Design and Environmental Analysis

The study assessed the performance of a newly-built sustainable hospital by comparing the thermal comfort of its patients and staff, and the ambient thermal conditions with those of two other hospitals with less sophisticated designs. Additionally, a facility management perspective was used to understand the role hospital administrators had in contributing to sustainable design outcomes and document the unanticipated challenges and unintended consequences of operating the newly-built sustainable hospital.
Data were collected through thermal environment equipment, a thermal comfort survey, and interviews with care providers, patients, and facility managers. The hypotheses were that the hospital with the modern and more sophisticated sustainable ventilation design features would have a higher level of thermal comfort and lower heat index in the naturally ventilated wards than hospitals without those features and that thermal comfort would be higher in air-conditioned wards than naturally ventilated wards.
The results indicate that sophisticated sustainable hospital designs can improve the ambient thermal environment and occupant thermal comfort but not all those features were necessary. The study also suggests the need for adopting an integrated sustainable design strategy to prevent or mitigate some of the facility operation challenges encountered. Additionally, the study proposes for a shift in thermal comfort standards and green building rating tools to meet the unique thermal comfort needs of hospital users.

Some patients who are not able to stay positive start to develop depression. A study found that up to 58% of cancer patients experience some form of anxiety and depression (Massie 2004). These can range from sadness to major affective disorders. The severity of depression varies with cancer types. Oropharyngeal and lung cancer patients are most prone to depression (ibid). After diagnosis, cancer patients have to navigate through a complex and drawn-out treatment process, involving multiple inpatient and outpatient visits to the hospital at multiple hospital sites including imaging, surgery, outpatient laboratories, chemotherapy suites, radiation therapy and medical consultations. As a result, the patient can very often be overwhelmed and discouraged by both the length and complicated treatment process. Cancers and therapeutic interventions can often cause excruciating pain for cancer patients. Moreover, side-effects from surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy can make the cancer treatment unbearable.. Some forms of cancer (e.g., lung) are heavily stigmatized and judged. For example, when Lori Hope, 54, a six-year lung cancer survivor told people about her success in beating cancer, she was invariably asked "Did you smoke?." Society is often cruel towards individuals with illnesses perceived to result from their own unhealthy and risky behavior. In addition, there are some people who perceive cancer as contagious and would not kiss or hug their loved ones for the fear they would "catch" their cancer or view cancer patients as sexually unattractive due to the loss of hair, having breasts removed, etc. These stigmas add greatly to the pressure cancer patients face when they are told of their disease.

The study assessed the performance of a newly-built sustainable hospital by comparing the thermal comfort of its patients and staff, and the ambient thermal conditions with those of two other hospitals with less sophisticated designs. Additionally, a facility management perspective was used to understand the role hospital administrators had in contributing to sustainable design outcomes and document the unanticipated challenges and unintended consequences of operating the newly-built sustainable hospital. Data were collected through thermal environment equipment, a thermal comfort survey, and interviews with care providers, patients, and facility managers. The hypotheses were that the hospital with the modern and more sophisticated sustainable ventilation design features would have a higher level of thermal comfort and lower heat index in the naturally ventilated wards than hospitals without those features and that thermal comfort would be higher in air-conditioned wards than naturally ventilated wards. The results indicate that sophisticated sustainable hospital designs can improve the ambient thermal environment and occupant thermal comfort but not all those features were necessary. The study also suggests the need for adopting an integrated sustainable design strategy to prevent or mitigate some of the facility operation challenges encountered. Additionally, the study proposes for a shift in thermal comfort standards and green building rating tools to meet the unique thermal comfort needs of hospital users. iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Ziqi (Zig) Wu originally hails from the Republic of Singapore. He attended St Catherine's College, University of Oxford where he studied Human Sciences. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honors) in July 2007 and received the St Catherine's College Book Prize for his performance in the Honor School Final Examinations. He also received a college travel award for conducting ethnographic fieldwork in 2006. Returning to Singapore after graduation, he worked for the Singapore government from 2007 to 2009. At the Singapore Economic Development Board, he developed and executed strategies to attract and evaluate foreign entrepreneurs in growing their business in Singapore. He was promoted to Assistant Director after successfully establishing and growing new markets in North Asia. He then worked for the Ministry of Health in Singapore as a Health Policy Analyst, where he oversaw the development and the financing of a $400 million hospital project and drafted design guidelines for nursing homes. To further his interest in the field of healthcare facilities, he left Singapore to pursue graduate education at Cornell University in 2009. At Cornell, he received three full-time teaching assistant scholarships and assisted in the teaching of various courses within and outside his department. He won the inaugural student competition at the ASHE Planning and Design Conference in 2011, and was awarded the inaugural IFMA Foundation International Student of the Year Award and Sodexo graduate scholarship in 2010. Upon graduation, he will work as a facilities planner for a hospital system in Orange County, California. iv Dedicated to my parents and grandparents, for all their love, inspiration and support. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to acknowledge Professor Franklin D. Becker for his mentorship and inspiration while serving as my thesis committee chair. I would also like to thank Professor William D. White and Professor Mary Tabacchi for their pivotal support as minor members of my thesis committee. Further, vital contributions were made by Professor Alan Hedge and Professor Ying Hua as informal members of my thesis committee. My debts of grattitude to the staff of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Changi General Hospital are enormous for granting me access to conduct my research at their facilities, their invaluable time in responding to my interview questions and providing assistance in gathering data from both patients and nurses. The following are individuals from these organizations whom I especially like to thank:

