Defining the Measures to Utilise in My Project

Measures has been an uncertainty facing my project over the coming weeks, which I have aimed to be as transparent about as possible in my previous blog posts. Consequently, the journey to determining a measure that I feel accurately represents the aim I wish to achieve with my project into the WWHI brief has been a long one, which I will break down throughout this post.

Following On From Project 5

Whilst working on my project up to and including Project 5, I have been looking at measuring the success or failure of applications of nature through measures around wellbeing, social interactions; and subsequently customers attracted to the space which increases profits of the venues.

When presenting my projects in my tutorial group, it was advised by my tutor that wellbeing would be an adequate measure, if I could demonstrate the methodology I would employ to measure it. It was advised that I should perhaps step away from attempting to measure social interactions, as this is a less tangible measure. Consequently, I invested a great deal of time into investigating different forms of wellbeing and how they are measured in academic settings, which you can see summarised below.

Measuring Wellbeing

In the UK measuring wellbeing as an indicator for societies’ progress is debated nationally with the Office for Nation Statistics driving the discussion (Seaford, 2011). Consequently, demonstrating that wellbeing is being seriously considered as a measure of experience in society.

Hedonic Wellbeing:

This includes recording emotive feelings or moods, such as happiness and sadness, that are associated with differing states of wellbeing (Steptoe et al., 2015).

To record this form of wellbeing, individuals are often asked to rate their experience utilising adjectives such as anger, stress, relaxed. The adjectives are utilised don’t simply showcase opposites, the positive and negative adjectives are required to determine a point in which that individuals lies between the two associated dimensions of the positive and negative emotions (Kahneman et al., 2004).

Eudemonic Wellbeing:

This revolves around reporting a sense of purpose and meaning in life to determine states of wellbeing (Steptoe et al., 2015).

To record this diverse measure of wellbeing and resultantly there are multiple methods to measure it . One of the most used measures involves structured self report scales to measure self acceptance, which looks to encourage the acceptance of personal strengths and weaknesses (Ryff et al., 2004). Unlike Hedonic wellbeing, this measure requires reflective self report, which can cause complications in what standards the individual is comparing their current status to.

Life Evaluation:

This measure involves a people’s wholistic assessment of the quality or goodness of their life (Steptoe et al., 2015).

Applying this measure includes utilising processes such as the 11 step Cantril Ladder, where individuals place themselves on the scale from 1 being the worst life possible, to 11 being the best life possible (Cantril, 1965).

Analysis of Measuring Wellbeing:

The measures of eudemonic wellbeing and life evaluation are harder to apply in the setting of my project, as they involve wholistic assessments of a person’s life. Therefore, external factors to my applications of nature may be impacting the outcome of this measure of wellbeing. Such wholistic measures are also conducted over a long time scale, which isn’t suitable for the parameters of my MA project and would be work conducted in the future out of the MA setting. Additionally, all of these self reporting measures of psychological states can be unreliable sources of data, due to both unconscious and conscious biases that lie in individuals.

Alternative Methods of Measuring Wellbeing:

Brainwave Technology

  • Brainwave technology to measure wellbeing was something suggested to me in the feedback from my dragons den presentation.
  • Upon further research I have discovered that brainwave activation occurs naturally during active and resting states, but external forces can create activity waves (Desai et al., 2015). This activity is recorded via electroencephalograms to measure differences in waves (alpha, beta, the and gamma) (Desai et al., 2015).
  • Therefore, there is the possibility of measuring brainwaves before and after an interaction with natural elements incorporated into spaces.
  • The technology needed to measure such brainwaves would be difficult to access and bring to the setting of a hospitality space.
  • However, brainwave technology could be useful if hospitality spaces were to remain closed due to pandemic restrictions, as it could be a way to quantify people’s emotions towards biophilic design elements if they were shown a digital rendering of the designs, rather than physically experiencing the design applied in the space.

Reflection:

After conducting this research into measuring wellbeing and then talking with Dr Nigel Oseland (Environmental Psychologist and Professor at UCL), I began to consider that wellbeing may not be the most advantageous measure for my project. I noted that the most suitable measure of wellbeing to apply in my project would be hedonic wellbeing, however due to the subjective psychological reporting nature of this measure I was unsure of its academic validity and rigour. In my meeting with Dr Oseland, he suggested that utilising social interaction may be more specific and beneficial measure of the success of my biophilic design. This was due to the issues I had raised, but also resultant from wellbeing being vastly studied in the field and most beneficially examined over a long period of time. From my research into measure of wellbeing I concurred that there is an overwhelming quantity of research in the field of biophilic design, linking biophilia to improved wellbeing (Browning et al., 2014).

