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Wood and human stress in the built indoor environment: a review
Abstract
Individuals spend most of their time indoors, and therefore indoor environments are important aspects of one’s life. Creating healthful indoor environments should be a priority for building designers, and evidence-based design decisions should be used to ensure the built environment provides healthful benefits to occupants. This review was conducted to examine the body of research studying wood use and human stress to determine the potential fit for wood in the restorative environmental design paradigm. Previous studies on psychophysiological responses to wood are reviewed, as are current methods for assessing stress in experimental settings. To date, studies examining the psychophysiological effects of wood use in interiors have revealed reduced autonomic stress responses when compared to rooms without and with less wood. Therefore, by increasing wood use in design paradigms seeking to bring the positive health benefits of nature into the built environment, like restorative environmental design, building designers may improve the well-being of building occupants. This review reveals further studies are needed to better understand the psychophysiological responses to wood, and suggests specific aspects of wood such as colour, quantity, and grain pattern should be examined and how stress and stress recovery should be analysed.
... Moreover, the affective response to wood appears to be measurable, giving indications of physiologically beneficial effects. Some studies have found that participants in environments with visual wood surfaces tend to show lower sympathetic nervous system activation, fear responses, and chronic stress (e.g., [21,[25][26][27]. Furthermore, several scholars have found that exposure to wood in indoor environments can be associated with reduced stress and increased levels of well-being in subjects from different countries and scenarios, such as office environments, schools, and hospitals (e.g., [3,20,24,25]). ...
... Some studies have found that participants in environments with visual wood surfaces tend to show lower sympathetic nervous system activation, fear responses, and chronic stress (e.g., [21,[25][26][27]. Furthermore, several scholars have found that exposure to wood in indoor environments can be associated with reduced stress and increased levels of well-being in subjects from different countries and scenarios, such as office environments, schools, and hospitals (e.g., [3,20,24,25]). However, most existing studies to date have been limited by cross-sectional designs, small (non-representative) samples, single indicators, self-reported data, and non-peer-reviewed publications. ...
... In addition, affective responses toward wood appear to be measurable, providing indications of beneficial psychological effects. Furthermore, several studies have found that environments with visual wood surfaces tend to lead to lower activation of the sympathetic nervous system, reduced fear responses, and decreased chronic stress among participants (e.g., [21,25,27]). Scholars have also observed that exposure to wood in indoor environments is associated with reduced stress and increased levels of wellbeing in various settings, including office environments, schools, and hospitals, across different countries (e.g., [3,20,25,40]). ...
Mass timber construction has recently gained popularity due to its outstanding environmental benefits and building performance, which hold revolutionary potential for the construction industry. However, its impacts from the perspective of occupants have not been thoroughly explored. This study introduces an innovative empirical approach that explores the potential benefits of mass timber construction for individuals and organizations, with an emphasis on the workplace. We review the conceptual framework regarding how visual and physical exposure to timber construction materials and finishes have a positive effect on individuals and organizations at a broad level. We propose a more holistic mixed-method behavioral approach to studying occupant behavior and well-being by integrating self-reported questionnaires, objective biomarkers (heart rate variability and hair cortisol), and indoor environmental quality (IEQ) measures. Our study offers a novel research primer on the exploration of mass timber construction impacts and benefits for both office workers and construction workers. Participants from different office settings completed pre- and post-occupancy evaluation surveys to assess their experiences, including IEQ satisfaction, productivity, and health. Office workers were located in three different offices: a controlled laboratory environment, an open-plan office, and an open-plan space with a timber interior. The construction workers worked in a timber space for three months and then moved to work in a building with a concrete structure. The analysis included descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, and linear regression to compare differences between office settings and assess the relationship between environmental variables and overall satisfaction in IEQ, comfort, productivity, and health. In office workers, in terms of building image, thermal comfort, and artificial lighting, the data analysis revealed significant differences in occupants’ satisfaction levels between office settings. However, the low number of participants affected the results, and some factors were not found significant in relation to the office setting. Among tradespeople, there was no relationship between the building environment and productivity, health, or comfort. However, the results of hair cortisol testing indicated that working in a timber space can decrease the level of cortisol (stress) and have an impact on the productivity of workers. Such occupant’s perspective research is pivotal to informing policy makers, developers, business owners, construction professionals, timber industry stakeholders, environmentalists, and researchers in their decision-making processes. Fostering the future widespread adoption and advancement of mass timber construction.
... Along with the increased awareness of sustainable building design, an emphasis has also been placed on the relationship between occupants' health and building materials [10]. Wood, as a building material, has good eco-friendly properties [11,12]. In terms of environmental friendliness, wood has a high carbon sequestration capacity, as 1 m 3 of engineered wood can sequester 1 tonne of CO 2 [13]. ...
... In addition, the diffuse reflection formed by the rough surface of the wood reduces eye fatigue and damage [16]. Wood construction conforms to the current development direction and can make architecture a key link in the relationship between people and nature [3,11]. ...
... Wood is an ideal natural product for biophilic design [11,22]. First, wood has diverse types and exhibits strong plasticity. ...
... Building upon the literature review, we have identified several practical restorative environment topics suitable for small residential units, addressing existing knowledge gaps. These topics encompass: (1) the direct use of nature and indoor vegetation, known for their restorative effects (Yin et al., 2020;Pérez-Urrestarazu et al., 2021;Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989); (2) nature-inspired or analogous elements, including natural materials like wood and stone (Demattè et al., 2018;Burnard & Kutnar, 2015), as well as forms inspired by nature (Browning et al., 2014;Kellert, 2008); and (3) preferred designs, which can influence restorative preferences (Purcell et al., 2001). These topics were analyzed, categorized by their characteristics, and further incorporated into forms and styles ( Figure 1). ...
... The Rustic style embraces exposed natural materials and textures like wood and stone in their original state (Demattè et al., 2018;Burnard & Kutnar, 2015). It features rough textures and darker natural tones, presenting an alternative portrayal of nature using raw materials and rustic elements (Browning et al., 2014;Kellert, 2008). ...
The shift in lifestyle due to urbanization and the recent pandemic has increased demand for small residential units suitable for remote work and longer stays. Restorative environments have gained importance within these spaces as they impact productivity, reduce fatigue, and alleviate stress. This study aims to identify effective restorative environments for small residential units, deepening our current understanding about contributions of interior design to personal well-being. Six virtual models combining Rectilinear and Curvilinear forms with Minimal, Natural, and Rustic styles were created. A total of 89 participants with lockdown or remote work experience evaluated these environments using VR devices and a PRS questionnaire. Results showed higher ratings for all virtual restorative environments compared to the non-restorative control design. The Rectilinear form with Minimal style and Curvilinear form with Natural style received the highest ratings. Surprisingly, nature analogues using curves and natural materials did not produce expected outcomes, highlighting the importance of integrating natural elements, considering individual preferences, and ensuring environmental coherence for enhanced restorative attributes. Creating an effective restorative environment extends beyond incorporating nature-based elements. These findings offer insights for designing residential spaces that boost well-being and productivity, especially in the context of remote work and extended stays in compact residential units.
... Considering the impact on the environment, the goal is to utilize raw wood materials more efficiently, and new wood-based materials are continuously developed and introduced to the market [4,5]. Attitudes about the influence of wood on the behavior and health of users are also being examined more intensively [6,7], as well as the possibilities of how wood in interiors can improve people's well-being, comfort, and energy efficiency [8,9]. ...
... Although there are a lot of works that have recently dealt with researching the impact of wood on the feelings and well-being of respondents [6][7][8][9][10][11][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32], there are not many works that investigate whether waste veneer from the factory is desirable for further use and design of wall coverings that customers will evaluate as visually desirable for certain activities or functional interiors. ...
Guided by the principles of visual perception and basic design, this research was conducted to examine users’ preferences on how they perceive natural unique wood phenomena of Pedunculate Slavonian Oak veneers (Quercus robur L.) such as color changes, wood rays, sapwood, and knots, which in the production and technical sense represent defects and wood residue, but could be used in the design of sustainable and ecological wall decorations. The goal was to detect samples with the most positive attributes and to observe their connection with activities and functional space if they are viewed as wall coverings in the interior. The results confirm that discoloration and wood rays are considered the most harmonious (“prettiest”) decors. Discoloration is associated with quiet cognitive or medium-intensity activity that can be used in libraries, hotel rooms, and classrooms. Wood rays are connected with very quiet activity in ambulance waiting rooms or religious buildings and museums. Knot decors are considered the most natural and are recommended for interiors with very or medium-intensive activities such as restaurants, cafes, and hotel receptions, but attention should be paid to the way the wall decors are arranged on the walls. Sapwood–hardwood decors are the subject of further research and improvement concerning the relationship between the dark and light parts of the veneer. In conclusion, the results provide useful guidelines for manufacturers with a large veneer residue in production and who want to design decorative wall panels, as well as for designers and architects designing interiors for a specific purpose and function where certain user behavior and psychological stimulation are desired.
... Moreover, it has been shown to have an impact on physiological parameters such as improve heart rate, blood pressure, nervous system activity and even emotions in patients waiting in a wooden waiting room. Wood can also improve the acoustic properties of a room and regulate humidity levels 3,4 . Despite its advantages, in healthcare buildings, wood is still considered "unhygienic" and "difficult to clean" due to its anatomical properties (porosity and organic composition) 5 . ...
... Furthermore, several studies show that the use of natural materials such as wood in the direct environment of the patient allows an improvement in his well-being. It can play a role in the length of his hospital stay 3,4,34 . Further studies are needed to understand the differences in antibacterial activity between wooden species. ...
In today’s age of ecological transition, the use of materials such as renewable wood in construction is particularly relevant, but also a challenge in the healthcare sector where the hygiene dimension also comes into play. In this study we have investigated the survival of multi-resistant bacteria commonly responsible for healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) (ESBL-positive Klebsiella pneumoniae and glycopeptide-resistant Enterococcus faecalis) on two different types of wood (Douglas fir : Pseudotsuga menziesii and Maritime Pine : Pinus pinaster) compared to other materials (smooth: stainless steel and rough: pumice stone) and the effect of a disinfection protocol on the bacterial survival on Pseudotsuga menziesii. Approximately 10⁸ bacteria were inoculated on each material and bacterial survival was observed over several days (D0, D1, D2, D3, D6, D7 and D15). Each analysis was performed in triplicate for each time and material. The results show an important reduction of the bacterial inoculum for Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterococcus faecalis on Douglas fir, in contrast with the results obtained on maritime pine, stainless steel and pumice stone. No bacterial survival was detected on Douglas fir after application of a hospital disinfection protocol. These different results show that wood may have a place in the future of healthcare construction. Further studies would be interesting to better understand the different properties of wood.
... The interior surface material of polyvinyl chloride plastics was also found to be related to bronchial obstruction in young children in homes [19]. In addition to the physical health risks, wood material may convey positive psychological impacts (e.g., bright, pleasant, and warm) on occupants' mental status [20] and has shown stress-reducing potential in interior design [21]. Unlike the positive effects of wood, white steel showed the negative impacts of material on psychological status. ...
... Furthermore, a study confirmed that different gender, background, and culture could lead to disparate wood design and preferences; hence, wood material use may be driven by multi-criteria [60]. In summary, a review of interior wood material mentioned that the details of wood types and attributes expected to benefit from restorative effects are still in question [21]. More restorative environmental tests with strong wooden material designs and specific criteria are needed to discuss this gap. ...
