Explore the vast range of titles available.

Biophilic designs aim to promote health and wellbeing by incorporating nature-based features into internal and external built environments. Three theories have previously been proposed (i.e., Recovery, Attention Restoration, Refuge, and Prospect ) regarding the impact of biophilic features on psychological and physiological health, but with little empirical evaluation. This current study tests these three existing theories, alongside a novel biophilic theory proposed in this paper, as that biophilic environments stimulate inspiration . A public survey was conducted, and participants completed an online stress-induction task followed by images of building interiors that systematically varied in perceived biophilic quality—ranging across four levels (from 0 = no clear biophilic features to 3 = very high biophilic features). Participants rated their psychological states associated with each of the proposed theories before and after each trial’s stress-induction and biophilic phases. Results support a positive effect of exposure to biophilic design on self-reported psychological states (including inspiration), whilst designs without biophilic quality tended to have an adverse effect on psychological states. Furthermore, findings support the extension of the current three theories to include the impact of biophilic designs on stimulating inspiration.

In the constructed habitat in which we spend up to 90% of our time, architectural design influences occupants’ behavioral patterns, interactions with objects, surfaces, rituals, the outside environment, and each other. Within this built environment, human behavior and building design contribute to the accrual and dispersal of microorganisms; it is a collection of fomites that transfer microorganisms; reservoirs that collect biomass; structures that induce human or air movement patterns; and space types that encourage proximity or isolation between humans whose personal microbial clouds disperse cells into buildings. There have been recent calls to incorporate building microbiology into occupant health and exposure research and standards, yet the built environment is largely viewed as a repository for microorganisms which are to be eliminated, instead of a habitat which is inexorably linked to the microbial influences of building inhabitants. Health sectors have re-evaluated the role of microorganisms in health, incorporating microorganisms into prevention and treatment protocols, yet no paradigm shift has occurred with respect to microbiology of the built environment, despite calls to do so. Technological and logistical constraints often preclude our ability to link health outcomes to indoor microbiology, yet sufficient study exists to inform the theory and implementation of the next era of research and intervention in the built environment. This review presents built environment characteristics in relation to human health and disease, explores some of the current experimental strategies and interventions which explore health in the built environment, and discusses an emerging model for fostering indoor microbiology rather than fearing it.

Background Globally, 39 million people are blind, and an additional 246 million experience moderate to severe visual impairment (WHO, 2021). These impairments severely affect navigation, safety, and daily—task performance. Studies show that 70% of individuals with visual impairments face falls annually, and many report challenges with spatial awareness and cognitive load. Adaptive design offers solutions that utilize sensory input, spatial predictability, and barrier-free layouts to address these challenges. This study explores accessible interior design principles to empower visually impaired individuals with greater independence and comfort in their homes. This study investigates the principles of adaptive design in creating safe, independent, and comfortable living spaces for individuals with visual impairments, a condition affecting over 285 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The research emphasizes barrier-free environments with unobstructed pathways, tactile and auditory cues, and consistent spatial arrangements to enhance accessibility. By integrating sensory elements like contrasting textures, lighting, and acoustic treatments, the project aims to foster spatial awareness, safety, and autonomy. Engaging visually impaired residents in the design process ensured tailored solutions that empower independence and well-being. The findings highlight the transformative potential of inclusive design in enriching the daily lives of those with visual challenges. Methods The research involved case studies, user interviews, and participatory design workshops with visually impaired individuals aged between 18 and 75. Key challenges included trip hazards, inconsistent layouts, and sensory overload. Design strategies such as tactile navigation systems, acoustic enhancements, and optimized lighting layouts were tested. Tactile navigation systems use textured flooring, Braille signage, and raised pathways to aid visually impaired individuals. Acoustic enhancements include sound cues, echolocation-friendly materials, and noise reduction techniques to improve spatial awareness. Optimized lighting layouts feature uniform illumination, glare reduction, and adaptive lighting to enhance visibility. These strategies are implemented through tactile paving, contrasting textures, natural sound sources, sound-absorbing panels, motion-activated LEDs, and diffused lighting. Together, they create an accessible environment that enhances safety, independence, and ease of navigation for visually impaired individuals, ensuring a more intuitive and user-friendly spatial experience. Over 80% of participants highlighted the need for tactile and auditory cues to aid navigation. Feedback loops ensured practical and effective outcomes. Results Implementing adaptive design features resulted in a 40% reduction in reported falls and a 25% decrease in cognitive fatigue during navigation. Textured handrails, non-glare materials, and consistent furniture placement improved confidence in navigation for 90% of participants. Enhanced lighting solutions, such as natural and task lighting, were appreciated by 75% of users, while acoustic treatments improved spatial awareness for 65%. Conclusions Adaptive design demonstrates immense potential in transforming residential spaces for visually impaired individuals. By integrating multi-sensory elements and prioritizing user-centric approaches, these designs foster independence, dignity, and improved quality of life. The findings highlight that inclusive design strategies can address challenges faced by over 1.3 billion people globally with some form of visual or functional impairment, underscoring the need for wider adoption.

