THESIS IDEA

HEALTHY WORKING ENVIRONMENTS

ABSTRACT
• Focusing on improving the mental health of the people in a society where most people do not seek medical attention due to
the stigma attached to mental illness.
• To reduce the alarming rate in increase of people with mental illness by influencing the environment we live in.
• To incorporate therapeutic architecture into public places focusing on making people happier and also the treating people
having mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety disorder, etc.
CONTEXT – MENTAL HEALTH IN INDIA
• Not only do 56 million Indians -- or 4.5% of India's population -- suffer from depression at this moment, another 38 million
Indians suffer from anxiety disorders. Thus, according to the latest World Health Organisation report on depression released
on Feb 2017, almost 7.5% of Indians suffer from major or minor mental disorders that require expert intervention.
HIGH STRESS AND DEPRESSION IN CORPORATE EMPLOYEES

• The corporate world is often described as a VUCA world where volatility,

uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity rule. For employees, managers, and
even the top brass operating in such an atmosphere, stress can quickly turn
to distress and lead to anxiety and depression.
• In the study conducted by 1to1Help.net, a professional counselling company,
on ‘The Mental Health Status of Employees in Corporate India,’ over 6000
employees in different cities, across organizations voluntarily completed the
depression scale. Here are the other findings of the study:
• Eighty percent of the respondents, who exhibited symptoms of anxiety, and
42 percent with symptoms of depression, were going through it for over a
year before seeking professional help.
• Prolonged ongoing stress due to personal and work contexts was identified
as triggers for mental illness.
AIM
• To create healthy working environment which contributes in reducing stress levels of workers
through activity based planning and user-friendly work cycle thus enhancing mental wellbeing.

OBJECTIVE
• To create a prototype for workspace environment which balances work and leisure through short ,
efficient working hours
• To change the perspective of considering constraints in designing workspaces – planning based on
user activity and comfort.
• Activity based planning ensuring sufficient time and spaces allocated for practices to promote mental
health and physical wellbeing.
NEED FOR HEALTHY WORKING ENVIRONMENTS
• As an employer, a healthy work environment is crucial –
not only to the wellness of oneself and the employees,
but also to the success of the company.
• If the employees aren’t working in a healthy
environment, their wellbeing, productivity and outlook
drastically declines.
• This, in turn, affects the company’s overall efficiency
and the relationships it has with clients, shareholders
and surrounding communities.
• Healthy working environments aid in reducing stress,
there by not only healing mentally affected people but
also in reducing chances of mental illness
• Major references e.g.- google, face book and apple
offices.
 THERAPEUTIC ARCHITECTURE AND WORKSPACES
• Therapeutic environments can refer to physical, social, and psychological safe spaces
that are specifically designed to be healing.
• Therapeutic architecture can be described as the people-centered, evidence-based
discipline of the built environment, which aims to identify and support ways of
incorporating those spatial elements that interact with people physiologically and
psychologically into design.
• Key factors of such spaces are,
– Reduce or eliminate environmental stressors
– Provide positive distractions
– Enable social support
• There is a dire need of implementing therapeutic architecture to working
environments to improve physical and mental wellbeing of employees.
SCOPE
• A healthy workplace environment is ideal when it comes to maintaining a positive outcome in
a stressful atmosphere.
• The most important thing that influences employee motivation and happiness, and how
productive and efficient they can be, all goes down to their working environment.
• Improving mental health being the main concern, the spaces in our day to day lives which one
spends a lot of time need to be designed in such a way that the spaces themselves act as the
treatment for reducing mental illness and improving mental wellbeing.
• Apart from home, a person spends more time at the workspace, hence by concentrating on
the workspace environment a major change can be brought forth in improving health of the
people.
• Factors that affect the efficiency and optimum output of human resources include
 ambient temperatures
 correct lighting
 appropriate ventilation
 effective circulation of air
 comfortable seating and desking
 appealing colours and tolerable sound levels.
• Also the mental well being of a person depends on the balance between work and rest.
• It can be clearly seen that offices designed based on the needs and comfort of the workers
are highly efficient and successful with the worker’s active participation .
CORPORATE BANKING HIERARCHY
 CASE STUDY – MADDOCKS, MELBOURNE
ARCHITECT: BATES SMART
• Maddocks embraced the prospect of re-thinking the ecology of its workplace and
participated in a series of top-down consultations throughout the design and
installation process, driven by its partners.
• These consultations elicited the range of work styles, practices and needs of staff, as
well as the temporality of these needs: the daily demands on a space are inevitably
fluid.
• In contrast to conventional models of design for legal firms, the private office is not
the focal point.
• Instead, open-plan and activity-based working spaces unfold around necessary
points of retreat and privacy

SOURCE: ARTICHOKE SEP 2017

• Malleability is a signature of this design, and a modular footprint means that internal spaces are
flexible and can be responsive to need, shifting from quiet working space to meeting room.
• Partners have embraced this flexible work practice and inhabit the space in similar ways to the
junior staff, democratizing patterns of use according to need and the ebb and flow of a working day.
• An emphasis on connection underscores the fluid metabolism of the space, from the large airy
reception area to the expansive city and sea views that make regular appearances across the three
floors.
• No corners are built up, contributing to the visual prominence of the outside.

SOURCE: ARTICHOKE SEP 2017

 CASE STUDY – GOOGLE OFFICE, BANGALORE
• Spanning 160,000 square feet across
eight floors, the new Google office
affords about 200 sq feet per employee,
making the old office appear congested
with just 150 sq feet per employee.
• The building currently houses 450
Googlers and 250 service staff. There's
space for another 250 employees.
MAGAZINE REFERENCES
• Artichoke/September2017/Healthy working environments
• Architecture time space people/August2002/working environments
• Architectural Record/August2015/Facebook office by Frank Gehry

NET REFERENCES
• Economic times/June11,2016/stress in corporate India
• The Hindu/October23,2016/Survey on mental health in India by National Institute of Mental Health and
Neurosciences (NIMHANS).
• World Health Organisation survey on mental health/February,2017
THANK YOU

A. ANGELIN