The effects of a restorative environment on attention restoration and stress reduction have received much attention in societies, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interior materials are a crucial environmental element influencing people’s perceived restorativeness at home. Nevertheless, few studies have examined the links between interior materials and the restorativeness of home environments. To address this gap, this study aimed to investigate the restorative potential of interior materials among a sample of adults in China. Cross-sectional data from 85 participants whose professional majors were related to interior design were selected. The measures of the restorative potential of each interior material were obtained by a questionnaire adapted from the semantic differential method. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the restorative potential of interior materials. We found that glass material had the best restorative potential in home environments. Doubts were raised regarding wood material’s restorativeness, and more consideration should be granted for designing a restorative home with wood material. In contrast, metal is not recommended for restorative home design. These findings contribute to the evidence of the restorative effects of home design.
... Wood can complement other elements of nature used indoors by bringing naturalness to structural and functional elements of the building, such as furniture, flooring, stairs, and handrails. Many studies suggest that contact with wood could impact building occupants positively: people perceive wood as natural [8], tend to prefer wood over other common materials [9] and, after being exposed to wood, may experience less stress and perform better on tests of cognitive functioning [10][11][12][13][14]. Applying wood indoors could be particularly promising for office workers, who spend much of their time in contact with desks. ...
... The selection of wooden materials tested in this study was based on existing studies investigating human preferences for and responses to wooden materials and settings. We identified 17 relevant articles [13,16,[19][20][21][22][24][25][26][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] and extracted a list of 22 unique wood species that had been reported. Our goal was to present each unique wood species as one untreated wooden material, regardless of whether the original study had tested the wooden material that had been untreated, treated, or both. ...
Visually pleasing materials and furnishings may be an important component of pleasant, restorative indoor spaces, where people can rest, relax, and recover from stress. We conducted two studies to examine human preferences for different wooden desk materials and designs. In Study 1, 77 participants evaluated the visual appearance of 20 wooden materials and 18 desk designs, in which desk elements and their arrangements were systematically varied. The three highest rated wooden materials and desk designs from Study 1 were combined in 18 new desks evaluated by 80 participants in terms of visual appearance in Study 2, where we systematically varied the type of material, amount of material, and desk design. The results show that preference for different materials and desks varies greatly from person to person, but several evaluated items are on average preferred to others. Study 1 shows that certain materials, desk elements, and the arrangements of those elements received higher preference ratings than others. Study 2 indicates that the type of material, amount of material, and desk design all play a significant role in human preference for the visual appearance of desks. Researchers and designers can build on these findings to create aesthetically appealing indoor environments that have the potential to positively impact human wellbeing.
... According to one study, the sense of seeing or touching wood modifies the human physiological index (Ikei et al., 2017). Furthermore, it was found that wood installed indoors lowered stress (Burnard and Kutnar, 2015), enhanced sleep quality, and made individuals feel more comfortable (Morita et al., 2020). In Korea, researchers investigated effects of essential oils extracted from wood against inflammations (Yang et al., 2019), bacteria (Ham et al., 2020), and skin and lung diseases (Ahn et al., 2018(Ahn et al., , 2021. ...
... In studies on the effect of wood used in the interior of buildings, the autonomic stress response was reduced when wood was used (Burnard and Kutnar, 2015), and it was beneficial to the autonomic nervous system and respiratory system (Zhang et al., 2017). As a result of conducting a survey after living in an indoor space where wood was installed, the higher the amount of wood used, the higher the score for subjective comfort was (Tsunetsugu et al., 2007), and the decrease in insomnia improved the quality of sleep and induced comfort (Morita et al., 2020). ...
... The effectiveness of wood on people's psychological health has also been investigated by Burnard et al. [242] and Dematte et al. [221]. Surprisingly, many researchers confirm that wood surfaces, compared with other CCSs, more effectively confine microbial growth and minimise microbial transmission [243][244][245][246][247]. The study regarding the effects of exposed surfaces on hospital patients performed by Munir et al. [247] proved that using wood in such applications reduces the requirements for chemicals and antimicrobic agents for daily cleaning. ...
... Hence, similar to the findings of Pretty et al. [224] and Makram [288], which show that involving nature in people's lives will increase their health status, the current research observed that wood, as a piece of nature, has positive effects on the health of building users. In this regard, Han [225], Burnard et al. [242], and Dematte et al. [221] also demonstrate comparable results. The latter is also similar to Green's [270] statement regarding the effect that timber in his office has on his clients' emotions; in the same way, Nyrud et al.'s [289] and Bysheim et al.'s [254] findings show that wood interiors have positive effects on the recovery of patients. ...
The health of humans and the planet are the most vital contemporary issues and essential components of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Scientists and professionals strive for integrated, evolving, healthy, and sustainable solutions encompassing biodiversity and industrial ecology, while offering viable economic attainments. The building industry, especially construction, is an extensive economic counterpart that largely influences health on various levels. On a practical scale, most direct or indirect impacts on health are related to conventional construction systems (CCSs), particularly their materialisations and implementation methods. Therefore, from a global perspective, emerging technologies or remodelled methods to accomplish sustainable use, reuse, and recycling, and improving the planet’s health to ensure the wellbeing of its inhabitants, are crucial. The current research is part of a broader study on “programmable construction systems” (PCSs), concentrating on “programmable construction materials” (PCMs) for health. Therefore, issues are reviewed, relevancies are addressed, and health-oriented concepts are discussed. Example concepts of formulation and the simplified toolkit creations follow the problems’ sources in a case study, providing insight into the resulting multiscale impacts on real-life practices. The results prove the method’s potential and validate its simplicity and applicability through an abstract examination of a newly built case study. Finally, the summarised outcomes of other extensive studies on societal preferences also confirm the feasibility of the hypothesis (i.e., the healthy materialisation) also from a social perspective.
... The transitions of materials, the intersecting points, the relationships of emptiness and fullness, and the colour attributes can create different influences on users. Studies conducted in this area (Burnard and Kutnar, 2015;Fujisaki et al., 2015;Garip and Seymen, 2021;Ikei and Miyazaki, 2020;Kır, 2015;Poirier et al., 2019;Shen et al., 2021;Watchman et al., 2017) reported that many attributes of the type of materials used in interior spaces, such as colour, texture, relationship with environment and light, affect spatial perception. The careful and correct selection of each building material in interior design is particularly important for obtaining the expected features from the surfaces formed in the space. ...
... Architectural studies until the 1980s only dwelled upon the physical attributes of the space, such as colour, light, texture, form and material. Many studies (Aydıntan, 2001;Burnard and Kutnar, 2015;Fujisaki et al., 2015;Garip and Seymen, 2021;Hidayetoglu et al., 2012;Ikei and Miyazaki, 2020;Poirier et al., 2019;Shen et al., 2021;Torres et al., 2020;Watchman et al., 2017;Yildirim et al., 2015Yildirim et al., , 2019b stated that the differences among individual characteristics, such as age, gender, occupation and the characteristics of spaces, such as size, material, colour and furniture density can have significant effects on users' perceptual evaluations. ...
Purpose
This study aims to determine the effects of three different carrier system materials (laminated wooden beams, post-tensioned concrete beams and steel beams) used widely in interior spaces on the perceptual evaluations of respondents.
Design/methodology/approach
The large opening Olympic swimming pool space was chosen as the research environment. A total of 376 university graduates participated. After experiencing the 360-degree virtual images of the experimental spaces, a “spatial perception” questionnaire was applied to these respondents.
Findings
The spaces using the laminated wood beams in the carrier system were perceived as warmer, lighter, more attractive, more spacious, more informal, closer, more well-planned, freer, simpler, more peaceful, more exciting, and uncrowded compared to the spaces that used post-tensioned concrete beams and steel beams. The architect respondents made more negative perceptual evaluations for all the adjective pairs compared to the respondents in the other professional groups. Respondents who were males, and in the 26–35 years of age group, perceived more positively the physical environmental factors of the virtual swimming pools compared to females, and the 36 years of age or above age group.
Originality/value
The results set forth that the structural elements of buildings, such as ceilings, walls and furnishings, were not only systematic elements used in the formation of the structure, they were also important environmental factors in the perceptual evaluation of the space.
... Spaces can be limited with the use of materials, the transitions of materials, the intersection points, the relations of blank space and fullness and with the colour attributes, it can form different effects on users. In similar studies made on this subject (Fujisaki et al., 2015;Burnard and Kutnar, 2015;Watchman et al., 2017;Ulusoy and Olguntürk, 2018;Garip and Seymen, 2021;Poirier et al., 2019;Shen et al., 2021;Ikei and Miyazaki, 2020), it was reported that materials used in inner spaces affect the spatial perception of many attributes, such as type, colour, the texture of materials and the relationship of environment and light. Visual perception studies are reasonably substantial to understand an environment, which has different features (Ögçe et al., 2020). ...
... In the study by Poirier et al. (2019), it was stated, "persons are adapted more to what is natural rather than artificial environments". A great variety of spatial perception studies have been conducted, which treated the different aspects of wood on the use of wood in interior spaces (Fujisaki et al., 2015;Burnard and Kutnar, 2015;Watchman et al., 2017;Ulusoy and Olguntürk, 2018;Poirier et al., 2019;Shen et al., 2021;Ikei and Miyazaki, 2020). On the other hand, in the twentieth century, the use of concrete materials became widespread and in the present-day covering materials having the appearance of gross concrete have started to be produced because of receiving interest in the use of gross concrete in interior spaces. ...
Purpose
This study aims to determine the effects of wall covering materials (wood, concrete and metal) used indoors on participants’ perceptual evaluations. The differences among participants’ perceptual evaluations regarding indoor physical environmental factors by occupation and gender were examined.
Design/methodology/approach
Cafes were selected as research environments. Virtual experimental spaces using three different wall covering materials were modelled and participants’ assessment of the physical environmental factors of these virtual spaces was measured through a detailed questionnaire.
Findings
Cafes using light-coloured wall covering materials were perceived more favourably than cafes using dark-coloured wall covering materials, and cafes with light-coloured wooden wall coverings were considered as a warmer material than cafes using concrete and metal. Participants who received design education (architect, interior architect) perceived physical environmental factors of cafes more negatively than those who did not receive design education (lawyer, economist, accountant, etc.). Male participants evaluated the physical environmental factors of cafes more positively than female participants for all adjective pairs. Except for two adjective pairs, no significant difference was found among the evaluations according to genders for the other adjective pairs.
Originality/value
This study revealed new results about customers’ choices of wall covering materials and offered designers new alternatives for materials that can be used in the design of cafes.
... In addition to studies that showed that a difference in the wood ratio on the walls of an interior space led to different physiological responses. Due to wood's usefulness as well as its numerous physiological and psychological advantages, wood is one of the most used materials for bringing nature indoors (Burnard & Kutnar, 2015;Tsunetsugu et al., 2007). Consequently, designers bring and simulate natural materials, texture, and color, by adopting materials like wood, leather, stone, clay, fossil textures, etc., in their designs, and using natural colors such as blue, green, and other earth colors. ...
Biophilic design (BD) is defined as a design approach that promotes human-nature connectedness (HNC) in the built environment (BE), resulting in a significant impact on human health, well-being, and productivity, in addition to several economic, social, and environmental benefits. This study presents a critical analysis of the most important proposed frameworks and strategies for the application of BD from 2008 to 2022 to identify points of confusion and weaknesses and try to avoid them. The study concluded by presenting a Four-Component Framework as a new architectural translation that seeks to facilitate the application of BD in the design of the BE to achieve the benefits of HNC. The proposed framework focuses on separating the elements of nature from the methods in which these elements are used, from the desired experiences from the BD's intended goals. As a result of this separation, architects and designers may find that by applying this framework, the application of BD becomes easier, more tangible, and unambiguous.
... When evaluating people's physiological responses provoked by the visual properties of wood-based materials, commonly used indicators include brain activity, autonomic nervous activity, endocrine activity and immune system activity, as shown in Table 1 (Burnard and Kutnar 2015). ...