received a master of science degree in applied research in human-environment relations from the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University. Her facility consulting practice, JPK Consulting, offers services in facility planning and programming for both the workplace and educational environments. She lives in South Burlington, Vermont.

ABSTRACTAn increasing number of practice-based disciplines are embracing narrative inquiry as a powerful means of teaching the more intangible, human-centered issues of professional practice. While the field of design has a long history of using narrative metaphorically—that is, creating designs that tell a story—less emphasis has been placed on examining the potential of narrative as design method—as a tool for exploring ideas and guiding decisions throughout the various stages of the design process. This article examines the potential benefits of a narrative inquiry in a studio setting on design process and product.The authors present findings from an exploratory study in which twenty-eight senior level interior design students formally integrated narrative (storytelling) into three different phases of their creative design process: Programming, Conceptualization, and Presentation. The studio setting became a laboratory for exploring the unique qualities of narrative method in relation to more traditional 2-D and 3-D design methods. Personal insights and self-reported changes in thinking were collected, indicating how the students perceived the impact of the narrative intervention upon their design inquiry, design decisions, and quality of work. A content analysis of the written reflections of the students revealed that designing with stories resulted in a transformative learning experience that encouraged a deeply humanized design process by nurturing empathy, enhancing multi-sensory conceptualization and visualization, and facilitating holistic designing.An increasing number of practice-based disciplines are embracing narrative inquiry as a powerful means of teaching the more intangible, human-centered issues of professional practice. While the field of design has a long history of using narrative metaphorically—that is, creating designs that tell a story—less emphasis has been placed on examining the potential of narrative as design method—as a tool for exploring ideas and guiding decisions throughout the various stages of the design process. This article examines the potential benefits of a narrative inquiry in a studio setting on design process and product.The authors present findings from an exploratory study in which twenty-eight senior level interior design students formally integrated narrative (storytelling) into three different phases of their creative design process: Programming, Conceptualization, and Presentation. The studio setting became a laboratory for exploring the unique qualities of narrative method in relation to more traditional 2-D and 3-D design methods. Personal insights and self-reported changes in thinking were collected, indicating how the students perceived the impact of the narrative intervention upon their design inquiry, design decisions, and quality of work. A content analysis of the written reflections of the students revealed that designing with stories resulted in a transformative learning experience that encouraged a deeply humanized design process by nurturing empathy, enhancing multi-sensory conceptualization and visualization, and facilitating holistic designing.SummaryThe purpose of this investigation was to explore narrative inquiry as a design method in the studio classroom. Based on self-reported changes in design process and product, findings suggested that narrative method was a driving force in promoting a heightened sense of user empathy, enhanced multi-sensory conceptualization and visualization, and a greater tendency towards holistic thinking. This was true for each of the phases of the design process In which narrative method was applied: Programming, Concept Development, and Presentation. In addition, each of the three modes of narrative — reading, writing, and sharing stories — appeared to be an effective complement to traditional 2-D and 3-D methods, providing students with a mechanism to explore not only aesthetic design considerations, but also emotional connections to the user experience.The study revealed several unique qualities that arose when utilizing narrative as design method, most importantly the ability of narrative to help students shift their focus from an aesthetic consideration of the design and a focus on product to an emotional connection with the design and a focus on the person. Constructing stories helped students reposition themselves as user advocates, embrace multiple perspectives of user experience, and build a community of respect In the studio. How that evolution of student perspective translates into design performance is not yet understood.The social call of contemporary design places designers in a position that demands a greater focus on the human-centered issues of designing. Ideally, design serves society and is embedded withIn it. This realization continues to push design paradigms and methods beyond those traditionally centered around material artifacts. As design moves toward an evolving, systems-based view, that encompasses not only artifacts, but also social values, the individual, and the collective processes that lie at the heart of the creation, new methods are necessary to enable designers to heighten their understanding of different human experiences of space. Because narratives possess a unique ability to give meaning to human experience, they provide the designer with a promising tool to explore and communicate a totality of design experience as a fluid sequence of time and space. By building our narrative competence as designers, we will be building the deep, interpretive abilities needed to humanize our design process, enhance our interpersonal communication, and develop a greater understanding of the human-centered issues of professional practice.The purpose of this investigation was to explore narrative inquiry as a design method in the studio classroom. Based on self-reported changes in design process and product, findings suggested that narrative method was a driving force in promoting a heightened sense of user empathy, enhanced multi-sensory conceptualization and visualization, and a greater tendency towards holistic thinking. This was true for each of the phases of the design process In which narrative method was applied: Programming, Concept Development, and Presentation. In addition, each of the three modes of narrative — reading, writing, and sharing stories — appeared to be an effective complement to traditional 2-D and 3-D methods, providing students with a mechanism to explore not only aesthetic design considerations, but also emotional connections to the user experience.The study revealed several unique qualities that arose when utilizing narrative as design method, most importantly the ability of narrative to help students shift their focus from an aesthetic consideration of the design and a focus on product to an emotional connection with the design and a focus on the person. Constructing stories helped students reposition themselves as user advocates, embrace multiple perspectives of user experience, and build a community of respect In the studio. How that evolution of student perspective translates into design performance is not yet understood.The social call of contemporary design places designers in a position that demands a greater focus on the human-centered issues of designing. Ideally, design serves society and is embedded withIn it. This realization continues to push design paradigms and methods beyond those traditionally centered around material artifacts. As design moves toward an evolving, systems-based view, that encompasses not only artifacts, but also social values, the individual, and the collective processes that lie at the heart of the creation, new methods are necessary to enable designers to heighten their understanding of different human experiences of space. Because narratives possess a unique ability to give meaning to human experience, they provide the designer with a promising tool to explore and communicate a totality of design experience as a fluid sequence of time and space. By building our narrative competence as designers, we will be building the deep, interpretive abilities needed to humanize our design process, enhance our interpersonal communication, and develop a greater understanding of the human-centered issues of professional practice.

