This concise volume analyzes the potential for the workplace
environment--where so many people spend so much of their day--to improve
workers' capacity for health and wellness. It pinpoints the link between
sedentary lifestyles and poor health, and explores the role of office
spatial design in encouraging physical activity to promote physical
activity, health and prevent disease. The featured research study tracks
workers' movement in a variety of office layouts, addressing possible
ways movement-friendly design can co-exist with wireless communication,
paperless offices, and new corporate concepts of productivity. From
these findings, the author's conclusions extend public health concepts
to recognize that influencing population-wide levels of activity
through office architectural design alone may be possible.
This SpringerBrief is comprised of chapters on:
- Physical activity and disease: Theory and practice
- Space-use and the history of the office building
- Identifying factors of the office architectural design that influence
movement,
- Interdisciplinary research methods in studying worker physical
activity, decision-making and office design characteristics
- The KINESIS model for simulating physical activity in office
environments
The questions and potential for solutions in Workplace Environmental
Design in Architecture for Public Health will interest and inform
researchers in interdisciplinary topics of public health and
architecture as well as graduate and post-graduate students, architects,
economists, managers, businesses as well as health-conscious readers.