The use of decorative wood veneers in contemporary design is increasingly emphasized as society becomes more aware of quality of life and environmental protection. This article explores in detail four key aspects of decorative wood veneers as a contemporary design medium: visual perceptual elements, multisensory interaction, sustainability and environmental impact, and technology and innovation. Through its unique aesthetic attributes and multisensory experience, decorative wood veneers enhance the aesthetics and user experience of interior design, respond to the global trend of sustainability, and promote innovation and environmental responsibility in the design industry through the use of environmentally friendly materials and advanced technologies. This article aims to provide insights for designers, researchers and related industries to stimulate further exploration of the application of decorative wood veneers in design innovation.
... Furthermore, wood-based sandwich panels have natural aesthetic appeal and ecologically friendly characteristics. They help create environments that improve the well-being of residents and also make a connection with the natural environment [24]. It is a fact that studies have, during recent years and after the COVID-19 pandemic, found a positive correlation between the presence of wood in the built environment and its benefits for mental health [25][26][27][28]. ...
Wood sandwich panels are widely utilized in residential, commercial, and industrial settings due to their excellent thermal insulation characteristics, ease of installation, and high strength-to-weight ratio. This review provides an overview on experimental outcomes demonstrating the structural integrity and versatility of wood sandwich panels. It highlights recent advancements in meeting payload requirements and their effectiveness in reducing costs and weights for prefabricated houses. The review focuses on structural applications and material efficiency, showcasing their roles in lightweight, durable constructions for retrofitting and new projects. The potential of novel, sustainable materials in construction is explored, addressing current challenges and emphasizing the diverse applications and environmental benefits of wood-based sandwich panels, underscoring their importance in advancing energy-efficient and sustainable construction.
... A wooden interior can have a positive effect on people's psychophysical state and cognitive abilities, as well as their sense of comfort and well-being indoors [1]. Studies have shown that the inclusion of wood elements in interior design may improve both satisfaction and the cognitive performance of office workers [2,3]. Similar to office workers in offices, students also spend considerable time in schools. ...
Studies indicate that natural wooden materials positively affect students’ well-being in classrooms. In addition, students spend a considerable amount of their time in classrooms predominantly seated, making school interiors a suitable place to reduce sedentary behaviors of children. A mixed team of experts in human factors, architecture, design and engineering designed a prototype wooden standing desk for indoor use and formed focus groups with students and teachers to gather feedback on the development process and to evaluate the suitability of the prototype. The prototype desk was well received by the primary school teachers and students. The students appreciated plywood as the main material for the construction of the desk; however, they criticized that the wooden tabletop should be more resistant. The height adjustability of the desk and the tiltable tabletop were the most appreciated features of the prototype. Further studies should be conducted to investigate the optimal material, shape and color of the school desk, especially the tabletop, and additional efforts should be made to design furniture that promotes a less sedentary classroom and improves students’ well-being at school.
... Para hacerle frente a las problemáticas socioambientales causadas por algunos entornos urbanos, se ha propuesto un marco de intervención interdisciplinario en donde la psicología ambiental, la arquitectura y la planeación urbana involucren el diseño, construcción e implementación de áreas verdes en diversos escenarios urbanos (Burnard y Kutnar, 2015;Mohamed, 2017), así como la investigación sobre la capacidad restauradora que tienen los edificios urbanos con valor histórico y características arquitectónicas sobresalientes (Coburn et al., 2019;Herzog et al., 2011;Ouellette et al., 2005;Subiza et al., 2021). Se ha documentado ampliamente sobre los beneficios que tienen las áreas verdes urbanas en los individuos, entre los que se incluyen una mejora en la salud mental (Marselle et al., 2020), reducción en la mortalidad por problemas cardiovasculares (Gascon et al., 2016), disminución de niveles de estrés (Huang et al., 2020), incremento en la actividad física y una mitigación en la exposición a estresores ambientales como el ruido, aire contaminado y calor (World Health Organization, 2016). ...
The present research identified the restorative potential and qualities (fascination, being away, compatibility, coherence, and scope) of thirteen settings in Guanajuato city, Mexico, divided into three categories (worship temples, historic sites, and squares and alleys). Trough accidental non-probabilistic sampling, 69 people participated responding on-site to a mobile-adapted version of the Environmental PerceivedRestorative Scale to identify the restorative potential and the restorative qualities of each setting. It was found that the worship temples were evaluated as more restorative than the historical places and the squares and alleys, being the second most restorative than the squares and alleys. The qualities of fascination and reach were the ones with the greatest impact in worship temples and historical places, while coherence and compatibility were in the squares and alleys. Limitations included the lack of uniformity in participants’ gender and the small sample size. The study’s relevance to restorative qualities in built environments and their psychoenvironmental benefits is discussed.
... Para hacerle frente a las problemáticas socioambientales causadas por algunos entornos urbanos, se ha propuesto un marco de intervención interdisciplinario en donde la psicología ambiental, la arquitectura y la planeación urbana involucren el diseño, construcción e implementación de áreas verdes en diversos escenarios urbanos (Burnard y Kutnar, 2015;Mohamed, 2017), así como la investigación sobre la capacidad restauradora que tienen los edificios urbanos con valor histórico y características arquitectónicas sobresalientes (Coburn et al., 2019;Herzog et al., 2011;Ouellette et al., 2005;Subiza et al., 2021). Se ha documentado ampliamente sobre los beneficios que tienen las áreas verdes urbanas en los individuos, entre los que se incluyen una mejora en la salud mental (Marselle et al., 2020), reducción en la mortalidad por problemas cardiovasculares (Gascon et al., 2016), disminución de niveles de estrés (Huang et al., 2020), incremento en la actividad física y una mitigación en la exposición a estresores ambientales como el ruido, aire contaminado y calor (World Health Organization, 2016). ...
En la presente investigación se identificó el potencial y cualidades restauradoras (fascinación, estar alejado, compatibilidad, coherencia y alcance) de trece escenarios de la ciudad de Guanajuato, México, divididos en tres categorías (templos de adoración, lugares históricos, y plazuelas y callejones). Mediante muestreo no probabilístico accidental participaron sesenta y nueve personas quienes respondieron in situ una versión adaptada a dispositivos móviles de la Escala de Percepción de Restauración Ambiental (EPRA-R) para identificar el potencial y cualidades restauradoras de cada escenario. Se encontró que los templos de adoración fueron evaluados como más restauradores que los lugares históricos y las plazuelas y callejones, respectivamente. Las cualidades fascinación y alcance fueron las de mayor impacto en templos de adoración y lugares históricos, mientras que coherencia y compatibilidad lo fueron en las plazuelas y callejones. Limitaciones incluyen la falta de uniformidad en el sexo de los participantes y el tamaño reducido de la muestra. Se discute la relevancia del estudio sobre cualidades restauradoras en ambientes construidos y sus beneficios psicoambientales.
... Brown et al. (Brown et al. 2013) showed that viewing pictures of natural scenes could improve the recovery process following a stressor. Although the benefits of digital natures scenes as compared to real natural scenes cannot be systematically observed (see (Kahn et al. 2008) for example), ambient AR systems could be used to project large natural scenes into the user's room and/or to alter the users' environment to make it look and sound more natural (e.g. by projecting wooden-like textures onto the user's desktop-wood is known for its restorative effects (Burnard and Kutnar 2015)-or by playing natural bird sounds in the background), once again building on the spatial and multimodal characteristics of AR. ...
This chapter explores how projection-based AR can be used in built environments to improve well-being of occupants. Stress, discomfort or sedentary behaviour are factors that have a negative impact on people’s well-being and efficiency. A number of ambient prototypes have been developed to help people address these issues. In parallel, gamification techniques have been successfully used in applications that aim to improve people’s health by encouraging them to change their behaviour. In this chapter, we first describe several ambient and augmented reality (AR) prototypes that aim to improve people’s well-being. Next, we discuss the idea of ambient projection-based AR providing situated interaction “in motion” in users’ environment, coupled with the concepts of playfulness, gamification, peripheral and calm technologies, in order to incite users’ behaviours towards improving well-being. We continue by describing a scenario and discussing technical considerations for its implementation. While different concepts encompassing the proposed idea have been explored individually, the whole idea presents an untapped potential that has yet to be explored.
... These mandates stipulate that HCHO levels should not exceed 0.08 parts per million (ppm), total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) should be maintained below 300 µg/m 3 , and particulate matter (PM 10 ) should be limited to 150 µg/m 3 . These measurements are obtained through continuous monitoring over 8 h before newly constructed houses are occupied [19]. Arar et al. (2022) surveyed between December 2021 and January 2022, targeting residents of townhouses in Dubai, and revealed a notable level of awareness regarding SBS [20]. ...
This preliminary study investigates the emission characteristics of formaldehyde (HCHO) and total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) in indoor environments, comparing the effects of eco-friendly materials and general materials. The study analyzes the concentration changes over time in the living rooms of experimental units to assess the effectiveness of eco-friendly materials in reducing indoor air pollutants. The results show that eco-friendly materials exhibit lower initial emissions of TVOC than general materials, gradually decreasing over time. Compared to the eco-friendly material unit, the general material unit takes longer to reach acceptable TVOC concentrations. The emission pattern of HCHO differs from TVOC, with the highest peak occurring on the seventh day. Major individual VOCs, except for benzene, exhibit a similar decreasing trend for TVOC over time. Eco-friendly materials demonstrate significant reductions in emissions compared to general materials in various material applications, including parquet flooring, wallpaper, built-in furniture, and kitchen furniture. However, the difference in emissions for door and window frames using eco-friendly materials is minimal. These findings emphasize the effectiveness of eco-friendly materials in reducing indoor air pollutants and provide valuable insights for creating healthier living environments. Further research is needed to optimize the application of eco-friendly materials in specific components and investigate their long-term impact on indoor air quality and occupant health.
... Furthermore, the incorporation of natural materials in interiors can benefit individuals. Wood, a commonly used interior material, can evoke bright and pleasant emotions, and convey warm feeling (Watchman et al., 2017) and has demonstrated potential roles in stress restoration (Burnard and Kutnar, 2015). ...
As society and the economy have advanced, the focus of architectural and interior environment design has shifted from practicality to eliciting emotional responses, such as stimulating environments and innovative inclusive designs. Of particular interest is the home environment, as it is best suited for achieving restorative effects, leading to a debate between interior qualities and restorative impact. This study explored the relationships between home characteristics, restorative potential, and neural activities using the Neu-VR. The results of the regression analysis revealed statistically significant relationships between interior properties and restorative potential. We examined each potential characteristic of the home environment that could have a restorative impact and elucidated the environmental characteristics that should be emphasized in residential interior design. These findings contribute evidence-based knowledge for designing therapeutic indoor environments. And combining different restorative potential environments with neural activity, discussed new neuro activities which may predict restorativeness, decoded the new indicators of neuro activity for environmental design.
... It has many impacts on us. It can provide health benefits and also, when we connect people to nature, it causes them to care about the environment (Burnard and Kutnar 2015). ...
... A space that fosters a strong connection to nature can serve as an effective setting for individuals to recuperate from stress [1]. The suitability of wood as a material for stress relief is being explored in various studies [2]. These studies focus on examining the comfort provided by spaces that utilize wood and the stress-reducing effects of the material. ...
... Natural wood has been inexpensive and abundant for thousands of years as a building material for the construction and production of furniture and furnishings [1,2]. There is increasing environmental concern and demand for forest products and smaller volumes of high-density/quality wood from forests. ...
