nourish our blood with oxygen and then the organs of our body, including our thinking brain. The air has to be warm or cool enough, as well as being clean. We also need light not only to see but also to feel the space in various ways. The aural climate needs to be acceptable. But there are also a host of other factors which subtly influence the human response to the environment, such as aesthetics, greenery, social ambience and the culture of the organisation in which people work (Davis et al ., 2011). All these factors contribute to the look and feel of a space. This book aims to lead to more human-centred ways of designing the built environment with deeper meaning and achieve healthier, creative as well as more productive places to work.

Carson, in her (2010) book, Your Creative Brain, argues for seven brain sets to maximise imagination, productivity and innovation. These cover:

• Absorb - opening up the mind to new ideas and experiences.
• Envision - using imagination.
• Connect - divergent thinking to generate multiple solutions.
• Reason - the logical ordered mind.
• Evaluate - judging the value of and testing ideas and concepts.
• Transform - creativity that can spring from negativity.
• Stream - thoughts flow in a harmonious and systematic way.

Our knowledge about the brain and mind is increasing rapidly so that our understanding about how we think, how we concentrate and how we get distracted is becoming more evident. Consciousness may be the interaction of the world and the mind and so could remain elusive in spite of brain research but the knowledge from neuroscience is already giving greater insight into what is happening in our minds when we think and act in various ways.

People work best when all senses are engaged.

(IBI Group Nightingale, 2012)

Business performance is influenced by the impact of the workplace environment on staff motivation and ability.

(CABE, 2005)

In the Human Spaces Report (2015), The Global Impact of Biophilic Design in the Workplace, the research showed that those who work in environments with natural elements, such as greenery, natural materials and sunlight reported:

• 15 per cent higher level of well-being;
• 6 per cent higher level of productivity;
• 15 per cent higher level of creativity

compared to those occupants with no connection with natural elements in the workplace (www.humanspaces.com/2015/ Cooper and Browning). A report by BCO (2012), Making Art Work in the Workplace, revealed that 61 per cent of employees believe that art in the workplace increases their creativity besides boosting well-being and productivity.

Antonovski (1979) describes salutogenic environments as ones which help to stimulate the mind. The aim is to design to produce ideation or creative environments. But what of the person? Csikszentmihalyi (2014, and TED lecture, February 2004) advocated the concept of flow which refers to a person being fully immersed with energised focus on an activity (see Chapter 2). Think of the intense concentration needed by musicians performing in public or writers and composers when creating their stories, poems or music, which requires a state of free flowing thought. However, this is true of any activity requiring concentration either for routine or creative tasks.

How does architecture and the built environment evoke moods and emotions? Pallasmaa (2016) and Desmet (2015) believe buildings go beyond being functional and material servants to our needs because they also house our minds, memories, desires and dreams. People want their environment, whether an office, school or home, to be part of ‘the place experience’ – a place where they like to be because it allows a rich, diverse range of experiences (Marmot, 2016). Places should let imagination and creativity open up rather than be trampled on by ceaseless information clutter. The smart and thinking city or building is the future as neuroscience helps us to unravel the intangibles that paint the landscape of the brain, the mind interaction with the environment. Brekke (2016) believes this and goes on to say: ‘The built environment can become tools for people’s wellbeing, and provide safe enclosures combined with opportunities for complex sensorial and social experiences.’

Brains are about 2 per cent of the body weight but consume over 20 per cent of the calorie intake. Brains get tired. For people in jobs where work shift patterns are long, such as doctors and nurses, and where the level of care is vital, one has to realise that towards the end of a 12-hour shift, people become too tired to do their job at the same level of efficiency and effectiveness as when they started the day or night. In practice, this fact tends to be ignored as patients or customers expect a continuous run of efficiency. Heart, head and hands are needed in many jobs. A caring heart and willing spirit never tire but the head and mind do.

