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Candido, Chakraborty, and Tjondronegoro investigated how office design influences user perceptions of their performance, health, and comfort.  The researchers found via a post-occupancy evaluation program (nearly 9,000 completed surveys) of offices in Australia that “For open-plan offices, the best-performing features for predicting perceived productivity were . . . amount of interruption, work area aesthetics, degree of adaptation of the work area, furnishing, overall amount of noise, cleanliness, and personal control over lighting. Furnishing, work area connection to outdoors, building aesthetics, sound privacy, and degree of adaptation of the work area were the critical predictors of health. As for the overall comfort of the work area, . . . key predictors [were] work area aesthetics, degree of adaptation of the work area, furnishing, overall air quality, cleanliness, and amount of interruption. . . . [in]high-performance. . . . offices . . . Pods of all sizes were . . . prominent . . . and had walls with textured elements and/or plants, promoting visual integration but some privacy at the same time. . . . layouts privileged workers’ access to daylight and views.”

Christhina Candido, Prithwi Chakraborty, and Dian Tjondronegoro.  2019.  “The Rise of Office Design in High-Performance, Open-Plan Environments.” Buildings, vol. 9, no. 4, 100, https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings9040100

Gharaveis, Hamilton, Shepley, Pati, and Rodiek studied how Emergency Department design influences teamwork, communication, and security;  their findings are applicable in both healthcare and other contexts.  The Gharaveis-lead team reports that “By providing high accessibility and visibility, the security issues can be minimized and teamwork and communication can be enhanced. . . . Transparency in the core of the ED would improve levels of teamwork and communication. . . .  design should provide visual and acoustical privacy when needed by flexibility in design. . . . Observation and supervision are important strategies to promote security. Psychiatric patients should have high visibility from/to staff. . . . EDs with efficient layouts (in terms of visibility, flexibility and accessibility), appropriate size of different locations, private spaces and lower levels of background noise provide opportunities to have higher values of teamwork and communication. The data of this study also suggest that ED security would be enhanced through unit configuration to provide visibility, connectivity to all locations, entrance observation, specific locations for psychiatric patients and security personnel close accommodation.”

Arsalan Gharaveis, D. Hamilton, Mardelle Shepley, Debajyoti Pati, and Susan Rodiek.  “Design Suggestions for Greater Teamwork, Communication and Security in Hospital Emergency Departments.”  Indoor and Built Environment, in press, https://doi.org/10.1177/1420326X19836209

Karp and colleagues studied the design of primary care clinics.  They probed, via multiple research tools, how “two different primary care clinic physical layouts (onstage/offstage and pod-based [PB] designs) influenced pre- and post visit team experiences and perceptions.Protocols encourage healthcare team communication before and after primary care visits to support better patient care. . . .In the onstage/offstage design, colocated teams had increased verbal communication but perceived being isolated from other clinic teams. In contrast, teams in PB clinics communicated with other clinic teams but had more informal patient contact within care-team stations that imposed privacy risk.”

Zaher Karp, Sandra Kamnetz, Natalie Wietfeldt, Christine Sinsky, Todd Molfenter, and Nancy Pandhi. “Influence of Environmental Design on Team Interactions Across Three Family Medicine Clinics:  Perceptions of Communication, Efficiency, and Privacy.” HERD:  Health Environments Research and Design Journal, in press, https://doi.org/10.1177/1937586719834729

Mostafa has written a classic article on how design can support the wellbeing of people on the autism spectrum; it is available without charge at the web address noted below. Mostafa’s text focuses on the post-occupancy evaluation of a pre-K-8^thgrade school, but the insights shared are applicable in a much wider range of space types.  Mostafa recommends, for example that “provisions should be made for different levels of acoustical control in various rooms, so students can ‘graduate’ from one level of acoustical control to the next, slowly moving towards a typical environment. . . . Spaces should flow . . . through one-way circulation whenever possible. . . . .the presence of transition zones helps the user recalibrate their senses. . . . Such zones can take on a variety of forms and may be anything from a distinct node that indicates a shift in circulation to a full sensory room that allows the user to re-calibrate their sensory stimulation level. . . . Specifying robust materials, safety fittings to protect from hot water, detailing fixtures to avoid small removable parts or hanging strings and an avoidance of sharp edges and corners are examples of some of the considerations that may reduce [safety] risks.”

Magda Mostafa. 2018.  “Designing for Autism:  An ASPECTSS ™ Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Learning Environments.”  International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 308-326, http://www.archnet-ijar.net/index.php/IJAR/article/view/1589