Microstructure-free, strong, binderless, all-wooden nanocomposites (AWNCs) with unidirectional nanofibrils were directly fabricated from lightweight paulownia raw wood (RW) through simultaneous chemomechanical densification and downsizing processes with three main steps: (1) partial delignification, (2) partial dissolution with ionic liquid (IL) or oxidation with the free radical 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine 1-oxyl (TEMPO) and ammonium persulfate (APS) and (3) hot pressing with cyclic pressurizing-depressurizing conditions. The density of RW was 0.310 g/cm 3 , while the density of the AWNCs drastically increased to 1.24 g/cm 3. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) demonstrated that the microstructure of RW fibers was directly dismantled into wood nanofibrils during AWNC production. Two-dimensional wide angle X-ray diffraction (2D-WAXS) patterns confirmed the unidirectional structure of the AWNCs. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) successfully confirmed the effect of all chemical treatments on the specimens. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) demonstrated that AWNC-TEMPO and AWNC-APS had the lowest thermal stability. AWNC-TEMPO had the highest flexural (246 ± 15 MPa) and tensile (265 ± 17 MPa) strengths, while RW showed the minimum corresponding values of 38 ± 7 MPa and 18 ± 2.5 MPa, respectively.
... Furthermore, wood has also been indicated to provide a pleasant and healthy environment for building endusers (e.g. Burnard and Kutnar 2015;Conroy et al. 2019). ...
... These factors lead the user to immerse in a physical space of simulated reality. Brown and Cairns (2004) address immersion in virtual environments, while Burnard and Kutnar (2015), Engineer, Sternberg and Najafi (2018), Kerr (2013) and ...
The current speed of information may bring anxiety and stress symptoms to people’s lives. A space with multisensory elements where individuals feel immersed in welcome feelings may reduce these symptoms. Our objective is to list multisensory aspects for Surface Design to structure spatiality with immersive and relaxing attributes. We made a literature review to analyse the sensory elements that authors consider important and identified relevant multisensory aspects. We expect to contribute to projects that aim to promote well-being.
... It aimed to improve the mental health of employees by building the satisfying wooden office space through the reasonable use of wood in office furniture. However, in current furniture production, various wood-based composites are used to replace solid wood, such as plywood, particle board, MDF, etc. (Burnard and Kutnar, 2015). On this basis, the present study did not consider the wood species and number of knots in the wood environmental assessment. ...
In modern urban life, individuals are spending an increasing amount of time in the office. However, working in an uncomfortable office space for extended periods can affect the physical and mental health of employees. On this basis, it is particularly important for employees to build a comfortable and healthy office environment that is conducive to their work. The present study aimed to explore the use of wood in office furniture to build a comfortable and healthy work environment. The use of wood in office spaces can effectively relieve the mental fatigue of employees. Focusing on wooden office furniture, this study explores its influence on the aesthetic evaluation of wooden office spaces by manipulating the wood color and coverage of the wooden furniture placed in office spaces. Experimenting with these changes will optimize the application of wood in office spaces, improve employees’ mental health. The results show that wood color and coverage significantly impact the aesthetic evaluation of wooden office spaces. People exhibit higher aesthetic evaluations of light and medium wood-colored office spaces and prefer spaces with low wood coverage. The findings of this study provide a reference for the use of wooden furniture to optimize workplaces.
... The mechanism of fascination or involuntary attention [20,29], exercised by wood naturalness, would induce a relaxing effect in people, contributing to their physical and mental well-being [21] and to their attentional resources' recovery [25] after a break in a room where wood is the predominant material. In accordance with the obtained results and with the Burnard and Kutnar review [30], wood seems to be a suitable material for restorative environmental design (RED) that combines sustainable and biophilic design [31]. Table 4. Mean number (± standard deviation) of sensitivity (DP), reaction times (RT), and correct and incorrect (errors) responses in Session 1 (before the break) and in Session 2 (after the break) for NNN, NWN, WNW, and WWW groups (N = not-wood room; W= wood room). ...
The sensitivity and interest toward well-being and health inside work and living environments is constantly growing. Wood is perceived as a natural material by people and its presence in a room generally induces beneficial effects on human beings. In this research, two real-sized identical wood and not-wood rooms have been built to study the psychological effects of a wooden indoor environment on attention recovery and restorativeness. After a multisensory evaluation of differ-ent kind of materials used in housing, participants were asked to evaluate the two rooms and then to perform an attention test two times, interspersed with a pause in one of the two rooms. The re-sults show that wood samples are more appreciated than all other materials and that a wood en-vironment induces an attentional resources’ recovery. These findings bring new insights in the in-teraction between human beings and indoor environments. This new knowledge should be taken into account in the design or renovation of buildings by architects and builders.
... Asimismo, la investigación realizada por Burnard y Kutnar (2015) sobre el estrés humano propone que, ya sea en el lugar de habitación, trabajo o institución educativa, los espacios interiores impactan la vida de sus ocupantes y tienen la capacidad de reducir enfermedades y cansancio, así como de mejorar la productividad y el rendimiento. De allí la importancia de destacar el concepto de habitabilidad propuesto por Verdugo et al. (2016) quienes mencionan que se refiere a los requerimientos de las personas usuarias de un espacio; en otras palabas, a que este cumpla con las condiciones de comodidad, privacidad, funcionalidad y agrado mínimo requeridos para sentirse a gusto. ...
El bienestar emocional en la población se ve afectado en alguna medida por el diseño de los espacios habitacionales. Esta investigación cuantitativa y correlacional analizó la relación entre componentes del diseño como la iluminación, el color, la distribución y ergonomía del espacio habitacional en el bienestar, la interacción y la vinculación afectiva al espacio en una muestra de costarricenses mayores de edad utilizando una escala propia construida para este propósito, así como dos subescalas de la Escala de Habitabilidad en Adolescentes y Adultos (EHAA) y la Escala de Bienestar subjetivo (EBS-20). Los datos se recabaron de manera virtual durante el mes de octubre del 2021 con la participación de 228 costarricenses que tuvieran más de tres meses de vivir en su actual residencia. Los resultados evidenciaron que existe una relación entre el diseño del espacio habitacional y el bienestar así como una correlación positiva entre el aumento de la edad y las emociones.
... In those cases, it is challenging to discern whether the tested environment does not lead to restoration or whether the restorative effects do exist but are not observed due to the particular study design and outcomes. This is especially problematic in studies that test for presumably smaller effects of exposure to nature in indoor spaces, where nature is present only indirectly or in smaller quantities, such as in spaces furnished with natural materials, like wood [10][11][12]. Indeed, while some studies observed promising effects of wooden indoor environments on occupants [13,14], others detected no positive effects [15], or reported inconclusive results [16]. ...
People seem to function and feel better in indoor natural environments, including spaces furnished with wood. When restorative effects of indoor spaces are not detected, suboptimal methodological approaches may be responsible, including stress-inducing activities and measures of affective states and cognitive performance. Our primary objectives were to test (1) whether the Mental Arithmetic Task (MAT) can reliably induce stress and measure cognitive performance, and (2) whether two single-item measures of pleasure and arousal can detect changes in affective states in restoration research. Our secondary objective was to examine whether stress recovery and cognitive performance differ between indoor settings furnished with or without wood. Twenty-two participants, allocated to a space furnished with either a wooden or a white desktop, completed MAT twice, while their electrodermal and cardiovascular activity and affective states were monitored. Participants on average responded to MAT with increased subjective arousal but unchanged subjective pleasure, and with increased physiological arousal on some but not all parameters, suggesting that MAT was effortful but not necessarily stressful. Scores on MAT improved at the 2nd administration, suggesting that MAT did not induce cognitive fatigue at the 1st administration and that its role as a cognitive task in restoration research may be limited. The items assessing affective states performed well. The measured outcomes did not differ between the wooden and non-wooden setting, suggesting that substantial restorative effects of a wooden desktop are unlikely, and that higher wood coverage is needed to increase the chances of observing restorative effects.
... Similar to other natural elements, wood represents a connection to trees and nature that offers a number of health benefits for occupants [81]. It has been observed that people tend to have a positive attitude towards wood, perceiving it as a natural, warm, and healthy material [69,82]. ...
The construction industry represents one of the greatest contributors to atmospheric emissions of CO2 and anthropogenic climate change, largely resulting from the production of commonly used building materials such as steel and concrete. It is well understood that the extraction and manufacture of these products generates significant volumes of greenhouse gases and, therefore, this industry represents an important target for reducing emissions. One possibility is to replace emissions-intensive, non-renewable materials with more environmentally friendly alternatives that minimise resource depletion and lower emissions. Although timber has not been widely used in mid- to high-rise buildings since the industrial revolution, recent advances in manufacturing have reintroduced wood as a viable product for larger and more complex structures. One of the main advantages of the resurgence of wood is its environmental performance; however, there is still uncertainty about how mass timber works and its suitability relative to key performance criteria for construction material selection. Consequently, the aim of this study is to help guide decision making in the construction sector by providing a comprehensive review of the research on mass timber. Key performance criteria for mass timber are reviewed, using existing literature, and compared with those for typical concrete construction. The review concludes that mass timber is superior to concrete and steel when taking into consideration all performance factors, and posits that the construction industry should, where appropriate, transition to mass timber as the low-carbon, high performance building material of the future.
... Novel end-user-driven design and building solutions can increase customer value in both residential and public construction and strengthen the role of construction in the bio-circular economy [91]. The roles of environmental performance, health and wellbeing, and climate policies have strengthened during the past decade in the European construction sector, due to consumer preferences and regulatory requirements [54,85,[92][93][94]. ...
The demand for wood has increased in recent years due to new technical possibilities and
environmental concerns. This paper provides an analysis of the factors that affect the use of wood in the construction sector, and an assessment of their importance in individual countries and for groups of stakeholders. The study covers the technical, societal, political, economic, and gender aspects of wood construction, with the aim of increasing global understanding regarding national differences, the current situation, and the potential for further development. The subject was investigated using a survey, and the most important opportunities for and barriers to growth in the use of wood in the construction sector were selected, following a statistical analysis. The results indicate strong regional and cultural differences regarding the acceptance of some of the opportunities and barriers related to the development of wood construction. The findings indicate that there is a need to promote wood construction based on its technical and economic benefits rather than its societal ones. On the other hand, the current societal barriers should be addressed as a priority, together with the establishment of common and harmonized policies. The results of this study, therefore, will contribute to the generation of regional-sensitive information that can be useful for policymakers when updating the building codes in their individual countries.
... The use of wood materials indoors helps to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. Additionally, it can indicate furniture surface temperature by using thermochromic wood in the furniture (Burnard and Kutnar 2015;Zhu et al. 2018), and reasonable use of farmed poplar can meet users demand for thermochromic wood materials and avoid the consumption of natural forest resources. ...
Thermochromic poplar specimens were prepared by directly filling the thermochromic dye into poplar samples. After thermochromic dye infiltration, the thermochromic poplar samples were covered by polypropylene wax for preventing thermochromic dye overflowing from thermochromic poplar under the action of phase-change temperature. This thermochromic dye is lauryl alcohol and methyl red mixture that has better permeability enabling its infiltration into wood and better thermochromic sensitivity enabling its thermochromism in short time. This thermochromic poplar, whose colour can change from light-red to dark-red at 16–30 °C, can recover to light-red at below 13 °C after about 14 h, and the peak value of colour change is at about 25 °C. Compared with the original poplar specimens, the hardness of thermochromic poplar rises by about 88.66%, the radial compressive strength increases by about 14.73%, and the radial bending strength increases by about 26.18%. Thermochromic poplar will be suitable for materials used in thermochromic furniture that can indicate the surface temperature to potential users, allowing them to assess the likely thermal comfort, and that can record the user's usage traces when touching its surface.