Background: The aim of the article is to answer the question of how to improve the fulfillment of the needs of senior-aged individuals working in offices. To this end, based on experiences gained from designing healthcare buildings, guidelines for designing architecture with a therapeutic function that positively impacts users' health have been formulated. The concept of the system presented in the article is based on a consistent architectural approach aimed at enriching the functional aspects of existing office buildings with health-promoting spaces that enhance users' well-being. Material and Methods: Based on literature, field research, and design analyses, a structural approach to ensuring office workers' access to sunlight and greenery--key for well-being--has been demonstrated. An original system using functional enrichment for revitalizing office buildings in modern urban structures has been developed to meet the specific needs of actively employed seniors. Results: The research goal set at the beginning led to the development of a variant solution based on the use of the idea of functional enrichment for the needs of locating facilities that allow for the improvement of the comfort of work of professionally active seniors working in offices. It was also shown that the described activity fits into the multidimensional vision of improving the well-being of users defined by the European Commission in the program of the so-called New European Bauhaus (NEB). Conclusions: The analysis carried out in the article allows for the confirmation of the adopted thesis, according to which it is possible to meet the special needs of senior citizens by revitalizing existing buildings based on the guidelines of pro-health architecture. Such action, through the activation of existing resources, also fits into the guidelines of the NEB idea in a multidimensional way, constituting a coherent model of action, applicable to most existing medium-sized office buildings, with great implementation potential. Med Pr Work Health Saf. 2025;76(4):291-304 Key words: ergonomics, needs of older adults, New European Bauhaus, health-promoting architecture, office building architecture, office building revitalization Wstep: Celem artykulu jest proba odpowiedzi na pytanie, w jaki sposob mozna podwyzszyc poziom spelnienia potrzeb osob w wieku senioralnym pracujacych w biurach. Na podstawie doswiadczenia plynacego z projektowania obiektow o funkcji leczniczej sformulowano wytyczne do projektowania architektury pelniacej funkcje terapeutyczna, dzialajaca korzystnie na zdrowie uzytkownikow. Koncepcja przedstawionego w artykule systemu bazuje na konsekwentnym ukierunkowaniu rozwiazan architektonicznych na zapewnienie mozliwo- sci wzbogacenia funkcjonalnego istniejacych budynkow biurowych o przestrzenie o charakterze prozdrowotnym, wplywajace na poprawe dobrostanu uzytkownikow. Material i metody: Bazujac na studiach literatury przedmiotu, badaniach terenowych i analizach projektowych, wykazano mozliwosc strukturalnego podejscia do wdrozenia zmian majacych na celu zapewnienie pracownikom biurowym dostepu do swiatla slonecznego i zieleni, tj. czynnikow definiowanych jako istotne dla dobrego samopoczucia. Na podstawie wynikow analiz opracowano autorski system uzycia metody tzw. wzbogacania funkcjonalnego do rewitalizacji budynkow biurowych zlokalizowanych w strukturze urbanistycznej wspolczesnych miast w celu realizacji szczegolnych potrzeb aktywnych zawodowo seniorow. Wyniki: Wskazany cel badawczy doprowadzil do opracowania wariantowego rozwiazania opartego na idei wzbogacania funkcjonalnego dla potrzeb lokalizacji udogodnien pozwalajacych na podniesienie komfortu pracy aktywnych zawodowo seniorow pracujacych w biurach. Wykazano rowniez, ze opisywane dzialanie wpisuje sie w wielowymiarowa wizje poprawy dobrostanu uzytkownikow zdefiniowana przez Komisje Europejska w programie Nowego Europejskiego Bauhausu (NEB). Wnioski: Przeprowadzona w artykule analiza pozwala na potwierdzenie przyjetej tezy, zgodnie z ktora mozliwe jest spelnienie szczegolnych potrzeb osob w wieku senioralnym poprzez rewitalizacje budynkow zgodnie z wytycznymi architektury prozdrowotnej. Dzialanie takie poprzez aktywizacje posiadanych zasobow wpisuje sie takze wielowymiarowo w wytyczne idei NEB, stanowiac spojny, mozliwy do zastosowania w przypadku wiekszosci istniejacych budynkow biurowych sredniej wielkosci wzor postepowania o duzym potencjale wdrozeniowym. Med Pr Work Health Saf. 2025;76(4):291-304 Slowa kluczowe: ergonomia, potrzeby osob starszych, Nowy Europejski Bauhaus, architektura prozdrowotna, architektura budynkow biurowych, rewitalizacja budynkow biurowych

