Employees' Psychological Reactions to Their Underground and Above-ground Offices

Nagy Edit, Yasunaga Sachiko, Kose Satoshi

doi:10.20786/mera.2.2_1

The discussion about the appropriateness of underground spaces for office use has been intensified during the past few decades due to the problem of growing population density and rising land prices, especially in Japan. However, the human reactions towards underground and windowless offices are not yet well understood. The present study focused on: 1) the perceived importance of windows in the work place, 2) the perceived lighting and visual conditions in the underground and above-ground offices, and 3) the general perception of the office interior in the surveyed offices. The results confirmed that windows were strongly desired in work places, especially by employees working underground and not having windows. The underground employees also evaluated their lighting conditions more negatively than did the above-ground workers, although the actual lighting conditions were very similar. Finally, the results showed that the underground office was perceived less pleasant, less stimulating and more enclosed than the above-ground offices with windows. Considering that the design and layout of the offices, as well as other environmental factors, such as type and level of artificial lighting, temperature and noise level, were very similar in the underground and above-ground offices, it is concluded that the perceived need for windows, and the perception of the lighting conditions and office interior in our study was more strongly influenced by psychological factors, such as the awareness of being underground and lacking windows and daylight, than by merely the physical characteristics of the work environment.

Employees' Psychological Reactions to Their Underground and Above-ground Offices

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