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Data-driven methods to understand connection to nature in buildings to support occupant wellbeing

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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."


 

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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.

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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.

Conceptual Problem

There are no tools for designers to quantify access to nature indoors in order to understand how design choices impact the support of occupant well-being.

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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.

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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.

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Cooperation Partner

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 Timeline

DateActivityOutcome

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

 

Contact Person

If you want to participate in the project please reach out to Eva Bianchi

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.