Kong, M.; Son, Y. J.; Snyder, E.; Byun, K.; C. Pope, Z. and Hogan, C. J. (2026) Indoor environmental quality in the era of hybrid work: Comparing home and healthy office environments. Building Research & Information, 54(6), pp. 693-713. ISSN 0961-3218
Abstract
The shift toward hybrid working has increased the importance of understanding the environmental quality of home-based workspaces in comparison with professionally designed healthy offices. Indoor environmental factors such as air quality, thermal comfort, lighting, and noise are known to influence human health and productivity, yet systematic comparisons between these two settings remain limited. This study aimed to evaluate the home working environments relative to a healthy office. A repeated-measures study design was employed in which 67 participants experienced both home and controlled office conditions, with continuous objective monitoring of indoor environmental quality parameters and parallel subjective assessments. Results showed that home environments exhibited significantly higher levels of carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds (p < 0.05). Lighting levels were also significantly lower and more variable in homes (p < 0.05). Among the environmental parameters, lighting demonstrated the strongest negative associations with satisfaction, whereas pollutant levels were not significantly related to perceived air quality. The study contributes new evidence on the quality of home workspaces relative to healthy office environments and underscores the importance of objective measurement and thoughtful design strategies to support health, comfort, and performance in evolving work arrangements.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | air quality; indoor environment; lighting; thermal; work from home |
| Index terms: | pollutant, carbon dioxide, healthy office, evidence, satisfaction, indoor environmental quality, monitoring, design strategy, comfort, thermal comfort, indoor environment, human health, air quality, environmental quality, particulate, productivity, environmental factor, workspace |
| Subjects: | environmental health, public and environmental health, environmental engineering, occupational health and safety management, design methods, sustainability assessment, evaluation and assessment methods, climate science, environmental science, control systems, management, project delivery |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Site Management, Project Management, Sustainability, Design Practice, Business Strategy, Stakeholder Management, Health and Safety |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
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