Our brains have ultradian rhythms and throughout the day pass though waves of freshness, concentration and tiredness modes (Takenoya, 2006; Arantes, 2015). In the tiredness mode, the brain needs other activities to relax and hence why breakout spaces are so important, whether it is a gym, a social encounter, a sensory garden or a music listening room. Various surveys indicate that many office workers want contemplation spaces whether the brain is in the concentration or tiredness modes. Philips in conjunction with TU Delft (Trevia, 2013) have developed a relaxation space to help employees self-regulate stress by a system of sensors which allow it to be a very adaptive space.

In her (2012) book, Quiet, Susan Cain emphasizes the importance of personality traits and discusses in detail the characteristics of extroverts, introverts or a mixture of these called ambiverts and how they react in various situations. She believes management should understand how personality affects communication, working conditions and should support workers’ needs much more. The role of personality on the performance of people working is important in assessing what priority should be given to the various aspects of the built environment and the support systems. Marston (1979) describes a profile for personality types he calls Dominant (go-getters), Influential (team players), Steadfast (need structure and routine), and Conscientious (more solitary detailers), and his research shows how their preferences vary.

The Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) was set up in San Diego in 2003 by the American Institute of Architects. The concept of linking these two fields was developed by John Eberhard in his book entitled, Brain Landscape: The Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture (2009). This part of a neuroscience roundtable discussion was recorded in the Neuroscience Quarterly (2003):

GAGE: Why are architects and neuroscientists beginning to work together?

EBERHARD: Architecture has the most impact when the ideas used in building design reflect our understanding of how the brain reacts in different environments. Neuroscientists can help architects understand scientifically what have historically been intuitive observations.

GAGE: Neuroscience has reached a point in its understanding of the brain and how it is influenced by the environment that neuroscientists can work with architects in their designs for environments that enable people to function at their fullest within those environments.

More recent work on the interplay between neuroscience and architecture is described by Michael Arbib in a (2012) paper, ‘Brains, machines and buildings’, in which he discusses the neuroscience of the architectural experience and examines how brain functions may be incorporated into buildings. A Special Issue of Intelligent Buildings International Journal featuring the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture was published in 2013 (ANFA, 2013).

Architecture and the multi-sensory experience

Our existence is enlivened every waking moment by a symphony of stimuli from people, objects, building spaces, task interest and Nature. This rich array of inputs to the mind and body generates the multi-sensory experience which can colour and enrich the environment for people to live and work in. As in music, the notes of melodies, harmonies and rhythms magically combine in a myriad of ways to inspire the mind, so too in multi-sensory design which weaves a tapestry and diversity of experience for people to flourish.

The idea of taking into account the senses of a building occupant has extended our thinking into how we smell, touch, hear and see things in the built environment, as well as our psychological interactions with the stimuli it provides. Architecture deals not only with materials and form but also with people, their emotions, environment, space and relationships between them. This makes a rich tapestry of stimuli which touch the human body and mind. In order for this human experience to enhance our lives, buildings should provide a multi-sensory experience.

The senses not only mediate information for the judgement of the intellect, they are also channels which ignite the imagination. This aspect of thought and experience through the senses is stimulated not only by the environment and people around us but, when we are inside a building, by the architecture of the space, which sculpts the outline of our reactions. Merleau-Ponty wrote that the task of architecture was to make visible how the world touches us.

Buildings must relate to the language and wisdom of the body. If they do not, they become isolated in the cool and distant realm of vision. However, in assessing the value of a building, how much attention is given to the quality of the environment inside the building and its effects on the occupants? The qualities of the environment together with the people within it affect human physical and mental performance and these qualities should always be given a high priority. This is what might be considered an invisible aesthetic, and together with the visual impact, these make up a total aesthetic.

Buildings can and should provide a multi-sensory experience for people and uplift their spirits. A walk through a forest is invigorating and healing due to the interaction of all the senses. This array of sensory impressions and the interplay between the senses has been referred to as the polyphony of the senses. Architecture is an extension of Nature into the person-made realm and provides the ground for perception, a basis from which people can learn...