Abstract
This paper discusses the importance of including time in environmental design and the challenges facing environmental design now and in the future. Research shows that important factors for studying the effects of environments are time, body movement, control and sensory variability. There are many ways to incorporate time into the design and it is dependent on the type of environmental design. Research also suggests that discomfort in restrictive environments, e.g., in an airplane or automobile are strongly related long periods of inactivity and lack of sensory stimulation. Research also suggests that office workers’ health risks are in a large part due to restrictive movement, training inefficiencies, and lack of variation found in the environment. A challenge is how to incorporate stimulating activities and variation into restrictive environments. Another challenge is the cost versus benefit of designing comfortable and healthy environments. Will comfort standards be accomplished through volunteer compliance or is it necessary to push for compliance through legal requirements, standards and regulations? Is it time to consider reducing discomfort as a necessity and apply what research has suggested, i.e., that variation and movement over time in interior environments promotes well-being and productivity? Is it time to accept the results of research and apply the findings to the designs and practice of environmental design?
The inclusion of ‘time’ in the featured articles of WORK, special issue on environmental design
Research in this journal demonstrated that even the ideal seat still causes discomfort when a person sits for a long period of time without movement (see Fig. 1). Smulders et al. [1] tested two comfortable business class aircraft seats for discomfort and in both seats the discomfort increased after sitting over several hours. Groenesteijn et al. [2] showed that, by adding dynamic work stations to offices, there is great potential to reduce health risks as the static working posture at offices has been shown to produce many health risks. Van Veen and Vink [3] confirmed that by adding a slow movement in the car seat pan and the back rest improved comfort.
Hiemstra-van Mastrigt et al. [4] found that the most refreshing effect in a flight of more than 6 hours was the ability to move and walk throughout the plane. Additionally, the study showed that after serving food, discomfort was reduced and was significantly different from other conditions where only drinks were served. After serving only drinks, the discomfort increased with time. These studies indicate that it is important to account for the entire journey from start to finish. Similar findings were found in other environments such as office interiors [5], healthcare interiors [6] and ship interiors [7].
Comfort in ‘time’
Including ‘time’ in research is not a new concept. Bronfenbrenner & Morris [8] proposed a bio-ecological model: the Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) model. They stated that the most scientifically rich studies included more than one distinct factor and incorporate all four mentioned factors: process, person, context and time. In fact before designing an environment, an understanding of the past experiences and expectations of the potential users should be made first and then incorporated into the designed environment. Studies should be conducted likewise for buildings and for modes of transportation. The comfort level or effect should be taken several times during the day (preferably at the same time every day) and during the week or months as studies have shown that discomfort fluctuates during the day, week or month. Bazley et al. [9] illustrated that in various professions (construction industry, administrative and engineering) discomfort levels increased during the day. During the week the discomfort increased and lowered again after the Wednesday or Thursday moving towards the weekend. An unpublished study, researching comfort during the week, included 77 students (35 male and 42 female, age range 20–27 years) from the Industrial Design Engineering Department from Delft University in the Netherlands, showed a pattern of comfort that changed during the week. The students were asked to give a comfort score of the day during a week (Fig. 2). On Monday the comfort was significantly lower than during the weekend and on Friday, before the weekend, the comfort levels were significantly higher than Thursday, the day before (t-test for paired comparison, p < 0.05).
‘Time’ spent before arriving to the environment
It is not only important to examine time spent in the environment, but also to explore the time before entering the environment and what has occurred before. If the setting is in nature, the experience of an interior environment could be different than a city interior environment. Park et al. [10] showed the difference in effects between a forest and a city on people in an experiment. Two hundred and eighty subjects walked in the forest and then in the city. The salivary cortisol was significantly lower (15.8% decrease), the average systolic blood pressure was significantly lower (1.9% decrease), and the heart rate was lower for subjects after walking in the forest as compared to walking in the city. These physical parameters are related to stress and indicate a reduction in stress. Additionally, the subjects’ experienced mood states were improved, e.g., less depression and lower tension. This indicates when a person enters a building, the mood and stress levels differ and are dependent on where a person has been. This is also true for aircraft interiors. Konieczny [11] studied the flight comfort before, during, and after the flight in 936 passengers. These subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire and an exploratory factor analysis was used to interpret the results. Konieczny found that comfort during the flight correlated most with the comfort preceding the flight (r = 0.407), fear of flying (r = 0.492), and attitude toward flying (r = 0.367). Correlations to other factors were weaker. This study infers that situations or experiences before the flight could influence the experience during the flight [11].
Incorporate time into the design
The part of the environment touching the human body
A seat is an example of a product touching the body. Van Veen [3] showed that a seat was experienced as softer when the previous seat was very hard. This provides an opportunity for designers of aircraft seats or car seats. For instance if a person first experiences discomfort, such as a hard seat and then is provided the opportunity to change the discomfort to comfort, such as pressing a seat button to soft, the person really experiences the softness and will be more aware of this quality because of the magnitude of change from hard to soft. This phenomenon is further theorized in the ‘sweetness of discomfort’ by Vink [12].
