Association between perceived indoor environmental characteristics and occupants' mental well-being, cognitive performance, productivity, satisfaction in workplaces

What the study found

Indoor climate, space/furniture/privacy and naturalness had the strongest evidence links to wellbeing, productivity and satisfaction; cognitive-performance evidence was less consistent.

Limitations

Perceived environmental characteristics can be outcomes as well as exposures; few randomized studies.

Neurodesign interpretation

What people perceive is not noise around the 'real' physical data. Perception can be the pathway through which the space changes stress, control and behavior.

Possible design implications

Separate objective measurements from perceived control, privacy and naturalness in post-occupancy studies.

Why it stays in the corpus

Retain as the current perceived-workplace-environment review.

Study design

Systematic review; 14,173 articles screened

Population

Office workers across 55 studies

Setting

Workplaces

Field

Workplace, IEQ

Mechanism

Perception, wellbeing, cognitive and work outcomes

Spatial variable

Indoor climate, space, furniture, privacy, naturalness

Keywords

workplace, privacy, naturalness, IEQ, wellbeing