Innovation Fields

Office Fitness

The majority of people today are physically inactive. Modern transportation, labor saving conveniences and sedentary jobs have created an environment in which millions of people fail to achieve the minimum level of activity necessary to help prevent type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, heart disease and other chronic conditions.

Regular physical activity is essential to achieve optimal health, including weight management, chronic disease prevention and fitness maintenance.

By introducing an office fitness program and encouraging healthy habits, companies can expect to see a dive in employee absences and therefore a reduction in business costs.

Air Quality

Pollutants generated indoors can lead to a variety of symptoms and health conditions. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), combustion byproducts and airborne particulate matter are known to trigger nausea, headaches, asthma, respiratory irritation and allergies.

While ambient outdoor air is often better quality, natural ventilation methods, operable doors and windows, and general building envelope infiltration can diminish indoor air quality if external air quality parameters are poor.

Air quality issues can diminish work productivity and lead to sick building syndrome, where no disease or cause can be identified, yet acute health effects are linked to time spent in a building

Healthy Eating

Busy lives and longer workdays are encouraging unhealthy behaviors, including eating meals on the go, snacking between meals and eating large portion meals. Further, high-fat, high-sugar snack foods of low nutritional qualities are engineered to be tastier, with potentially addictive qualities.

A variety of social, economic, physiological and environmental factors can affect individual dietary behaviors.

Implementing design strategies and policies with in the built environment that increase access to healthy food option, enable people to make more informed dietary choices and lead to better health and well-being.

Biophilic Design

Biophilia, or the idea that humans have an affinity towards the natural world, is an emerging field that aims to address our psychological need to be around life and life-like processes.

Exposure to views and images of nature can help to speed up healing and recovery time, boost positive feelings and reduce negative ones.

Research indicates that the experience of nature or nature-derived patterns can improve experience, mood and happiness.

Office Syndrome

Office Syndrome refers to a group of symptoms caused by sitting or remaining in the same position for long periods of time, mainly while working with a computer in an office setting.

The symptoms of office syndrome differ widely, raging from minor ones like the inflammation of neck, shoulder and back muscles to carpal tunnel syndrome, wrist and elbow pain and trigger finger.

A behavioral change is the long-term solution for office syndrome and is easier than treatment required when the illness becomes chronic.