Research Design Connections: 2022 Transdisciplinary Workplace Research (TWR) Network Meeting, Milan

The practitioners and researchers and practitioner-researchers doing the most significant, thought-provoking, and applicable workplace design-related work, worldwide, are involved with the Transdisciplinary Workplace Research (TWR) Network.  This multidisciplinary group met in Milan (at the Politecnico di Milano) September 7 -10.

The proceedings of the TWR Network event, including the texts of the papers that recap the highlights of presentations made, are available without charge at http://www.twrnetwork.org/events/

The Proceedings were edited by Chiara Tagliaro, Alessandra Migliore, and Rosella Silvestri (Proceedings of the 3rd Transdisciplinary Workplace Research Conference, 7-10 September 2022 in Milan, Italy, Politecnico di Milano and TWR Network (publishers).

Articles in the proceedings (and the page numbers in the proceedings where each is available) include:

• Sally Augustin, Cynthia Milota, and Cristina Banks, “Real World Spaces and Creative Thinking,” pg. 611-620.
• “Neuroscientists have comprehensively assessed how design can support creative thinking, most often in studies that detail the effects of a single physical factor. . . . multiple factors . . . were investigated simultaneously in real-world settings.”

• Amila Badungodage, “Group Creativity in the Workplace Beyond COVID-19 Pandemic,” pp. 478-486.

“This study aims to review the challenges and opportunities derived from the COVID-19 pandemic on group creativity in workplace.”

• Lisanne Bergefurt, Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, and Theo Arentze, “The Effects of Salutogenic Workplace Characteristics on Productivity, Stress, Concentration, and Mood in a Virtual Office Environment,” pp. 332-344.

“This study aimed to get insights in . . . workplace characteristics that affect employees’ workplace preference.”

• Joyce Chan-Schoof, Vicky Lofthouse, Robert Schmidt, and Derek Clements-Croome, “The Well-Being Effects of Biophilic Design in Workplaces:  A Value-Based Approach,” pp. 304-318.

“This paper explores ways to link the economic value to the benefits of biophilic design.”

• Susanne Colenberg, Natalia Romero Herrera, and David Keyson, “Workplace Affordances of Social Well-Being:  A Conceptual Framework,” pp. 247-257.

This project “explores how workplace design could support the social well-being of its users based on established theory in the field of environmental psychology.”

• Valtteri Hongisto, “Office Noise – Effects and Control,” pp. 488-499.

“This paper is an overview, what office noise is, how it affects us, how it is measured, and how it can be controlled.”

• Jenni Radun and Valtteri Hongisto, “Indoor Environmental Quality Satisfaction in Offices – Office Types and Differences Between Continents,” pp. 510-516.

“This study examined satisfaction with IEQ [indoor environmental quality] factors with a large global dataset.”

• Saija Toivonen, Ina Blind, and Riikka Kyro, “Thriving or Surviving?  How the Physical Work Setting at Home Was Experienced Globally During COVID-19,” pp. 346-354.

“This study aims to establish how, on a global scale, demographics, time with company, and the social and physical work setting at home affected employees’ satisfaction with their physical work setting during the pandemic.”

• Ebru Uluoz and Goksenin Inalhan, “Shared Workspace Design: Elements of Analysis for a Healthy Work Experience in Post-Covid Times,” pp. 468-477.

Positive and negative attributes of shared work areas are reviewed.

• Sepideh Yekanialibeiglou, Leif Denti, and Halime Demirkan, “Activity-Based or Availability-Based?  Factors Influencing Employees’ Choice of Workstation in Activity-Based Offices,” pp. 720-731.

Factors influencing selection of particular workstations are discussed.

Visit the website noted above for more information about each session.

Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.