Due to these issues raised around utilising wellbeing as a measure, I looked to move away from wellbeing in its general sense and move towards measuring social interactions. Social interactions are spontaneously evoked through the application of biophilic design (Salingaros, 2015) and they improve personal wellbeing through creating a release of oxytocin, which creates physiological anti-stress responses; thus, reducing stress and anxiety.

Measuring Social Interactions

I considered the following methods to measure social interactions in spaces which may occur resultant from applying nature into hospitality spaces.

  • Group Sizes
    • I considered measuring how groups increase over the durations of their visit – this was suggested to me in my stakeholder engagement with Katarina Libby, a Biophilic Design expert.
  • Length of Stay
    • Looking at how long customers stay and how many people they interact with whilst they’re in the space, through observational study
  • Customer Satisfaction
    • However, other elements can impact satisfaction and it is hard to gain base sample for before and after interaction with the biophilic elements, as it is so subjective.
  • Quantity of Social Interactions
    • Either the quantity of interactions between one group/party and other in the space, or possibly measuring the quantity of individual social interactions that occur in the space before and after biophilic elements are introduced into the space.
  • Quality of Social Interaction
    • Quality of the interaction linked to wellbeing

Reflection

After exploring many avenues of how to measure social interactions in spaces and their bearing on applications of nature, I still felt this wasn’t the exact direct I was trying to articulate within my project. Measuring social interactions is very hard to determine whether that exact application of nature is what is causing the social interactions and I erased that socially interacting with each other wasn’t what I was trying to achieve, I was trying to achieve people interacting with the application of nature. Subsequently, I explored getting people into the spaces to interact with the applications of nature in the first place. I therefore examined how people are attracted to spaces and nature, and whether the profits of the spaces could be increased by the application of nature.

Attracting Customers and Increasing Profits

Attracting customers and increasing profits is the driving factor for hospitality spaces, to make money, and so this is what will get the businesses involved in my project. Getting the businesses involved in my project is crucial in allowing biophilic design to be widely applied and consequently creating lasting change.

I considered measures such as:

  • Measuring quantity of customers before and after the nature is added
  • Asking customers what attracted them to the space
    • ie: did they come due to the design features or was it something else such as the food offering?
  • Measuring if customers interacting with certain elements of nature more than others, to suggest that element hosts greater attraction?
  • Recording business profits before and after biophilic elements are added
    • This would be extremely hard to pinpoint what was causing the changes in profits and many businesses would be very reluctant to hand over the details of their books.

However, when engaging with my stakeholder in the hospitality industry, I discovered that actually many hospitality business are paying increased attention towards being more sustainable and creating a natural environment for their customers (see below images of conversations with stakeholders). This revelation allowed me to set away from the thinking that the only way I would get hostility businesses involved would be if I could prove that the application of nature would increase their profits. Therefore, I was able to step back and really pin point the exact measure and catalyst for the change I am trying to see.

Reflection, Realisation and Change – Getting to my true aim and measure…

After conducting all of this work and delving deep into different measures to utilise in my project, I still felt that my question and direction of my project was missing the mark of what I was aiming to achieve overall. The reason for this I now realise is that I had so many aims floating around in my head that I didn’t even know the true aim of the project myself. Therefore, I decided to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Consequently, I began to try and succinctly write the aim for my project, as I mentioned, I felt that I was trying to examine too many issues at once which was really holding me back. So, what is it that I want to achieve? I began by attempting to write down my aims, which initially led to around 300 words of blurring lines and unclear sentences. However, after a lot of personal introspection, I finally rooted down to the core of what I really want, this being to get people connecting with nature and appreciating its benefits in a way that I have; especially over the lockdowns where I spent lots of time in the garden at home. Additionally, growing people’s connection with nature in such a way will allow a relationship to form between the person and the natural world, which will hopefully raise their awareness and want to protect the natural world, in small ways in their lives, to tackle climate change.

In my stepping back and re-evaluation, I also looked back over my body of work in investigating measures. I realised that when assessing social interactions, what I was actually trying to achieve was to get people to interact with nature, rather that measuring interactions between people in the spaces. Also, in regard to wellbeing, I was trying to achieve an internal improvement to wellbeing through exposure and interactions with nature. Even when looking at attracting people to the spaces to increase profits, I was really trying to bring people to interact with the nature and form a… CONNECTION, that would ultimately result in them spending time and money in the spaces boosting profits for the venues.

So there is it the link between everything that I had been completely missing and the summary what I wish to measure and develop through the work in my project is a CONNECTION WITH NATURE. The diagram below aims to visually display this.

