A workplace's environment has a profound impact on mental health and wellbeing. Over the past decade, wellbeing research has grown in importance as it contributes to a person's well-being, re-duces stress, and increases performance by reducing costs for business. Further, because of globalisation, short-term contracts, outsourcing, and mergers which have ravaged the workplace to date, employee psychological wellness levels were adversely affected. As a consequence, interior design has gained tremendous importance. It is now more important for interior designers to design environments aimed at fostering both physical and psychological wellbeing. The purpose of this pa-per is to explore the extent to which the physical environmental variables (e.g., layout) affect employees psychological wellbeing reporting on the findings of methods which included a systematic literature review, field observation, and an online survey. (25) participants who were chosen upon criteria of inclusion (i.e., UK worker) and exclusion (i.e., working remotely) in an open-plan office layout. Findings show participants responding positively to open layout; however, this may have negative effects in terms of privacy, control, and noise. Natural materials and elements were found to be a demand by employees as the majority claimed that nature affects their wellbeing positively.

Despite years of research being conducted in the healthcare design field, we still struggle to incorporate this knowledge into decision-making across all areas of policy and practice. Integrating the knowledge into practice is even more problematic in times of crisis. The systematic documentation and dissemination of existing and emerging networks and organizations in the healthcare design context and their activities could be extremely valuable to the field to support collaboration and information sharing during a crisis. Therefore, the primary aim of this paper is to explore the knowledge transfer process among healthcare design organizations and their target group(s) and the extent of their activities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to have a better understanding of the process, we studied three organizations actively engaged in the creation and/or dissemination of knowledge related to healthcare facilities design: one from the USA "organization A", one from the UK "organization B", and one from Sweden "organization C". The primary data source included some literature covering elements of the knowledge transfer process on the inter-organizational level. The supplementary data are from individual interviews with key representatives from each organization. The core part of this paper discusses the organizations' strategies and channels for knowledge dissemination. It also reviews the COVID-19 period, the associated challenges, and the organizations' activities to respond to the situation during the pandemic.

A PhD study was carried out on comfort and health of workers in outpatient areas because hos-pital workers are generally less satisfied with comfort than patients and outpatient areas were understudied. To better understand differences in preferences and satisfaction of individuals, profiles were produced with Two-Step Cluster analysis, based on a questionnaire, responded by 556 outpatient workers, and building inspection of six hospital locations. Thereafter, interviews were performed to explain the preferences. As the COVID-19 pandemic started after produc-tion of the profiles, changes due to de pandemic were included. A gap between preferences and satisfaction was identified for all profiles. Also, those with similar preferences for social comfort (privacy, interaction, distraction) performed similar activities. Contact with others was for all profiles important, while satisfaction was overall high before the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the shift to digital care during the COVID-19 pandemic, impoverished interaction was a main concern of the outpatient workers. In conclusion the profiles for social comfort show that preferences for social comfort are associated with work-related aspects and can change. The profiles may open a new horizon to accommodate for flexibility and variety beyond standardized solutions.

COVID-19 has affected most of our activities in multiple ways, with changing our working environment being one of them. This project explores measures for preventing or limiting the transmission of COVID-19 in indoor office workplaces, focusing on space and place by promoting healthy behaviours within those environments. Research comprised of a series of literature reviews using both systematic and narrative methods. Suggestions made from literature review were then split in a) top down guidance mainly from governmental guidance and b) bottom up guidance deriving mainly from the industry. Results were organised under three main themes: a) advice on surface interactions and virus viability); b) behavioural advice focusing on the return-to-work effects on psychological and mental health outcomes along with control measures and suggestions on preparing buildings to return-to-work during Covid-19 and c) advice focusing on thermal and ventilation conditions and how they affect virus transmission. The implications of COVID-19 for workspace are more relevant than ever. The project shed light a)to the interrelationship between individuals and their office space and how the latter influences workers and b) to the knowledge transfer from medical architecture to office design for Covid. This cross-disciplinary review raises questions that need to be considered in future studies inclusive of other topic areas apart from the ones discussed here, so as to generate interdisciplinary knowledge on other equally important fields of study which will impact companies that plan and design workspaces and the people who use it, promoting both healthy working environments and behaviours.