Flourishing the Biophilic Workplaces: A Co-Design Toolkit

Abstract

Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is a matter of immense concern for people’s health and their productivity. With this in mind, the present study relies on the Flourish wheel, first, to create a Co-design toolkit that offers an opportunity for designers and architects to indicate their perspectives on improving open-plan workplaces; due to the lack of using different design processes such as the toolkit in explaining architecture theories, this study is the first of its kind to develop a co-design toolkit in architecture, which can be used to improve the design of workplaces in a way that affects their occupants positively. Second, it is going to help in improving an office environment by means of the Biophilia design approach and bring the natural environment indoors.

In this co-design study, participants interactively discuss and share their ideas, and the researcher collates and model the results in the direction that they wished, by four steps of cards; the activity guide which is designed to explain the aim and the process of the toolkit for the user, then the flourish cards which has been created to evaluate the existing workplace environment and determine the main IEQ issues based on the flourish questions which has been divided into six categories; thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting environment, acoustics environment, spatial layout and the aesthetics in the workplace. After that, there are the Biophilic cards that present a list of solutions with different user budgets based on the 14 patterns of Biophilia, and finally the plants' cards; which provides the participants with a number of potted plants and some tips on how can they be used inside the office environment in order to enhance the different IEQ factors which in turn affects the occupants’ wellness.

This toolkit would allow a researcher to conduct a co-study in two separate rounds virtually with 24 participants; from the design, architecture and the built environment sectors. They could identify the role of the IEQ in an office environment and show how they affect the occupants’ health, well-being and productivity. Next, they could propose recommendations for improving the environmental quality of the office using Biophilic design patterns.