Legal and operational definitions of health, safety, and welfare are expanding to include greater emphasis on long-term issues of health and psychological well-being in addition to near-term safety issues. Mounting environmental research suggests that many interior design decisions previously thought of as benign with respect to their effects on human health and productivity may, in combination with other environmental influences, have debilitating effects on the occupant. Other research indicates that interior features and environmental amenities previously considered extravagant, can have an empowering influence on people, elevating their sense of self-worth and contributing to their long-term physical and emotional wellness. To better enable designers to understand their role in affecting the safety, health, and well-being of occupants, this article briefly describes emerging health concerns related to the indoor environment and cites environmental design research that potentially links these health concerns to interior design decisions. Rather than an exhaustive literature review, this paper focuses on selected studies that highlight the significance of interior design decisions in ensuring the health and well-being of the occupant. The goal is to propose a framework that makes the consequences of daily interior design decision making more evident to interior design practitioners and educators while providing a structure for future research.

This research reports on an ethnographic experiment that follows a day in the life of a restaurant chef de cuisine (kitchen boss). It examines a food experience from the perspective of the culinary practitioner rather than the consumer. The work is concerned with situations, which may occur, when a professional “cooks in the moment,”—or improvises—in creating a new dish. Using theoretical models derived from the discipline of organizational analysis founded on jazz improvisation metaphors, the author focuses on the improvisational performance of professional food preparation in the public sphere, via the restaurant, to explore the concepts of spontaneous creativity and extemporal organization. Using ethnographic description, the author concentrates on the production phase of the restaurant, and the recipe—the cornerstone of the cooks’ repertoire. The research analyzes how culinary improvisation potentially enhances professionals’ creativity by providing them opportunities to insert variety to standardized processes, and thus foster innovation and novelty. This micro-level examination employs a combination of ethnographic methods, (i.e., on-site fieldwork, participant observation and the interview). These primary source methods are then coupled with theoretical principles found in scholarly literature. This research engages the conceptual frameworks of reflective ethnography, enskillment, temporality, and vivencia—action performed with fully dedicated, present moment attention. Finally, the author argues that, as in jazz, improvisational cooking is not merely “cooking from nothing,” to paraphrase the bassist Charles Mingus, but rather an intuitive faculty that results from skill, experience, and the ability to efficiently access a system of knowledge in the negotiation of extemporaneous situations.