To the left you can see my representation of the endless loop and cycle of my ideas that I was looking to measure and explore. They all fed into each other in some way and from stakeholder feedback and secondary research I viewed them all to be of near equal importance, making no clear stand out direction for my project. Hence, the feeling of an endless loop whereby all measures were fair measures but none truly encapsulating the essence of the work I wish to conduct. However, looking to the diagram on the right hand side, it can be seen that when the various measures are put together there is a clear link between them all, which combines them. This link being that they are all rooted in people forming a stronger connection to nature. Developing upon individuals’ connection to nature will consequently impact factors of improving wellbeing (Browning et al., 2014), evoking social interactions (Salingaros, 2015), attracting customers an increasing profits (Browning et al., 2012) that have been seen to be resultant from exposure and interaction to nature in existing academic works, as outlined.

Additionally, forming a connection between people and nature steps my project away from the realms of the predictable in what is already being studied in the field, into a new arena. The new arena of a connection also provides opportunity to get individuals to take agency over their relationships with the natural world and care for it, aiding the climate crisis. This aims to tackle getting those people who would be typically uninterested in the climate crisis engaged in a refreshing way.

I will go on to unpack how I look to measure and test forming a connection with nature, as well as the importance of connecting with nature in my next blog post.

Bibliography

Browning, B., W.D., Ryan, C.O., Clancy, J.O. (2014). “14 Patterns of Biophilic Design.” New York: Terrapin Bright Green, LLC.

Browning, B., Garvin, C., Fox, B., Cook, R. (2012) “The Economics of Biophilia” New York: Terrapin Bright Green, LLC

Cantril, H.  (1965) “The pattern of human concerns.” Rutgers University Press; New Brunswick, NJ.

Desai, R., Tailor, A. and Bhatt, T. (2015) “Effects of yoga on brain waves and structural activation: A review.” Complementary therapies in clinical practice21(2), pp.112-118.

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A.B., Schkade, D.A., Schwarz, N. and Stone, A.A. (2004) “A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The day reconstruction method.” Science306(5702), pp.1776-1780.

Ryff, C.D., Singer, B.H. and Dienberg Love, G. (2004) “Positive health: connecting well–being with biology.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences359(1449), pp.1383-1394.

Salingaros, N. A. (2015) “Biophilia & Healing Environments: Healthy Principles For Designing the Built Environment.” New York: Terrapin Bright Green LLC.

Seaford, C. (2011) “Time to legislate for the good life.” Nature477(7366), pp.532-533.

Steptoe, A., Deaton, A. and Stone, A.A. (2015) “Subjective wellbeing, health, and ageing.” The Lancet385(9968), pp.640-648.

Conversation with Dr Nigel Oseland – Environmental Psychologist

To further my stakeholder engagement I had a very informative and interesting conversation with Dr Nigel Oseland who is an Environmental Psychologist at UCL. Nigel is an internationally recognised expert on the impact of design on performance, specialising in applying biophilic design in the workplace. Additionally, Nigel is in the process of writing a book ‘Beyond the Workplace Zoo: Humanising the Office’ which covers many of the topics we discussed in a workplace context. Consequently, I discussed with him the application of biophilic design in spaces and how this could be applied to hospitality settings, rather than the workplace.

Key Take-Aways from the Discussion:

  • Biophilic design and bringing in nature to the built environment incorporates a lot more than just plants
    • Focus also upon light, sound, water and form
      • Daylight, patterns, fluctuations eg: fountains outside CSM bringing in water and amphitheatre around canal to bring people together, we are social animals
      • Looking back at evolution, we are social animals and we communicated and told stories before we could read or write. Biophilia connects to this intrinsic link to socialising in a way as we are a part of the natural environment as social animals and so we can use the natural world to facilitate our need for socialising. 
    • For instance, sound plays a huge part in hospitality spaces with echoes being particularly difficult as people get older the lose the speech frequencies in hearing due to evolution; meaning they find it tricky to hear the person that they actually came to the space to meet with when the space is very loud and echoey 
    • Soundscapes – water and bird song
    • Sound in evolution – too loud – fight or flight rection, too quiet – danger
      • Managing the correct levels of sound is an element if biophilic design that is rarely considered 
  • The importance of the Terrapin Bright Green “14 Patterns of Biophilic Design” study in terms of design elements and styles
    • I have already explored this on the surface in my blog, but I will revisit it and unpack it further over the coming weeks
  • Creating spaces for different settings/ moods
    • Spaces for contemplation and relaxing, spaces for socialising, etc
    • Developing almost customisable spaces depending on how you are feeling, and utilising nature revitalise the spaces and to achieve the desired atmosphere in each space
    • This can be especially interesting when looking at hotel spaces and making the rooms very different from each other and the guest and select the room depending on their mood
  • Designing for different personality types 
    • Eg: introverted vs extroverted
    • Introverted: comfortable own company, prefer calm spaces and tend to think things through more
    • Extroverted: like to be stimulated by the environment, low levels of arousal
    • Choose rooms based on personality type? Not just mood? – again links to creating a choice or range of spaces rather than designing for the average person, just generally results in not fully targeting anyone
    • You don’t target marketing to the average person, it is always targeted to specific markets, so why don’t we do this in hospitality spaces?
  • Nature sparking creativity and reenergising spaces
  • Using wellbeing as a measure can be tricky, there is possibly more value in measuring social interaction
    • Hedonic wellbeing
    • Eudaimonic wellbeing
    • Wellbeing consists of a multitude of factors that are generally long term, it is hard to pick up utilising the wellbeing scales of measurement over the short term
    • Short term ‘wellbeing’ I am mostly likely to pick up is more around satisfaction and comfort, less fundamental changes
    • Wellbeing is also very heavily focused upon in studies, social interaction is less so
    • Wellbeing is such a massive subject; social interaction is a bit more tangible 
    • Measuring social interactions – possibly do an observation/ utilisation study, of how often the spaces are used. Are people voting with their feet, is one type of biophilic design preferred over another? Is one type of design used more for solo activity and another more for group activities?
      • Record popularity of spaces against set criteria to measure the success of those elements in the space 
  • Possibility to utilise photoshop modelling or images of biophilic elements in different hospitality spaces and gather responses over what aspects people like and dislike, as a form of intervention

Reflection:

After talking with Nigel, it became apparent that focusing upon measuring social interactions in hospitality spaces may be more beneficial for the purpose of my study, to both create lasting impact in a small scale, which could always be scaled up to measure wellbeing on a more long-term vision in the future. For instance, measuring how many people visit the space before and after the biophilic scheme has been applied or how many people interact with the natural elements applied. 

Wellbeing is difficult to measure in a short time scale that is needed for this project in the context of my Masters, as it is tricky to determine how the application of biophilic elements impacts peoples’ long term wellbeing. Whereas, if I focus upon measuring social interactions in the space it can be recorded quantitively in number of interactions but also qualitatively in regard to the quality of interactions. Measuring the quality of the interactions by recorded customer feedback could then be linked back into the topic of wellbeing, with high quality interactions potentially leading to improved short-term wellbeing. 

Stakeholder Feedback – Leonardo Binetti

Leonardo is a materials scientist and engineer who specialises in biomimetic design. During my conversation with Leonardo, he highlighted to me again the clear link between biophilia and improved wellbeing. Additionally, he shared with me some protein within the membranes of human cells which are currently being utilised under the concept of biomimetics for air filtration systems in aerospace. Leonardo went on to explain that at present these technologies are very expensive, but as time progresses and mass production occurs, they should become cheaper, and then they could be utilised by the hospitality industry. 

Reflection:

The consideration of air filtration is a very interesting angle regarding biophilic design and biomimetics, especially during Covid-19 times where creating safer air is paramount. I will look to explore this angle further in my work. I will also refer back to Leonardo when I have clarified the aspect of hospitality, I wish to target so he can help me to identify the best possible avenues for enquiry regarding biomimetics. 

Engaging with Stakeholders

The above diagram displays the 3 key stakeholder groups I have identified to approach and engage in my project.

Over the past week I have been channelling the focus of my project into stakeholder engagement. I have been trying to identify the most appropriate experts in my field to work with to gain greater depth and meaning in my work; as well as to provide insights which I may have overlooked and fresh perspectives.

So far I have attempted to contact over 20 organisations, businesses and individuals to engage with my project. These stakeholders are predominantly in the hospitality business group of stakeholders and the industry experts group, including biophilic, biomimetic and environmental design experts . An array of some of the business I have contacts can be seen below. However, I assume to it having been the Easter bank holiday break in the UK and most of the stakeholders I have reached out to being in the UK, I am yet to gain a reply from the majority of these stakeholders. So far I have only managed to gain contact with Dr Nigel Oseland, an environmental psychologist from UCL and BOH LAB which is an architecture firm focusing on biophilic design and green construction. Very excitingly I have been able to arrange a meeting with Dr Oseland, but unfortunately this is unable to take place until the 12th April; and I am in the process of arranging a meeting with BOH LAB.

I will continue to reach out to more stakeholders over the coming days and remain hopeful for responses of those I have already contacted in the meantime. Additionally, I am going to try and engage with more of the customer/ consumer portion of my stakeholder group, as I am yet to explore this fully.