The physical environment has been shown to affect the emotional states of patients receiving mental health treatment, yet it remains unknown whether physical space design may play a role in optimizing the delivery of mental health care. Principles of architectural design and human-centered co-design have been applied to enhance the patient experience of facility environments; however, little is known about how patients view the impact of physical spaces on their recovery. In this qualitative study, we aimed to understand patient perspectives of how physical environments contribute to mental wellbeing and personal experiences of recovery, in the context of informing future design efforts. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 13 participants receiving outpatient mental health treatment at the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Adult Psychiatry Clinic. Interviews were transcribed and themes were extracted that could inform future design concepts. The sample was comprised of nine female and three male participants, and one unidentified-gender participant, between the ages of 26–64, and across several self-reported racial/ethnic subgroups. We found four dimensions of physical environments that participants reported as impactful: 1) sensory design elements (colors, sounds, and textures), 2) engagement qualities (intensity of distracted activity such as crafting or commuting), 3) social relational aspects (privacy or connection), and 4) affective experiences evoked by being present in the space itself (feeling safe, calm, in control, self-aware, or creative was beneficial). Many of these elements were similarly noted across clinic and non-clinic environments. This study identifies key dimensions of physical environments that can serve as potential metrics of design success in supporting and facilitating mental health recovery. In the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, where mental health treatment has increasingly shifted outside of traditional clinics, our findings can support patients and clinicians seeking to harness potential in situ therapeutic benefits of physical environments.

Microscopic examination of peripheral blood plays an important role in the field of diagnosis and control of major diseases. Peripheral leukocyte recognition by manual requires medical technicians to observe blood smears through light microscopy, using their experience and expertise to discriminate and analyze different cells, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive and subjective. The traditional systems based on feature engineering often need to ensure successful segmentation and then manually extract certain quantitative and qualitative features for recognition but still remaining a limitation of poor robustness. The classification pipeline based on convolutional neural network is of automatic feature extraction and free of segmentation but hard to deal with multiple object recognition. In this paper, we take leukocyte recognition as object detection task and apply two remarkable object detection approaches, Single Shot Multibox Detector and An Incremental Improvement Version of You Only Look Once. To improve recognition performance, some key factors involving these object detection approaches are explored and the detection models are generated using the train set of 14,700 annotated images. Finally, we evaluate these detection models on test sets consisting of 1,120 annotated images and 7,868 labeled single object images corresponding to 11 categories of peripheral leukocytes, respectively. A best mean average precision of 93.10% and mean accuracy of 90.09% are achieved while the inference time is 53 ms per image on a NVIDIA GTX1080Ti GPU.

In the vortex of the environmental and ecological crises, it is clear that the cosmopolitan way of living is facing uncertainty with no easing in sight. Looking beyond the horizon at what the aftermath will yield, it is quite clear that the meaning of urbanity has to be transformed; the urban life has to support social and ecological well-being, and the city has to intertwine more closely with nature. Therefore, wild urban woodlands (WUWs), often morphologically exclusive, culturally contradictory, and biologically heterogeneous, are recognized together with the other informal wilderness of the city as catalyzers of a newly constructed identity and the first line of defense when the question of the socio-ecological resilience of the city is raised. The present study focuses on how the biocultural diversity of WUWs can be stimulated by architecture and on which principles and restorative components an architectural design should stand on. Taking War Island on the river Danube, in the very heart of Belgrade, Serbia, as the particular case study, a specific assignment was given to students of the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade to affirm, recuperate, and stipulate the relationship between the nature and the culture of the site. On the threshold of interdisciplinarity, a net of coordinated values is set up based on a theoretical, analytic, and typo-morphological approach, gathering the eco-cultural aspects, components, and characteristics of the place. On the bases of the students’ research-based design propositions, the results show different design paths promoting accessibility and security, restoring social responsibility and awareness, and regaining the socio-ecological well-being of the place. The conclusions drawn from the study open the perspective of the alliance between nature and culture through an architectural infrastructure that heals the landscape and induces its therapeutic properties, enhancing the biocultural diversity of the place and proclaiming a kind of hedonistic sustainability for the future life of cities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in changing organisational and technical requirements in the operation of treatment facilities. This paper summarises the available knowledge on the principles of hybrid design of the architecture of treatment units to ensure that different levels of sanitary and hygienic safeguards can be implemented. The basis of this narrative overview is an analysis of the existing Polish legislation on required personnel protection measures and the European Commission's recommendations for the long-term optimisation of building operating costs. In addition, due to the multifaceted and complex nature of the issue, the review was extended to include an example of practice in the technical adaptation of medical buildings for hybrid use in the event of a pandemic of an aetiological agent of risk category III, as a confirmation of the postulate regarding the need to modify the guidelines for the architectural design of the space of medical units, particularly those involved in the care of the elderly. Med Pr Work Health Saf. 2024;75(3):269-278