The middle of summer and the middle of winter are two times of year when temperatures in workspaces are popular topics of discussion – whether those work sites are in a home office or an employer managed workplace. The air always seems to be too hot or too cold, never just right.
All of our interest in the temperature of the spaces where we work is justified, mid-summer, mid-winter or whenever else temperature comes to mind. Our cognitive performance, and thinking, – what we’re most likely to be paid to do while at work – is best if the temperature is around 72o F, in a range from 68 o to 74o with humidity levels from 40 – 70%. Deviations from these conditions cause our performance to drop at marked and consistent rates. Temperature, and humidity, can influence our health if they deviate significantly from comfortable levels. Also, HVAC systems send important signals to workers – when they are allowed to continue to operate in ranges that are unpleasant for workers, how important can those employees actually be to the organization?
A number of factors contribute to thermal conditions experienced, from the design of an HVAC system to window placements to how any blinds in place are controlled. Even the color of the walls influences our perception of temperatures in a space; with warm colored surfaces we think a space is slightly warmer than it actually is and the reverse is true when walls are painted cool colors.
Happily, for all of us who live in spaces with heated and cooled air, the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California Berkeley, makes available free of charge the CBE Thermal Comfort Tool (https://cbe.berkeley.edu/research/thermal-comfort-tool/). At the website, the CBE team details why their tool is useful: it incorporates “a number of features that are important for practitioners: (a) ability to compare two or three thermal comfort scenarios (compare tool); (b) ability to plot how the comfort area changes in the psychrometric chart when clothing [being worn], metabolic activity [what people are doing in the space], air velocity or mean radiant temperature are varied within a given range.” Video recordings available provide tips on using the Thermal Comfort Tool.
Temperature has a significant effect on what goes on in our heads as well as our sweat glands. Setting and maintaining optimal temperatures can not only help people work to their full potential, but also dramatically reduce complaints received by people who manage and design buildings.
Sally Augustin, PhD, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com). Research Design Connections reports on research conducted by social and physical scientists that designers can apply in practice. Insights derived from recent studies are integrated with classic, still relevant findings in concise, powerful articles. Topics covered range from the cognitive, emotional, and physiological implications of sensory and other physical experiences to the alignment of culture, personality, and design, among others. Information, in everyday language, is shared in a monthly subscription newsletter, an archive of thousands of published articles, and a free daily blog. 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.