The ‘sweetness of discomfort’
The hypothesis stated in ‘the sweetness of discomfort’ claims that by making all the steps in the journey highly comfortable does not automatically make the entire journey comfortable. Perhaps phases of discomfort or low comfort should be allowed to stimulate more awareness of high comfort or low discomfort levels: “the sweetness of discomfort” [12]. Of course the discomfort should not be so high that it overrides the event and makes the entire journey a terrible experience. Introducing a bed of sharp nails or introducing sounds above the pain level is not a recommendation or the object of this study. The challenge is to find the ideal balance between comfort and discomfort experiences for the entire journey. The number of articles and experts in the field of musculoskeletal loading, promoting a seat or an office environment that stimulates movement, is growing. Nordin [13] states that, based on a review of epidemiological studies, prolonged sitting in a restricted posture is a risk factor for musculoskeletal injuries. This is an argument to demonstrate the need for movement stimulation when sedentary activities are required the majority of the time. Lueder [14] also states that, based on a review of ergonomic studies, more dynamic sitting and more variation in posture reduces discomfort and is better for maintaining a healthy body. There is also a maximum on what is possible and what people want to do in their environment. Variation and the inclusion of choice for people is an important factor in design of a universally optimized system. A few hours of exercising might be healthy, but may not be pleasant for everyone and may not be feasible depending on the environment. The right combination of unity and variation which applies to the evaluation and aesthetic appreciation of a product could be useful for designing a healthy combination of movement and static posture, as well as in travel journeys or office work [15].
The part of the environment close to the human body
As mentioned above, serving food or having the possibility to move about the aircraft or adjust the seat significantly reduces discomfort [4]. For flights longer than 6 hours active moving seems to be essential for comfort. For shorter flights, serving food and the seating adjustment associated with the activity of eating, appears to temporarily reduce discomfort. When people are sitting at a desk for office work, it seems important to add one of the forms of working described by Groenesteijn et al. [2]. There is also literature available that demonstrates that by alternating sitting postures with standing postures, during work tasks, reduces discomfort [16]. Postural variation seems to have positive effects. Some health effects of sit-standing tables have been reported. Aaras et al. [17] demonstrated that standing Visual Display Unit (VDU) work reduced muscle activity significantly as compared with sitting VDU work. Vellinga [18] found that improved feelings of well-being were reported in 84% of the subjects after introducing sit-stand tables. Beneficial results for sit-stand workstations have been reported by several research studies [19–22]. However, there is still scepticism of sit-stand tables and workstations or working while bicycling (described in the study by Groenesteijn et al. [2]) not only in the field of study but from an applied standpoint aswell.
The part of the environment further away from the human body
Bazley [23] discussed the importance of including time, nature, and sensory variability into the design of a comfortable built interior environment. The human sensory system welcomes variety, some degree of randomness referred to as contrast pattern recognition, or sensory variability [24]. Humans tend to gravitate towards natural scenery due to a hypothesized instinctual preference for savannahs and other living, green environments [25]. This interest in nature allows people to reduce discomfort and absorb comfort from the natural features without much effort, allowing for recuperation of the mind and body. Environmental psychologists note that observing nature scenery resulted in improved cognitive task performance and may offset mental fatigue and stress [26]. Ulrich [27] conducted a study on the effectiveness of a window view on gall bladder recovery. Conditions for both groups were the same except for the window, and then measuring the effect of the window view against the number of days in the hospital, medication consumption, and comfort. Ulrich showed that the number of days in the hospital as well as the use of medication was significantly lower in the windows with a view. It is also possible that the variability in the light during the day (time) was experienced. The positive effects of activity based offices (e.g. Blok et al. [28]) can also be explained by time. During the day people perform various tasks and for each task an optimum environment exists for those tasks in the activity based office. At home it is accepted that the different tasks are completed in different places: cooking in the kitchen, sleeping in the bedroom and talking with guests at the dining table or living room. An activity based office might provide inspirational environments, such as office gardens and individual concentration work area quiet rooms where a person could concentrate and stimulate creativity to enhance their work.
Conclusion
Important factors for studying comfort and time are movement, control or availability of movement, and variation. Constrictive movement, such as that found in aircraft and automobile designs call for more personalization and control of movements in the environment. The most comfortable seat will still become uncomfortable during prolonged periods of time. The overall design of an aircraft or automobile is restrictive for movement due to the nature of the performed tasks. What needs to explored is: how feasible or safe is it to have passengers move about in an aircraft or automobile in a moving restricted space? Training is a large part of success for products such as seats. Do users understand how to adjust products for comfort? Is stimulating movement part of the training? Who is responsible for the training? Do the benefits outweigh the costs to provide more aircraft passenger or automobile driver mobility? How do we prove the benefits outweigh costs?
The challenge is how to do this. Will comfort compliance be accomplished through volunteer compliance or do we need to push harder for requirements, standards and regulations? Research suggests that office workers’ health risks are in a large part due to restrictive movement, training inefficiencies, and lack of variation found in the environment. Built environments, such as offices and healthcare environments, are less movement restrictive and can be designed to be more movement friendly, less restrictive and provide variation. However, the reality of providing the benefit of comfort to workers, such as adjustable workstations or bicycle workstations, is rarely applied unless a health provider intervenes. At the present time, reducing discomfort is generally considered an added benefit, not a safety factor and not a necessity. It is time to consider reducing discomfort as a necessity and apply what research has suggested, i.e., that variation and movement over time in interior environments promotes well-being and productivity. It is time to accept the results of research and apply the findings to the designs and practice of environmental design.
There are many ways to incorporate time into the design and it is dependent on the type of environmental design. In environmental design research studies, ‘time’ should be taken into account. Additionally, the time phase before and the time phase of entering the environment should also be considered. These time phases have an added effect on the overall perceived designed environment.
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflict of interest to report.