ASHRAE Journal - July 2020 - 68

COLUMN IEQ APPLICATIONS

ensure that essential information for work is understood. The general strategy of providing adequate
acoustic comfort is to reduce the sound power of
sources, choosing appropriate sound insulation of
walls and windows and ensuring sufﬁcient sound
absorption of the room.

Business Organization and Workplace Design
The work of our ancestors focused on obtaining food,
gathering wood for ﬁres and ensuring the safety of
the family and the tribe. Currently, the complexity
of tasks forces the high specialization of employees.
Ofﬁce workers constitute a considerable, well-educated
group, affected by the widespread occurrence of stress
because of the nature of their work and high levels of
competition.6
In developed countries, the share of labor costs of
ofﬁce work together with related business activities reaches 90% of building operating expenses.
Meanwhile, energy bills are only about 1% of nonindustrial business costs.7 Therefore, employers should
pay attention to thermal comfort, IAQ and work organization as they strongly affect the performance of the
ofﬁce work.8
Most often, an employee performs at least several
different activities during the day, and the optimal
parameters of the working microenvironment can be
different for each. That is one reason the concept of a
permanent workplace is losing attraction in favor of
freely accessible workplaces dedicated to various types
of work.
In companies focused on innovations, many people
work in their favorite position on a hammock or couch
with a laptop on their lap. Since work performed in one
place is annoying for a long time, such buildings may
have a mini-basketball court, billiards table, bicycles or
training tracks.

Biophilia
The term biophilia, the innate human tendency for
nature, was popularized in the 1980s by Edward O.
Wilson.9 A new trend in interior design, "biophilic
design," highlights the growing popularity of this concept. The idea has three principles: nature in the space,
natural analogs and nature of the space.10
Typical examples of the introduction of nature
indoors are potted plants, gardens in internal
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courtyards, ponds, aquariums and arranging natural
views through windows. Paintings and photos of landscapes and animals, building elements that mimic
shells and leaves, or furniture displaying the grain of
the wood are examples of equivalents and substitutes
for nature. The "savanna theory" drives interior architects to design spaces resembling low-growing grasses,
clusters of shady trees and the broadest possible views.
The Johnson Wax Building (design by Frank Lloyd
Wright, 1936) is a ﬂagship example of space inspired by
this theory (Figure 3, Page 66).

Conclusions
Designers try to reproduce in ofﬁces the conditions of
microclimate, air quality, lighting and acoustics characteristic for African savanna. Modern technologies allow
creating such conditions regardless of the geographical
location of the building. As a creative environment is an
ambitious task, a constant broadening of knowledge in
many areas (e.g., human physiology, environmental sciences and social psychology) is required.

References

1. Domínguez-Rodrigo, M. 2014. "Is the 'savanna hypothesis'
a dead concept for explaining the emergence of the earliest
hominins?" Current Anthropology 55(1):59-81.
2. Sundell, J. 2004. "On the history of indoor air quality and
health." Indoor Air 14(s7):51-58.
3. McIntyre, D.A. and Gonzalez, R.R. 1976. "Man's thermal
senstivity during temperature changes at two levels of clothing
insulation and activity." ASHRAE Transactions 82(2).
4. Schiller, G., E.A. Arens,F. Bauman, C. Benton, et al. 1988.
"A ﬁeld study of thermal environments and comfort in ofﬁce
buildings." ASHRAE Transactions 94(2).
5. Asikainen, A., P. Carrer, S. Kephalopoulos, E. de Oliveira
Fernandes, et al. 2016. "Reducing burden of disease from
residential indoor air exposures in Europe (HEALTHVENT project)."
Environmental Health 15(1):S35.
6. European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. 2009. OSH in
Figures: Stress at Work-Facts and Figures. Ofﬁce for Ofﬁcial Publ. of the
European Communities.
7. World Green Building Council. 2014. "Health, Wellbeing &
Productivity in Ofﬁces."
8. Wargocki, P., D.P. Wyon. 2017. "Ten questions concerning
thermal and indoor air quality effects on the performance of ofﬁce
work and schoolwork." Building and Environment
112:359-366.
9. Wilson, E.O. 1984. Biophilia. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard Press.
10. Browning, W.D., N. Kallianpurkar, C.O.
Ryan, L. Labruto, et al. 2012. "The Economics of https://bit.ly/2YUre1l
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