... These results (e.g., Figure 8) indicate that the use of the stone pine wood may positively contribute to the vagostimulant, and heart-rate-reducing effects observed in this study. Other studies have found that vagal activity can be increased by volatiles exuded from pinewood due to olfactory stimulation [12,[51][52][53][54] as well as by physical contact with the wood [13,14]. ...
Cardiorespiratory interactions (CRIs) reflect the mutual tuning of two important organismic oscillators—the heartbeat and respiration. These interactions can be used as a powerful tool to characterize the self-organizational and recreational quality of sleep. In this randomized, blinded and cross-over design study, we investigated CRIs in 15 subjects over a total of 253 nights who slept in beds made from different materials. One type of bed, used as control, was made of melamine faced chipboard with a wood-like appearance, while the other type was made of solid wood from stone pine (Pinus cembra). We observed a significant increase of vagal activity (measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia), a decrease in the heart rate (as an indicator of energy consumption during sleep) and an improvement in CRIs, especially during the first hours of sleep in the stone pine beds as compared to the chipboard beds. Subjective assessments of study participants’ well-being in the morning and sub-scalar assessments of their intrapsychic stability were significantly better after they slept in the stone pine bed than after they slept in the chipboard bed. Our observations suggest that CRIs are sensitive to detectable differences in indoor settings that are relevant to human health. Our results are in agreement with those of other studies that have reported that exposure to volatile phytochemical ingredients of stone pine (α-pinene, limonene, bornyl acetate) lead to an improvement in vagal activity and studies that show a reduction in stress parameters upon contact with solid wood surfaces.
Mental health is a significant public concern. Given that individuals spend extended periods indoors, understanding the psychophysiological health effects of indoor materials on well-being is crucial. This study compared the effects of wooden and resin plaster rooms on psychophysiological well-being. Well-being was assessed using heart rate variability measurements and an affective well-being questionnaire. Subjective perceptions were also evaluated using a semantic differential questionnaire. The results indicated higher heart rate variability in the wooden room compared to the reference room. Participants breathed about one breath per minute more slowly in the wooden room, with a negative correlation between heart rate variability and respiratory rate. Positive affect was elevated, and negative affect was reduced in the wooden room, which was also perceived more favorably in sensory evaluations. The findings suggest that wooden interiors are preferred over artificial materials, enhancing both physiological and psychological well-being.
The effects of color and lighting on thermal perception and comfort have been studied through a multitude of methods, including virtual reality (VR) simulations as well as in vivo studies. The potential role of surface materials, however, remains poorly understood in this regard, even though materials and surface colors are clearly related factors in the perception of building interiors. In this study, we tested two Virtual Reality (VR) office spaces, one designed with wood and one with concrete. 38 participants (N = 38) were recruited to complete a simple reading task over fifteen minutes while being seated in a controlled temperature thermal booth. During this time, the booth temperature dropped by an average of 0.3 °C (0.5 °F) per minute from 22.2 °C (72 °F) to 17.7 °C (64 °F). Participants had the perceived ability to control the room’s temperature via a virtual reality interface, an action that served as a measure of “thermal tolerance” based on how long it took participants to try and stop the constant temperature drop in the thermal booth during the experimental task. Participants were surveyed after the study to state their perceived starting and ending room temperature. The results confirmed the hypothesis that the wood room was perceived as warmer overall than the concrete room. However, the results for the “thermal tolerance” metric varied based on the current outside temperature as we predict participants expected different interior temperature regimes in warm compared to cool outdoor conditions. The perception of the concrete room as cooler than the wood room showed the greatest correllation with thermal tolerance when outdoor temperatures were warm, increasing thermal comfort in the concrete room. The results of the study validate the hue-heat hypothesis for architectural building materials and support the potential for thermal perception to induce actionable behavior and promote passive energy savings through the choice of interior building materials.
This paper offers a systematic review of the literature on workplace wellbeing and interior design, exploring the creation and evaluation of appealing environments that enhance employee wellbeing. This paper adopts a systematic approach to review using the guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Multiple databases were searched. The final review included 55 studies out of 472 that examined factors related to workplace wellbeing. The findings of this study suggest that background noise and open-plan workspaces negatively affect workplace wellbeing, while visual connections with plants and natural objects enhance it. This paper extends the current literature in two ways. Firstly, by highlighting key factors that impact workplace wellbeing. Secondly, it divides factors that contribute to workplace wellbeing into three categories: positives, negatives, and moderate impact factors. Design professionals and workplace managers can utilize this information to identify features that contribute most to the overall work environment.
Wood presents excellent opportunities for sustainable urbanism as a renewable building material. Here, the chemical synthesis of a novel wood composites (3%PFeW) which owns flame‐retardance, water resistance, and degradability is investigated. The 3%PFeW is composed of porous wood framework impregnated with citric acid, 1,8‐octanediol, and the flame retardants (Fe3O4 and 2‐carboxyethyl phenyl hypophosphite (CEPPA)). The 3%PFeW's effective flame retardancy is realized by the introduction of Fe3O4 and CEPPA. Self‐extinguish phenomenon of 3%PFeW happens after being removed from flame. Moreover, 3%PFeW holds an LOI value of 27, reaching V0 flame retardant standard. The 3%PFeW exhibits exceptional water resistance, being proven by its water contact angle (100 °) as well as the low absorbed water content (only 6.5% after soaking 7 days). In addition, the wood composite shows degradable after immersion in NaOH for several days (71.37% degradation content after 7 days), which facilitates the recycling and reutilization of the wood framework after utilization. The modified wood with flame‐retardant, water resistant, and degradable capabilities shown here provides an appealing composite toward building area.
Autor smatra da je došlo krajnje vrijeme da se cjelokupno društvo probudi i pokuša kroz demokratske procedure, pomoć naše dijaspore i prijateljskih zemalja angažovati na procesu razvoja i integracije bosanskohercegovačkog društva i stvaranju građanske demokratske, suverene i jedinstvene multietničke države integrisane u evropske tokove.
This study investigated the characteristics of radial cracks in Castanopsis hystrix wood and evaluated its dimensional stability after impregnation with low-molecular-weight polyacrylate (PA), melamine-urea-glyoxal (MUG), and melamine-urea-formaldehyde (MUF) resins. The physical properties were examined by dimensional stability measurements, dynamic vapor sorption (DVS) analysis, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that radial cracks were easily produced in the transverse section of untreated wood during drying. The surfaces of the radial cracks exhibited an even and clean structure without fluffs on the pair of surfaces, and cracks spanned 4–5 annual rings. The resin-impregnated wood showed no radial cracks on its transverse surface. C. hystrix wood modified with MUG and MUF exhibited a higher weight percentage gain (WPG) than wood modified with the same concentration of PA resin. The resin-impregnated C. hystrix wood also showed reduced anisotropy and improved dimensional stability. The SEM images of the modified wood showed that the wood pits and cells were filled with resin, while the cell wall surfaces were covered with a layer of resin.
To improve the flame retardancy of wood, an ammonium phytate-based flame retardant (APFR) system was prepared via the reaction between phytic acid and urea without organic solvent purification. Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) wood was impregnated by the APFR (APFR-W), and the flame retardancy and thermal degradation behaviors of APFR-W were studied. Compared with untreated wood (W), the total heat release and total smoke production of APFR-W (weight% gain = 27.8 ± 0.7%) were decreased by 81.5% and 43.2%, respectively. During decomposition, APFR produced noncombustible gases and phosphoric acid, which diluted the combustible volatiles and facilitated the charring reaction of cellulose. The excess urea in the system melted to absorb heat and might act as a solvent or medium to catalyze the phosphorylation of cellulose, and accordingly reduced the formation of levoglucosan and further increased the char yield. An intumescent structure was formed to protect the underlying wood. More importantly, analysis of the chemical structure of char residue indicated that a graphitized char with nitrogen and phosphorus doping was formed. This char layer acted as a highly thermally stable barrier and effectively impeded the transfer of heat and mass, leading to improved flame retardancy and smoke suppression performance.
A blue thermochromic dye (B-TD) was prepared by mixing crystal violet lactone (CVL), hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) and myristic acid myristyl ester (MME). B-TD is a phase-changing material and can change colour at above 32°C about 5 s. The B-TD can permeate into pre-treated pinewood samples about 8–10 mm from the surface of samples after immersed pre-treated pinewood samples in B-TD for about 10 min at 70 °C. A blue thermochromic pinewood (B-TP) was prepared by filled the B-TD into pre-treated pinewood and covered polypropylene wax that can prevent B-TD overflowing from wood-based material when at phase-changing temperature. The B-TP can change colour from dark blue to light blue at 38–48°C, and can recover dark blue at below 38°C after about 5 h. B-TP can be used in a kind of pinewood woodwork that can indicate the temperature of woodwork surface to users by its colour-change phenomenon at 38–48°C, covering the lowest temperature of cryogenic burns (42°C), so this kind of pinewood woodwork can warn the temperature of cryogenic burns for avoiding cryogenic burns by its colour-change phenomenon.
The increased use of wood and prefabrication are solutions that are helping to address current and future challenges in the construction sector. However, these practices are slow to become widespread due to the conservative nature of this industry. The objective of this study is to characterize the social representations of Province of Quebec (Canada) individuals with regard to these construction methods in order to determine the motivations and barriers to their use in the construction of multi-story housing. The social representations of a representative panel of the Quebec population were collected through standardized surveys. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results indicate that the use of wood in the construction of high-rise multi-story housing is not part of the representations of a majority of Quebecers. The motivations identified are the aesthetics of wood and the environmental aspect, although forestry exploitation remains an important concern for respondents. The main barriers are the safety aspect and lifespan because they tend to dominate the other themes in decision making. The results suggest that the acceptance and adoption of these construction methods by users can be improved by adapting the transfer of knowledge towards the negatively perceived themes and the identified social groups.
The personal thermal comfort model is used to design and control the thermal environment and predict the thermal comfort responses of individuals rather than reflect the average response of the population. Previous individual thermal comfort models were mainly focused on a single material environment. However, the channels for individual thermal comfort were various in real life. Therefore, a new personal thermal comfort evaluation method is constructed by means of a reliable decision-based fuzzy classification model from two views. In this study, a two-view thermal comfort fuzzy classification model was constructed using the interpretable zero-order Takagi–Sugeno–Kang (TSK) fuzzy classifier as the basic training subblock, and it is the first time an optimized machine learning algorithm to study the interpretable thermal comfort model is used. The relevant information (including basic information, sampling conditions, physiological parameters, physical environment, environmental perception, and self-assessment parameters) was obtained from 157 subjects in experimental chambers with two different materials. This proposed method has the following features: (1) The training samples in the input layer contain the feature data under experimental conditions with two different materials. The training models constructed from the training samples under these two conditions complement and restrict each other and improve the accuracy of the whole model training. (2) In the rule layer of the training unit, interpretable fuzzy rules are designed to solve the existing layers with the design of short rules. The output of the intermediate layer of the fuzzy classifier and the fuzzy rules are difficult to explain, which is problematic. (3) Better decision-making knowledge information is obtained in both the rule layer of the single-view training model and in the two-view fusion model. In addition, the feature mapping space is generated according to the degree of contribution of the decision-making information from the two single training views, which not only preserves the feature information of the source training samples to a large extent but also improves the training accuracy of the model and enhances the generalization performance of the training model. Experimental results indicated that TMV-TSK-FC has better classification performance and generalization performance than several related state-of-the-art non-fuzzy classifiers applied in this study. Significantly, compared with the single view fuzzy classifier, the training accuracies and testing accuracies of TMV-TSK-FC are improved by 3–11% and 2–9%, respectively. In addition, the experimental results also showed good semantic interpretability of TMV-TSK-FC.
