Data-driven methods to understand connection to nature in buildings to support occupant wellbeing
Research Team
Our Motivation:
"Humans have a biologically-encoded affinity with nature, and connecting to nature has been shown to support human wellbeing. As we spend significant amounts of time indoors, designing built environments that reflect or promote a connection to nature is essential. Design tools are needed that quantify different levels of connection to nature in buildings in order to advance our understanding of how much nature is required to achieve desired wellbeing outcomes."

Research Contribution
Evaluate capabilities of computer vision and parametric analysis to measure a building’s connection to nature on a continuous scale.
Assess the role of different dosages of nature on wellbeing outcomes.

Problem
Practical Problem
Research on the impact of the built environment on occupant well-being has largely employed discrete approaches to quantifying different built features (e.g., having a window vs. having no window).
As a result, our understanding of how much connection to nature indoors is needed to start seeing positive effects on wellbeing outcomes is limited.
At the same time, we do not have design tools that can measure the presence and amount of connection to nature in a space on a continuous scale.
These limitations prevent building designers, owners, and users from understanding and improving the role that their built environment has on their well-being.

Solution
Assess the capturing of the presence of nature in indoor environments using computer vision and parametric analyses.
Assess the impact of nature dosage on wellbeing outcomes of interest using mixed-method human subject experiments.

Added Value For The Industry
Our work will identify promising methods of quantifying the level of connection to nature offered by a building.
These methods will advance our understanding of the amount of design elements needed in built environments to ensure positive effects on occupant wellbeing.
These advances will inform the design and retrofit of buildings to support human well-being.

Cooperation Partner
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Timeline
Date | Activity | Outcome |
Spring 2022 | Research awarded | |
Summer 2022 | Reviewed and selected tools for analysis | |
Fall 2022 | Evaluate tools in controlled settings | |
| Analyze existing data to assess wellbeing in different dosages | |
Winter 2023 | Evaluate performance of tools | |
| Assess the impact of nature dosage on well-being | |
Spring + Sommer 2023 | Apply tools and conduct human subject experiments |

Project Summary
The work we have conducted with the support of CIFE focused on developing design tools to quantify nature dose in the built environment and to assess its impact on stress and belonging. With our first research project, we compared three selected tools (pixel analysis, computer vision and a ray-casting algorithm called the “Nature View Potential” (NVP)) to quantify indoor nature dose when applied to the same environment, and found differences of up to 5 percentage points across tools. With our second research project, we have and still are continuing to develop and validate the NVP tool to provide recommendations to future users. Finally, with our third project, we found linear, positive relationships between an increased number of natural elements at one’s home office and heightened sense of belonging to one’s work group while working remotely. These projects allowed us to move towards a greater understanding of how to quantify nature dose and its impact on building occupant well-being and will be followed by further work with human subjects.