Frontiers in Built Environment (May 2020)
Impact of Office Modernization on Environmental Satisfaction: A Naturalistic Field Study
Abstract
A case study was undertaken on one floor of a multi-floor office building in Seattle, WA. Its aim was to offer a straight-forward example for facilities managers, administrators, and researchers alike wishing to perform systematic, naturalistic, mixed-methods research in office spaces that have recently been retrofitted. Changes were made to the floor’s layout, and to the size of employees’ workspaces. New sound-making technology and a modern lighting framework were added. Objective measurements of lighting, acoustics, and indoor air quality were taken and an online questionnaire was distributed to staff to afford subjective measurements of their perceptions about the previous and new open-plan settings. Items concerning satisfaction with workspace layout, size, lighting, acoustics, air quality, and level of input into the retrofit process were asked. After the new space had been used for 1.5 months, occupants reported being more satisfied, in general, than they recalled being in the original setting. The size of personal workspaces and a sense of privacy were especially important to employees. Despite overhead lighting illuminance levels being below recommended industry standards, occupants were not dissatisfied with light levels. The sound masking system was iteratively commissioned based on negative occupant feedback, resulting in purposely setting some areas to exceed or fall short of acoustical performance guidelines; indoor air quality remained unchanged. Differences in quantitative and qualitative findings highlight the importance of gathering self-reported information from occupants in several ways and exploring them carefully to better understand why environmental satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) exists. Employees’ sense of environmental control remained a prominent theme in the data, supporting existing studies in the field of environmental psychology. While perceptions of control did not improve after the retrofit, occupants’ responses about the level of input they had into the retrofit process correlated significantly and positively with their perceptions of environmental satisfaction after its completion. The nuanced findings from this case study’s customized approach to measuring objective environmental stimuli, along with occupants’ environmental perceptions, add to a growing body of literature merging social scientific methodologies with technical environmental assessments for practical use by decision-makers working to satisfy employee preferences.
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