Wood is an important material used in decorating human living environment. Knots are prominent features found on wood surface. Moreover, they are commonly considered as undesirable surface defects, which reduce not only the mechanical properties but also the aesthetic qualities of lumber. The effects of visual stimulation using knotty wood on psychological responses among humans have been relatively well investigated. However, only few studies have assessed physiological responses. Hence, the present study aimed to assess whether knotty wood surface can reduce not only psychological but also physiological benefits for humans. Two full-sized knotty wooden-wall images and a clear wooden-wall image were used as visual stimuli using computer graphics techniques. Twenty-eight adult Japanese female university students viewed each image for 90 s in random order. During exposure to the visual stimuli, the oxyhemoglobin concentrations in the left and right prefrontal cortex and heart rate variability were consecutively measured and utilized as indicators of central and autonomic nervous system activities, respectively. In addition, the psychological effects of knotty images were examined using the modified semantic differential method and the Profile of Mood State 2nd Edition. There was no significant difference in the effects of the three images on physiological responses. All visual stimuli more or less promoted psychological comfort and relaxation. However, compared with the clear wooden-wall image, the wooden-wall image with several knots was associated with reduced psychological benefits, and the psychological responses in viewing the wooden-wall image with few knots did not remarkably differ.
Background. Many building users prefer wood over other building materials, but it is unclear how modified wood is perceived compared to the unmodified wood. Additionally, it is unclear which material properties play a role in the general preference for wood, how tactile and tactile-visual perceptions of materials affect user preference for wood, and whether human preference for wood is consistent across countries and cultures with different wood use practices. Method. 100 older adults from Slovenia and Norway rated and ranked wooden materials (i.e., handrails) made of either unmodified or modified wood and a stainless-steel control sample. The materials were rated on a semantic differential scale (capturing sensory and affective attributes) by each participant twice: first while only touching the materials and then while simultaneously touching and seeing the materials. Finally, each participant ranked the handrails in order of preference. Results. Wooden handrails were generally more preferred than the steel sample. Preference ratings and rankings of modified wood were comparable to those of unmodified wood. Results were relatively consistent across both countries. Materials rated as liked were perceived as somewhat less cold, less damp, more usual, less artificial, more expensive, and less unpleasant. The ratings were fairly consistent between the tactile and tactile-visual task. Conclusions. In at least some indoor applications, certain types of modified wood could be used in place of unmodified wood, while meeting human aesthetical preferences. Certain visual and tactile properties can predict material preference and could be considered in the material design phase. Tactile experience is important in overall material perception and should not be overlooked. These findings seem to be stable across countries with different wood use practices.
Nowadays, the topic of restorative experience in built environments has attracted more attention because of the increasing stress levels in modern society. Researchers have sought to identify the architectural features that influence a person's perceived restorative experience to achieve human-centered architectural designs. However, the relevant design knowledge is unsystematically scattered, making it difficult for designers to interpret information and make informed decisions in practice. This paper explores the feasibility of machine learning in capturing the restorative quality of design alternatives, thereby providing decision support for proactive architectural design analysis. To deal with feature selection and the uncertainty associated with affective modeling, a framework is introduced that integrates design of experiments and machine learning methods. The human restorative experience is assessed within non-immersive VR environments using self-reported psychometric scales. Consequently, general regression neural network is revealed as superior to other machine learning methods in forecasting the restorative experience.
Tactile interaction between humans and elements in the built environment, such as furniture, is often under-appreciated. The aim of this study was to objectively evaluate thermal properties of ten tabletop materials as well as user perceptions of those materials after use. Sixteen participants tested ten materials in a randomised order. Infrared thermography was used to determine tabletop temperature distribution and change. Materials with lower thermal effusivity (wood-based materials) in general reached higher surface temperature differences after 15 min of contact and were rated as more pleasant to touch, more suitable for writing, and more liked for everyday use. Participants' sex and forearm mass had no effect on the temperature after contact. Participants gave the highest ratings to the appearance of oak-based materials. Surface treatment affected subjective evaluation of the materials. The tabletop made of lacquered solid wood had the most favourable thermal and user-rated characteristics.
Objective – The aim of the study is to provide planning recommendations for special care units for patients with dementia in general hospitals. Therefore, (1) an overview of existing structural concepts and, (2) results of a systematic environmental assessment regarding the dementia-sensitivity of the built environment will be presented.
Background – Due to demographic change, the number of acutely ill, geriatric patients with additional cognitive impairments in hospitals is increasing. Since this patient group often shows adverse outcomes during their hospital stay, specialised wards ("special care units") have been implemented as part of dementia-friendly hospital concepts. In Germany, the number of special care units has been rising over the last years and more than forty units are currently known. Research has shown positive effects on patients’ self-care and mobility as well as a decrease in challenging behaviour. However, an overview of spatial concepts, which can serve as basis for planning recommendations, is missing.
Research question – What are architectural characteristics of special care units for the care of patients with dementia in general hospitals and how is dementia-friendly design implemented?
Methods – Site visits and interviews with responsible medical and nursing staff leaders of special care units in German general hospitals (N=20) were conducted. The implementation of dementia-friendly design recommendations based on publications by Hofmann et al. 2014 and King’s Fund 2014 was systematically documented. Additionally, floor plans of the units were analysed regarding their integration into the building structure, spatial programmes and use of space. Implementation of design criteria was discussed in the light of planning recommendations for dementiafriendly hospital wards given by Büter et al. 2017
Results – The units differed greatly in terms of their building structure and their spatial programs. The floor space per unit varied from 120 to 1200 sqm depending on the number of beds in the units starting from 6 to 30 beds. Three types of structural concepts were identified which were characterised by their spatial organisation within the building and the resulting autonomy in the workflow of the units. Regarding the implementation of dementia-friendly design recommendation, it was found that especially interior design elements, such as colour contrasts or visual cues to improve visibility of patient-relevant objects, were often used.
Conclusion – A high number of individual spatial concepts for special care units exists in German hospitals. These concepts were highly dependent on specific building conditions and functional requirements, especially fire protection, hygiene and floor plan structure. The implementation of some core recommendations, such as a visual relationship between areas for patients and nurses, requires early consideration in planning processes as it refers to the building structure. Otherwise, these implementations may result in extra effort in terms of construction works and financial expenses.
6–1 When sawn, a log yields round timber, ties, or lumber of varying quality. This chapter presents a general discussion of grading, standards, and specifications for these commer-cial products. In a broad sense, commercial lumber is any lumber that is bought or sold in the normal channels of commerce. Com-mercial lumber may be found in a variety of forms, species, and types, and in various commercial establishments, both wholesale and retail. Most commercial lumber is graded by standardized rules that make purchasing more or less uni-form throughout the country. Round timbers and ties represent some of the most effi-cient uses of our forest resources. They require a minimum of processing between harvesting the tree and marketing the structural commodity. Poles and piles are debarked or peeled, seasoned, and often treated with preservative prior to use as structural members. Construction logs are usually shaped to facilitate construction. Ties, used for railroads, landscaping, and mining, are slab-cut to provide flat surfac-es. Because these products are relatively economical to pro-duce compared with glulam, steel, and concrete products, they are commonly used throughout the United States. To enable users to buy the quality that best suits their pur-poses, lumber, round timbers, and ties are graded into use categories, each having an appropriate range in quality. Generally, the grade of a piece of wood is based on the num-ber, character, and location of features that may lower its strength, durability, or utility value. Among the more com-mon visual features are knots, checks, pitch pockets, shake, and stain, some of which are a natural part of the tree. Some grades are free or practically free from these features. Other grades, which constitute the great bulk of solid wood prod-ucts, contain fairly numerous knots and other features. With proper grading, lumber containing these features is entirely satisfactory for many uses. The grading operation for most solid wood products takes place at the sawmill. Establishment of grading procedures is largely the responsibility of manufacturers' associations. Be-cause of the wide variety of wood species, industrial practic-es, and customer needs, different grading practices coexist. The grading practices of most interest are considered in the sections that follow, under the major categories of hardwood lumber and softwood lumber, round timbers, and ties.
global sustainability goals have led to the development of the green building movement. The Green Building Program, stemming from the movement, has had unprecedented success as it provides a quantifiable metric to people's efforts towards sustainable development. Sustainable development and green buildings are often used interchangeably. Although, sustainable development and green buildings are related, they are not the same. This paper provides an overview of how green building relates to sustainable development practices. Sustainability also governs decisions concerning building materials. A comprehensive explanation of what constitutes a green building material is discussed and how renewable material like wood fare in the deciding criteria. There are many green building rating systems in place. United States Green Building Council administered Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) is the global market leader in the rating systems. LEED is a commendable and grand effort in moving towards sustainable development by converting the built environment green. However, it does have certain pitfalls and challenges. Some of these challenges are with respect to policies on material selection and performance monitoring. The materials used in a project are considered at a common starting point and no consideration is given to the life cycle performance of the material. Statements concerning sustainability require validation, and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is a tool that can provide such validity. This paper presents how beneficial it can be, when included, in the bigger scheme of green building rating systems and introduces an integrated design concept for green buildings.
Restorative environments help renew psychological resources depleted in environments that do not fully support intended functions. The design of restorative environments can be aided and underlying theory elaborated with a means for measuring psychological factors thought to work in restorative experiences. This paper reports on four studies carried out to develop such a measure, the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS). Each study employed several strategies for assessing reliability and validity. Factor analysis was used to examine the stability of the measure's factor structure across different sites and studies. To assess criterion, convergent, and discriminant validities, measures of emotional states and other environmental qualities were also completed for each site. The sites selected for evaluation differed on theoretically relevant dimensions (natural-urban; outdoor-indoor), enabling checks on the PRS's sensitivity to meaningful differences among environments. The results were consistent across the studies, which also involved different subject populations (American, Swedish, Finnish) and presentation modes (on-site, video, photographic slides). Although the factor analytic results introduce some interpretive qualifications, substantial validity coefficients and sensitivity to meaningful differences between sites speak to the utility of the measure.
Health and well-being in the workplace have become common topics in the mainstream media, in practitioner-oriented magazines and journals and, increasingly, in scholarly research journals. In this article, we first review the literature that serves to define health and well-being. We then discuss the primary factors associated with health and well-being, the consequences of low levels of health and well-being, and common methods for improving health and well-being in the workplace. Finally, we highlight important future directions for future theory, research, and practice regarding health and well-being from an organizational perspective.
This paper examines the energy and carbon balance of two residential house alternatives; a typical wood frame home using more conventional materials (brick cladding, vinyl windows, asphalt shingles, and fibreglass insulation) and a similar wood frame house that also maximizes wood use throughout (cedar shingles and siding, wood windows, and cellulose insulation) in place of the more typical materials used – a wood-intensive house. Carbon emission and fossil fuel consumption balances were established for the two homes based on the cumulative total of three subsystems: (1) forest harvesting and regeneration; (2) cradle-to-gate product manufacturing, construction, and replacement effects over a 100-year service life; and (3) end-of-life effects – landfilling with methane capture and combustion or recovery of biomass for energy production.
The study of how people's psychological health and well-being can be connected to wood used in appearance applications is a new and relatively unexplored area of inquiry, despite strong theoretical support, intuitive reasoning, and a growing recognition of the importance of healthful living. This research attempted to better understand this phenomenon by mapping out people's perceptions of wood used in interior applications. Specifically, the aim of this exploratory study was to determine what types of environments appearance wood products can create and to gauge whether or not the use of these types of products could have positive impacts on people's emotional states. To that end, a total of 119 respondents from the Greater Vancouver Regional Area were asked to partake in a three-part experimental study, consisting of a q-sort exercise, personal interviews, and a self-administered survey. The findings suggest that people's response to wood is, for the most part, extremely positive, with subjects generally showing a strong preference for rooms containing many wood details. There also appears to be a strong belief that the use of wood can help to create healthful environments, and commonly evoked descriptors for wood rooms include "warm," "comfortable," "relaxing," "natural," and "inviting." The reasons underlying these findings are complex and further exploration rooted in the field of environmental psychology is warranted. However, the results of this study could have potentially far-reaching implications for manufacturers of appearance wood products seeking to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Specifically, these findings point to an opportunity to market wood in an entirely new and innovative manner with the inclusion of potential psychological benefits into the total product concept.
