Our goal is to provide occupants, designers, and owners tools to achieve built environments that meet their needs and to design interventions and adaptations that support occupant wellbeing over time.
We use methods from engineering, computer science, and social science to collect and analyze data in innovative ways to create solutions that support society and nature.
Our work requires close collaboration and open communication with partners in architecture, computer science, privacy, psychiatry, psychology, and sociology, among others.
Working with people and striving to support human wellbeing is foundational to our scientific methods and analyses and to our engineering designs.
This project is a collaboration that brings together researchers across multiple Stanford schools and other universities. Our lab is currently focused on three areas of study where we seek to:
Understand how changes in the design of physical workspaces may impact an occupant's wellbeing metrics using virtual reality and immersive online environments,
Develop novel ways of emulating nature indoors using hybrid physical-digital interventions for promoting health equity and improving occupant wellbeing with a focus on attention restoration, stress, self-evaluated happiness, and life-satisfaction, and
Measure occupant wellbeing metrics in the wild through a combination of experience sampling methods, passive inference through wearable devices, and environmental IoT sensors to inform adaptations in the built environment that can support occupant wellbeing over time.
COLLABORATORS
Prof. James Landay, Computer Science, Stanford University
Dr. Jennifer King, HAI, Stanford University
Prof. Lucy Bencharit, Psychology and Child Development, CalPoly San Luis Obispo
Prof. Elizabeth Murnane, Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College
Prof. Matthew Mauriello, Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware
More collaborators can be found on Stanford HPDS project website
KEY FINDINGS
Occupants exposed to natural materials and windows during a stress-inducing task had lower negative stress impacts across various metrics [Douglas et al., 2022]
A meta analysis of five online studies identified that natural materials and natural light lead to higher self-reported feelings of belonging, self-efficacy, and environmental efficacy [Altaf et al., 2022]
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.
We are developing design tools that quantify connection to nature in buildings and applying them in human-subjects research to advance our understanding of how much and what kind of nature and natural analogs are required to achieve desired wellbeing outcomes.
COLLABORATORS
Prof. Johannes Eichstaedt, HAI and Psychology, Stanford University
Mercy Housing
This work is supported by the Center for Integrated Facility Engineering (CIFE) at Stanford University
KEY OBJECTIVES
Identify promising methods of quantifying the level of connection to nature offered by a building
Advance our understanding of the amount of design elements needed in built environments to ensure positive effects on occupant wellbeing
Inform the design and retrofit of buildings to support human wellbeing
We seek to understand the role of the built environment in public perceptions and acceptance of affordable housing through a combination of analysis methods for both quantitative and qualitative data. As civil engineers, we have a particular focus on the role of the building design and type in public perceptions and acceptance of affordable housing, where framing involves visual images in the form of photos and renderings. We are also interested in the potential of text data and emerging methods in evaluating visualizations to efficiently probe the broader community often not present at community planning meetings.
SPONSORS
Stanford Impact Lab Design Fellowship
UPS Endowment Fund, Stanford University
KEY OBJECTIVE
We aim to leverage our understanding of the built environment to identify paths to social acceptance that municipalities can implement and that will be good for the environment and good for community health and wellbeing.
We investigate the psycho-behavioral responses of participants to urban neighborhood environments. As civil engineers, we are interested to know how the built environment characteristics such as building maintenance and construction may be linked to positive or negative wellbeing outcomes such as stress and sense of belonging. In this research, we use a combination of survey methods that include, eye tracking and behavioral measurements.
SPONSORS
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
COLLABORATORS
Prof. Jackelyn Hwang, Sociology, Stanford University
Prof. Hae Young Noh, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University
KEY OBJECTIVE
The research aims to understand how built environment elements may be linked with various wellbeing and neighborhood perception metrics and whether subjective associations can be observed objectively through eye-tracking.
Our work aims to understand the impact of built environments on human well-being and design interventions and adaptations to support well-being over time. We collaborate with external partners on field studies as well as co-create solutions for social and environmental sustainability challenges related to the built environment. Are you interested in collaborating with us?