Este ensayo presenta los primeros encuentros de un estadounidense con la cocina peruana en el Perú. También muestra  cómo el conocimiento que uno tiene de una modalidad de alimentación extranjera  cambia de una familiaridad con (vía literatura secundaria) a un conocimiento de (vía experiencial) a través del trabajo de campo. Más que una simple memoria, la presente reunión de textos incorpora un enfoque multidisciplinario a la erudición, comprensión y apreciación del autor respecto de la cocina peruana en sus tres meses de trabajo de campo de verano por las tres regiones topográficas del Perú: costa,  sierra y selva, durante la investigación para su tesis de maestría sobre cocina peruana y modalidades de alimentación en el Perú. El presente ensayo, mediante diversos métodos etnográficos (p. ej., observación participante, entrevista participativa, ensayo fotográfico, autoetnografía y evaluación sensorial),  no solo subraya la diversidad de texturas y sabores de la cocina peruana,  sino también ilustra los diversos modos en los que se puede experimentar los alimentos y discutir sobre ellos. Este trabajo trata cuestiones de etnicidad y nacionalismo, clase, regionalismo, cosmopolitismo y globalismo, y  la noción de originalidad frente a la de autenticidad en la construcción de la “cocina peruana” (tradicional) y la “nueva cocina peruana”. Finalmente, este trabajo considera cómo el reciente florecimiento del campo gastronómico en el Perú ha estimulado un nuevo interés en dicho país y su herencia culinaria, tanto  en el mismo Perú como en los Estados Unidos de Norte América, lo cual a la vez que proporciona a los ciudadanos peruanos una vía para recobrar un sentido de orgullo e identidad cultural. Este capítulo sigue los sabores de Perú desde una perspectiva estadounidense y explora las diversas variaciones topográficas, étnicas y culturales que han sido parte de la herencia gastronómica del Perú.

This work employs visual ethnography to document a day in the life of a restaurant chef de cuisine, by examining the experience of a culinary practitioner rather than that of a consumer. The research is concerned with situations that may arise when a professional cooks on the spur of the moment, or “improvises,” when creating a new dish. Using theoretical models derived from organizational analysis founded on jazz improvisation metaphors, the author focuses on the improvisational performance of professional food preparation in the restaurant to explore concepts of spontaneous creativity and extemporal organization. Using ethnographic description, the author concentrates on the production phase of the restaurant. The research analyzes how improvisation potentially enhances culinary professionals’ creativity by providing them opportunities to insert variety to standardized processes and thus foster innovation and novelty. This microlevel examination employs a combination of ethnographic methods: on-site fieldwork, participant observation, and the interview. These primary source methods are then linked to theoretical principles found in scholarly literature. The work engages the conceptual frameworks of enskillment, temporality, present moment attention, and critical reflection. The author argues that improvisational cooking is an intuitive faculty that results from skill, experience, and the ability to efficiently access a
system of knowledge in the negotiation of extemporaneous situations.

In recent years highly glazed spaces and atrium buildings are seen as a sign of advanced technology. An atrium is the social center of a building where people gather for social activities and also is a significant element of passive building systems when well designed to provide user requirements. The study aims to accomplish a thermal performance simulation of an atrium building by specifying a prototype model of an office building in Istanbul. With the help of building simulation tools -EnergyPlus (Version 1.2.3), FLUENT (Version 6.2.16)-total energy consumption and air stratification of the atrium building is performed.

h i g h l i g h t s " We studied performance of pumice aggregate concrete block wall with hot box method. " Temperature and humidity were monitored in the hollows of test blocks. " Hollows have a lower thermal transmittance than the lightweight solid parts. " Porous material keeps moisture within its structure and dries slower from inside. " Lower and upper courses demonstrate slightly different hygrothermal behaviour.