Attention Restoration Theory (ART) proposes that effortful directed attention can become fatigued in modern urban environments. Restoration can occur in a setting that evokes fascination (effortless attention). Ordinary natural settings evoke soft fascination, that is, moderate fascination accompanied by esthetic pleasure. Such settings enable a fully restorative experience, including the recovery of directed attention and the opportunity for serious reflection. Settings broadly classified as sports/entertainment are more likely to evoke hard fascination, that is, very high levels of fascination that fill the mind. Such settings permit directed attention recovery but afford little opportunity for reflection. We tested these ideas by having participants rate the perceived restorative effectiveness of three kinds of settings (ordinary natural, sports/entertainment, and everyday urban) under two goal-set conditions (as places for attentional recovery or for reflection). Ordinary natural settings were seen as having the highest overall restorative effectiveness, everyday urban settings as having the lowest, and sports/entertainment settings as in between. Moreover, sports/entertainment settings were seen as higher in restorative effectiveness for the attentional-recovery goal set than for the reflection goal set. No such goal-set difference occurred for the other two setting categories combined. These results are in agreement with the predictions of ART.
Different conceptual perspectives converge to predict that if individuals are stressed, an encounter with most unthreatening natural environments will have a stress reducing or restorative influence, whereas many urban environments will hamper recuperation. Hypotheses regarding emotional, attentional and physiological aspects of stress reducing influences of nature are derived from a psycho-evolutionary theory. To investigate these hypotheses, 120 subjects first viewed a stressful movie, and then were exposed to color/sound videotapes of one of six different natural and urban settings. Data concerning stress recovery during the environmental presentations were obtained from self-ratings of affective states and a battery of physiological measures: heart period, muscle tension, skin conductance and pulse transit time, a non-invasive measure that correlates with systolic blood pressure. Findings from the physiological and verbal measures converged to indicate that recovery was faster and more complete when subjects were exposed to natural rather than urban environments. The pattern of physiological findings raised the possibility that responses to nature had a salient parasympathetic nervous system component; however, there was no evidence of pronounced parasympathetic involvement in responses to the urban settings. There were directional differences in cardiac responses to the natural vs urban settings, suggesting that attention/intake was higher during the natural exposures. However, both the stressor film and the nature settings elicited high levels of involuntary or automatic attention, which contradicts the notion that restorative influences of nature stem from involuntary attention or fascination. Findings were consistent with the predictions of the psycho-evolutionary theory that restorative influences of nature involve a shift towards a more positively-toned emotional state, positive changes in physiological activity levels, and that these changes are accompanied by sustained attention/intake. Content differences in terms of natural vs human-made properties appeared decisive in accounting for the differences in recuperation and perceptual intake.
Sustainable design has made great strides in recent years; unfortunately, it still falls short of fully integrating nature into our built environment. Through a groundbreaking new paradigm of "restorative environmental design," award-winning author Stephen R. Kellert proposes a new architectural model of sustainability. In Building For Life, Kellert examines the fundamental interconnectedness of people and nature, and how the loss of this connection results in a diminished quality of life. This thoughtful new work illustrates how architects and designers can use simple methods to address our innate needs for contact with nature. Through the use of natural lighting, ventilation, and materials, as well as more unexpected methodologies-the use of metaphor, perspective, enticement, and symbol-architects can greatly enhance our daily lives. These design techniques foster intellectual development, relaxation, and physical and emotional well-being. In the works of architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen, Cesar Pelli, Norman Foster, and Michael Hopkins, Kellert sees the success of these strategies and presents models for moving forward. Ultimately, Kellert views our fractured relationship with nature as a design problem rather than an unavoidable aspect of modern life, and he proposes many practical and creative solutions for cultivating a more rewarding experience of nature in our built environment.
Records on recovery after cholecystectomy of patients in a suburban Pennsylvania hospital between 1972 and 1981 were examined
to determine whether assignment to a room with a window view of a natural setting might have restorative influences. Twenty-three
surgical patients assigned to rooms with windows looking out on a natural scene had shorter postoperative hospital stays,
received fewer negative evaluative comments in nurses' notes, and took fewer potent analgesics than 23 matched patients in
similar rooms with windows facing a brick building wall.
This paper describes a protocol for induction of moderate psychological stress in a laboratory setting and evaluates its effects on physiological responses. The 'Trier Social Stress Test' (TSST) mainly consists of an anticipation period (10 min) and a test period (10 min) in which the subjects have to deliver a free speech and perform mental arithmetic in front of an audience. In six independent studies this protocol has been found to induce considerable changes in the concentration of ACTH, cortisol (serum and saliva), GH, prolactin as well as significant increases in heart rate. As for salivary cortisol levels, the TSST reliably led to 2- to 4-fold elevations above baseline with similar peak cortisol concentrations. Studies are summarized in which TSST-induced cortisol increases elucidated some of the multiple variables contributing to the interindividual variation in adrenocortical stress responses. The results suggest that gender, genetics and nicotine consumption can influence the individual's stress responsiveness to psychological stress while personality traits showed no correlation with cortisol responses to TSST stimulation. From these data we conclude that the TSST can serve as a tool for psychobiological research.
To summarize briefly, key general points in this presentation include the following: To promote wellness, healthcare facilities should be designed to support patients in coping with stress. As general compass points for designers, scientific research suggests that healthcare environments will support coping with stress and promote wellness if they are designed to foster: 1. Sense of control; 2. Access to social support; 3. Access to positive distractions, and lack of exposure to negative distractions; A growing amount of scientific evidence suggests that nature elements or views can be effective as stress-reducing, positive distractions that promote wellness in healthcare environments. In considering the needs of different types of users of healthcare facilities--patients, visitors, staff--it should be kept in mind that these groups sometimes have conflicting needs or orientations with respect to control, social support, and positive distractions. It is important for designers to recognize such differing orientations as potential sources of conflict and stress in health facilities (Schumaker and Pequegnat, 1989). For instance, a receptionist in a waiting area may understandably wish to control the programs on a television that he or she is continuously exposed to; however, patients in the waiting area may experience some stress if they cannot select the programs or elect to turn off the television. Some staff may prefer bright, arousing art for corridors and patient rooms where they spend much of their time; however, for many patients, such art may increase rather than reduce stress. A difficult but important challenge for designers is to be sensitive to such group differences in orientations, and try to assess the gains or losses for one group vis-a-vis the other in attempting to achieve the goal of psychologically supportive design. Designers should also consider programs or strategies that combine or mesh different stress-reducing components. For example, it seems possible that a program enabling patients to select at least some of their wall art or pictures would foster both control and access to positive distraction. As another example, the theory outlined in this paper suggests that an "artist-in-residence" program, wherein an artist with a caring, supportive disposition would work with patients, might foster social support in addition to control and access to positive distraction. Running through this presentation is the conviction that scientific research can be useful in informing the intuition, sensitivity, and creativity of designers, and thereby can help to create psychologically supportive healthcare environments.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
This meta-analysis reviews 208 laboratory studies of acute psychological stressors and tests a theoretical model delineating conditions capable of eliciting cortisol responses. Psychological stressors increased cortisol levels; however, effects varied widely across tasks. Consistent with the theoretical model, motivated performance tasks elicited cortisol responses if they were uncontrollable or characterized by social-evaluative threat (task performance could be negatively judged by others), when methodological factors and other stressor characteristics were controlled for. Tasks containing both uncontrollable and social-evaluative elements were associated with the largest cortisol and adrenocorticotropin hormone changes and the longest times to recovery. These findings are consistent with the animal literature on the physiological effects of uncontrollable social threat and contradict the belief that cortisol is responsive to all types of stressors.
The purpose of this study is to examine the physiological effects of Shinrin-yoku (taking in the atmosphere of the forest). The subjects were 12 male students (22.8+/-1.4 yr). On the first day of the experiments, one group of 6 subjects was sent to a forest area, and the other group of 6 subjects was sent to a city area. On the second day, each group was sent to the opposite area for a cross check. In the forenoon, the subjects were asked to walk around their given area for 20 minutes. In the afternoon, they were asked to sit on chairs and watch the landscapes of their given area for 20 minutes. Cerebral activity in the prefrontal area and salivary cortisol were measured as physiological indices in the morning at the place of accommodation, before and after walking in the forest or city areas during the forenoon, and before and after watching the landscapes in the afternoon in the forest and city areas, and in the evening at the place of accommodation. The results indicated that cerebral activity in the prefrontal area of the forest area group was significantly lower than that of the group in the city area after walking; the concentration of salivary cortisol in the forest area group was significantly lower than that of the group in the city area before and after watching each landscape. The results of the physiological measurements show that Shinrin-yoku can effectively relax both people's body and spirit.
Measuring Stress is the definitive resource for health and social scientists interested in assessing stress in humans. With contributions from leading experts, this work provides for the first time a unified conceptual overview of the intricate relationship between stress and a variety of disorders. Its interdisciplinary approach to the selection of appropriate environmental, psychological, and biological measures includes comprehensive evaluations and practical advice regarding a wide range of measurement approaches. For environmental stress, techniques such as checklists and interviews that measure life event, daily event, and chronic stress are discussed. An analysis of psychological measurements includes methods for assessing stress appraisal and affective response. Neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and immune measures are examined as important biological stress assessments. Contributors also uncover the conceptual underpinnings of each approach as well as the various costs and benefits of available assessment techniques. Reflecting the diversity of theoretical conceptions of stress, Measuring Stress masterfully provides integrative, incisive guidelines that will prove invaluable to students, clinicians, and researchers in health and social psychology, medicine, nursing, epidemiology, sociology, and psychiatry.
Over the past decades, a number of empirical studies have documented that nature or elements of nature in both outdoor and indoor settings can be beneficial for human health and well-being. Wood is a natural product and it is therefore relevant to investigate whether interior wood use might have some of the same beneficial effects. The aim of the present study is therefore to investigate whether interior wood use might be psychologically beneficial by reviewing studies that have investigated psychological responses toward wood. The study also provides a general introduction to theories that can help explain why wood might be psychologically beneficial. Studies related to psychological responses toward interior wood use have generally focused on three different outcomes: 1) perception of wood, including both visual perception and tactile sensation; 2) attitudes and preferences (aesthetic evaluation) of various wood products; and 3) psychophysiological responses toward wood. The review posits that there seem to be similarities in preferences for wood and that people prefer wood because it is natural. In addition, affective responses toward wood seem to be measurable, giving indications of psychological beneficial effects. However, caution should be made in concluding from the review that interior wood use is psychologically beneficial. Thus, theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed and research needs identified.
Health and well-being in the workplace have become common topics in the mainstream media, in practitioner-oriented magazines and journals and, increasingly, in scholarly research journals. In this article, we first review the literature that serves to define health and well-being. We then discuss the primary factors associated with health and well-being, the consequences of low levels of health and well-being, and common methods for improving health and well-being in the workplace. Finally, we highlight important future directions for future theory, research, and practice regarding health and well-being from an organizational perspective.
