6.25.10 | Minneapolis, MN | InformeDesign released new research summaries.
 
Author's Title: Risk Factors for Dissatisfaction with the Indoor Environment in Open-plan Offices: An Analysis of COPE Field Study Data

Design Issue

This study investigated the relationships between physical variables (e.g., workstation size, proximity to a window, privacy) and indoor environment satisfaction among office workers in North America and compared the findings to existing office environment recommendations.

Key Concepts

Findings for office worker satisfaction with privacy and acoustics included the following:

- Workers with smaller workspaces (<7 feet) were significantly more likely than workers with large workstations (>10 feet) to be dissatisfied than satisfied.

- Workers near windows were two times less likely to be satisfied than those more than 15 feet from a window, possibly due to the lack of visual privacy from the outside view and the window surface’s sound reflective qualities.

- Workers within 15 feet of a window but without a window in their personal workstation were five times more likely to be satisfied than those with a window in their workstation.

Findings for office worker satisfaction with ventilation included:

- Workers seated near windows were more likely to be dissatisfied than those seated further away from windows possibly due to temperature discomfort caused by window drafts.

Findings for office worker satisfaction with lighting included the following:

- Workers with lower (<54 in) panel heights were more likely to be satisfied than those with higher (>66 in) panel heights.

- Workers with lower levels of glare were more likely to be satisfied than those with higher levels.

- Workers with desktop illuminance of 300-500 lux were more likely to be satisfied than those with higher illuminance levels.

- Workers further from windows (>15 ft) were more likely to be dissatisfied than those seated closer.


Author's Title: Survival of Amoebae on Building Materials

Design Issue

- This experiment investigated amoebae’s ability to survive on different building materials samples (mineral insulation, linoleum, concrete, pine wood, birch wood, gypsum board) that were exposed to water.

Key Concepts

- Amoebae survived on four (gypsum board, mineral insulation, old pine wood, and birch wood) of the six wet materials tested for the duration of the testing period (i.e., 56 days). Gypsum board offered the most favorable environment for amoebae survival. For gypsum board and mineral insulation, amoebae survived the entire period, even without nutrients.

- Most samples of all materials (except for unused pine and unused concrete) examined three hours after inoculation showed the presence of amoebae.

- Old pine wood samples showed amoebae presence through day 56 (last day of experiment) whether or not nutrients (E. coli) were added to it, while unused pine wood immediately killed amoebae, indicating the age of the wood may have been a factor.

- The survival of amoebae on gypsum board and mineral insulation, may be because some of the materials’ ingredients were nutrition sources for amoebae (e.g., gypsum board may contain starch, mineral insulation may contain urea). Amoebae survival on old pine and birch woods may be because of accumulated organic matter on the wood as opposed to nutrients the wood itself provided.  Amoebae did not survive on used pine wood, possibly because it emitted VOCs, which may contain antimicrobial properties (Hmamouchi et al., 2001; Hong et al., 2004).