This paper reports a post-occupancy evaluation study of a LEED Platinum building on a university campus. A multiple-tool POE approach with GIS-based spatial mapping method was used to analyze and visualize the survey results of building occupant satisfaction and the measured indoor environment quality. The occupants were overall satisfied with the indoor environment in their workspaces in the building of study, though thermal comfort was comparatively low with high percentage of occupants reporting their workspaces too cold. Air movement was found to be lower than preferred by the occupants, especially in interior offices where CO 2 level is also predominantly higher. Light levels in the building were found higher than preferred. Electric lighting power density installed did not reflect the fact that daylight is available for most of the lab and office spaces. Satisfaction with speech privacy was found lower in individual offices related to the construction detail of the connection between glazing curtain wall and interior walls. Linking performance outcomes with spatial information improves POE data management. Spatial mapping allows reasons that cause occupant discomfort and dissatisfactory measured performance to be identified more intuitively and makes it potentially easier to communicate POE results with architects, engineers and facility management professionals, to engaging them in the collaborative effort of continuous building performance improvement.

Purpose In the rise of offices designed to support activity-based working (ABW), parts of industry have fully transitioned to open-plan environments and then later to unassigned seating, whereas other parts, such as tertiary education, are still in the process of moving away from individual offices. There are a few relevant studies to understand how occupants from industry sectors with different levels of adoption of ABW perceived environments designed to support this way of working. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge gap by providing insight into workers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction from open-plan offices designed to support ABW along with the key predictors of perceived productivity. Design/methodology/approach A data set of 2,090 post-occupancy evaluation surveys conducted in five sectors – tertiary education, finance, construction, property/asset management and design/engineering – was analyzed. ANOVA and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted for the...

The COVID-19 global health crisis has spatial implications concerning social isolation to control the spread of the virus. The preventive measures require travelers to stay in mandatory quarantine for 14 days upon arrival from another country. Due to a shortage of government facilities, more hotels have started to function as quarantine facilities. This research focuses on quarantine hotels in Australia, as one of the first countries to implement an international border restriction, to evaluate the spatial needs of users and what see outcomes can be identified. By primarily focusing on hotel users’ well-being during the isolation period, this paper responds to an information gap regarding the quarantine hotel system by providing user opinions on the negative and positive factors affecting their well-being. A survey with multiple-choice and open-ended questionnaire items was conducted with 54 participants to investigate their experiences in quarantine hotels. Among the nine key sourc...

Currently, the available studies on the prediction of building energy performance and real occupancy data are typically characterized by aggregated and averaged occupancy patterns or large thermal zones of reference. Despite the increasing diffusion of smart energy management systems and the growing availability of longitudinal data regarding occupancy, these two domains rarely inform each other. This research aims at understanding the potential of employing real-time occupancy data to identify better cooling strategies for activity-based-working (ABW)-supportive offices and reduce the overall energy consumption. It presents a case study comparing the energy performance of the office when different resolutions of occupancy and thermal zoning are applied, ranging from the standard energy certification approach to real-time occupancy patterns. For the first time, one year of real-time occupancy data at the desk resolution, captured through computer logs and Bluetooth devices, is used ...

It is estimated that 1 in 3 Australian homes displays excessive dampness and mould proliferation, representing a significant threat to human health (physical and psychological). This study aims to provide a snapshot of the current indoor air quality of Australian residential buildings regarding air pollutants and biological growth via a case study. Monitoring results indicate that buildings with a high concentration of fungal spores are also more likely to present poor indoor air quality levels, high concentrations of particulate matters (PM10 and PM2.5) and CO2. Further, it suggests that the extensive mould damage may go inviable for too long posing a significant health hazard on people. This research suggests the need for the development of early detection strategies that could minimize the health hazard to people, thereby preventing the need for a major renovation. Peer-review under the responsibility of the organizing committee of the ICMB21.

This study investigates the patterns of occupation of outdoor spaces on a suburban university campus and seeks to understand the factors that affect them. The comprehensive methodology applied in this research attempted to overcome some of the shortcomings of related studies by conducting a longitudinal study (behavioral mapping during a year, as opposed to a few days) and by objectively analyzing the associations of user behavior and physical attributes, and the configurational properties of the campus layout. The results show that campus users fail to capitalize on the potential offered by the spatial configuration of outdoor spaces because they are not supported by amenities for pedestrians such as seating, shading elements and catering facilities. Supporting campus outdoor spaces that have the configurational potential of bringing various types of users (students and staff) with amenities for pedestrians and service facilities would create a lively and sustainable campus for its...