This study investigated the psychological (perceived restorativeness, subjective vitality, mood, creativity) and physiological (salivary cortisol concentration) effects of short-term visits to urban nature environments. Seventy-seven participants visited three different types of urban areas; a built-up city centre (as a control environment), an urban park, and urban woodland located in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Our results show that the large urban park and extensively managed urban woodland had almost the same positive influence, but the overall perceived restorativeness was higher in the woodland after the experiment. The findings suggest that even short-term visits to nature areas have positive effects on perceived stress relief compared to built-up environment. The salivary cortisol level decreased in a similar fashion in all three urban environments during the experiment. The relations between psychological measures and physiological measures, as well as the influence of nature exposure on different groups of people, need to be studied further.
The aim of this study is to determine preferences for the environmental factors of residential buildings by using two different methods: the conjoint analysis and ranking method. We tried to identify consumers' monetary value regarding environmental performance by testing their Marginal Willing to Pay (MWTP). A survey was conducted in Seoul, Korea to clarify the preference and monetary value of four selected attributes representing environmental performance. These attributes are reduction of energy bills, reduction of CO2 emissions, reduction of volatile organic compound emissions, and application of information technology facilities. The result can be summarized as follows. The MWTP for 1% reduction of CO2 emission is estimated about $377 USD, being 2 times higher than that for reduction of VOC emissions and almost same as that for the reduction of energy bills. The energy bill is most preferred and IT facilities are least preferred in ranking method. Preferences vary according to respondents' socio-demographic factors and the numerical information in conjoint analysis makes strongly reflect them.
The North American nonresidential construction sector represents a substantial market for structural building materials, yet it is relatively untapped by wood. This study explored wood use and perceptions held by architects and engineers with respect to the structural use of wood in nonresidential buildings, using an extensive mail survey and a series of specifier focus groups in select geographic regions. Several clear barriers for wood emerged across code, technology transfer, and research and development cat- egories. Key problem areas identified were fire-related building code limitations, wood's cost-competitiveness with steel, wood's design difficulty, and poor training for designers and wood tradespeople. Recommendations for addressing these impedi- ments in both the short and long term are offered.
Under typical viewing conditions, we can easily group materials into distinct classes (e.g., woods, plastics, textiles). Additionally, we can also make many other judgments about material properties (e.g., hardness, rigidity, colorfulness). Although these two types of judgment (classification and inferring material properties) have different requirements, they likely facilitate one another. We conducted two experiments to investigate the interactions between material classification and judgments of material qualities in both the visual and semantic domains. In Experiment 1, nine students viewed 130 images of materials from 10 different classes. For each image, they rated nine subjective properties (glossiness, transparency, colorfulness, roughness, hardness, coldness, fragility, naturalness, prettiness). In Experiment 2, 65 subjects were given the verbal names of six material classes, which they rated in terms of 42 adjectives describing material qualities. In both experiments, there was notable agreement between subjects, and a relatively small number of factors (weighted combinations of different qualities) were substantially independent of one another. Despite the difficulty of classifying materials from images (Liu, Sharan, Adelson, & Rosenholtz, 2010), the different classes were well clustered in the feature space defined by the subjective ratings. K-means clustering could correctly identify class membership for over 90% of the samples, based on the average ratings across subjects. We also found a high degree of consistency between the two tasks, suggesting subjects access similar information about materials whether judging their qualities visually or from memory. Together, these findings show that perceptual qualities are well defined, distinct, and systematically related to material class membership.
Abstract The ‘restorative environment’ concept sees considerable use in the ,environment-behaviour-design field these days. Much of the ,concept’s appeal has to do ,with how ,it helps us to ,relate health to experiences in natural environments. With this paper I offer some,support for efforts to develop,and apply knowledge,about restorative environments,as health,resources. I will also share some,thoughts onwhere,we stand,with research on restorative environments,and where research in the area can go next. More specifically, I will discuss how we define restoration; a general framework for theories about restorative environments; some,requirements of empirical tests of those theories; and the public health vs. therapeutic values of restorative environments. Keywords:Natural environments; restoration; restorative environments; stress
This research studied possible benefits of indoor plants on attention capacity in a controlled laboratory experiment. Participants were 34 students randomly assigned to one of two conditions: an office setting with four indoor plants, both flowering and foliage, or the same setting without plants. Attention capacity was assessed three times, i.e. immediately after entering the laboratory, after performing a demanding cognitive task, and after a five-minute break. Attention capacity was measured using a reading span test, a dual processing task known to tap the central executive function of attention. Participants in the plant condition improved their performance from time one to two, whereas this was not the case in the no-plant condition. Neither group improved performance from time two to three. The results are discussed in the context of Attention Restoration Theory and alternative explanations.Research highlights► Indoor plants in an office can prevent fatigue during attention demanding work. ► Attention restoration does not depend on a defined “five-minute” break. ► Benefits of plants can occur in offices with window view to nature
The effect of visual stimulation from wood on the body was examined in a comparative study using full-sized hinoki wall panels and a white steel wall panel. Continuous blood pressure measurements were used as the physiological indicator. Sensory evaluation by the semantic differential (SD) method and the profile of mood states (POMS) test were performed to determine changes in psychological impression. Results showed that visual stimulation from hinoki wall panels had an emotional and natural impression upon humans. Blood pressure decreased significantly in subjects who liked them, and there was no significant increase in blood pressure in subjects who disliked them. Visual stimulation from the white steel wall panel made an unhealthy and closed impression and increased the sense of depression. In addition, there was stress and a significant increase in blood pressure in subjects who disliked them. Consequently, visual stimulation from hinoki and white steel wall panels had different physiological and psychological effects. Results also showed that the same visual stimulation induced different physiological responses depending on the values of the individuals.
To clarify the visual effects of room interior with wooden materials on humans, pulse rate, blood pressure, and brain activity
were measured while the subjects were exposed to visual stimuli using actual-size model rooms. The wood ratios (the ratio
of the area covered with wooden material to the whole area of the ceiling, walls, and floor) of the rooms were 0%, 45%, and
90%. Subjective evaluation was also conducted. In the 0% room, diastolic blood pressure decreased significantly, but the observed
change in the autonomic nervous activity was relatively small. In the 45% room, a significant decrease in the diastolic blood
pressure and a significant increase in pulse rate were observed. This room tended to have the highest scores in subjective
“comfortable” feeling. The 90% room caused significant and large decreases in systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood
pressure at the beginning of the test, but the large coverage of wood appeared to cause a rapid decrease in brain activity
and an increase in pulse rate. The present study demonstrated that a difference in wood ratio in the interior caused different
physiological responses, especially in the autonomic nervous activity, by using actual-size rooms for the first time.
Carbon stocks in the wood products pool are considered to be increasing globally. Simplified methods for estimating the fate of carbon in wood products need to be prepared to allow estimation at the national level. Since current methods cause some problems when dealing with specific countries, we try to improve the current methods. We discuss the potential carbon sequestration in wood products and the impacts of three accounting approaches (IPCC default, stock-change and atmospheric-flow) on net carbon emissions of 16 industrialized countries. We draw the following conclusions: (1) we improved the current methods for estimating the fate of carbon by considering the recycling of paper and the use of other fiber pulp, but further improvement need to be made; (2) the annual carbon sequestrations in wood products during 1990–1999 correspond to a few to 10% of 1990 base-year emissions from fossil fuels and cement production, depending on country and year. For the analyzed countries as a whole, the annual carbon sequestration was around 2%; (3) the impact of the accounting approaches on net carbon emissions at the national level is significant. Therefore, policy implications must be carefully considered when one of these approaches is adopted.
The assessment of cortisol in saliva has proven a valid and reliable reflection of the respective unbound hormone in blood. To date, assessment of cortisol in saliva is a widely accepted and frequently employed method in psychoneuroendocrinology. Due to several advantages over blood cortisol analyses (e.g., stress-free sampling, laboratory independence, lower costs) saliva cortisol assessment can be the method of choice in basic research and clinical environments. The determination of cortisol in saliva can facilitate stress studies including newborns and infants and replace blood sampling for diagnostic endocrine tests like the dexamethasone suppression test. The present paper provides an up-to-date overview of recent methodological developments, novel applications as well as a discussion of possible future applications of salivary cortisol determination.
When forest is harvested some of the forest carbon ends up in wood products. If the forest is managed so that the standing stock of the forest remains constant over time, and the stock of wood products is increasing, then carbon dioxide is being removed from the atmosphere in net and this should be reflected in accounting for greenhouse gas emissions. We suggest that carbon sequestration in wood products requires cooperation of multiple parties; from the forest owner to the product manufacturer to the product user, and perhaps others. Credit for sequestering carbon away from the atmosphere could acknowledge the contributions of these multiple parties. Accounting under a cap-and-trade or tax system is not necessarily an inventory system, it is a system designed to motivate and/or reward an environmental objective. We describe a system of attribution whereby credits for carbon sequestration would be shared among multiple, contributing parties. It is hoped that the methodology outlined herein proves attractive enough to parties concerned to spur them to address the details of such a system. The system of incentives one would choose for limiting or controlling greenhouse gas emissions could be quite different, depending on how the attribution for emissions and sequestration is chosen.
Directed attention plays an important role in human information processing; its fatigue, in turn, has far-reaching consequences. Attention Restoration Theory provides an analysis of the kinds of experiences that lead to recovery from such fatigue. Natural environments turn out to be particularly rich in the characteristics necessary for restorative experiences. An integrative framework is proposed that places both directed attention and stress in the larger context of human-environment relationships.
People have been bringing plants into residential and other indoor settings for centuries, but little is known about their psychological effects. In the present article, we critically review the experimental literature on the psychological benefits of indoor plants. We focus on benefits gained through passive interactions with indoor plants rather than on the effects of guided interactions with plants in horticultural therapy or the indirect effect of indoor plants as air purifiers or humidifiers. The reviewed experiments addressed a variety of outcomes, including emotional states, pain perception, creativity, task-performance, and indices of autonomic arousal. Some findings recur, such as enhanced pain management with plants present, but in general the results appear to be quite mixed. Sources of this heterogeneity include diversity in experimental manipulations, settings, samples, exposure durations, and measures. After addressing some overarching theoretical issues, we close with recommendations for further research with regard to experimental design, measurement, analysis, and reporting.
An indoor climate is mainly influenced by factors including heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, building envelope and materials, occupants, furniture, and service life of the building components. These last few years, the usual porous medium provided in wall and flooring constructions have been pointed out as possible passive systems capable of buffering the indoor climate variations in terms of temperature and humidity. The objective for the ongoing project is, therefore, to evaluate the possibility of ensuring an indoor climate within an acceptable range making use of large exposed massive wood surfaces. An experimental study, being performed in four occupied apartments of a multi-storey residential building in Sweden, is described in this paper. A brief analysis of the in situ recordings is also included. The temperature and relative humidity recordings show fairly well-agreement with the ASHRAE recommended values for a good indoor climate excepted during the cold periods revealing low indoor relative humidity. The first results show evidences that a large area of exposed massive wood contributes to buffer the indoor temperature variations. Furthermore, this far it does not shows evidences that a large area of exposed massive wood is able to damp the daily fluctuations in relative humidity.
Salivary cortisol is frequently used as a biomarker of psychological stress. However, psychobiological mechanisms, which trigger the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA) can only indirectly be assessed by salivary cortisol measures. The different instances that control HPAA reactivity (hippocampus, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenals) and their respective modulators, receptors, or binding proteins, may all affect salivary cortisol measures. Thus, a linear relationship with measures of plasma ACTH and cortisol in blood or urine does not necessarily exist. This is particularly true under response conditions. The present paper addresses several psychological and biological variables, which may account for such dissociations, and aims to help researchers to rate the validity and psychobiological significance of salivary cortisol as an HPAA biomarker of stress in their experiments.