Aligning the user and their working environment, the ultimate guide

At a conference in Hong Kong in 2019, Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, Associate Professor of Corporate Real Estate and Workspaces at the Department of the Built Environment at the Technical University of Eindhoven, expressed the wish to produce a book that would bring together the world's best researchers in the field of work environments. This is the result of that wish!

A lot has already been written about tertiary workplaces in several fields. However, this book, co-edited by Rianne Appel Meulenbroek and Vitalija Danivska, a researcher at Aalto University, is new in its content..

Through a strong multidisciplinary and international dimension, the book presents 21 theories, most of which do not come from management or workplace design, but whose study provides researchers and professionals with a framework to ask the right questions.

The 23 chapters cover the concepts of user-environment fit, privacy, information space, ecology, user experience, perceived control, attractiveness, biophilia and attachment. The book ends with a reflective piece on the user-space fit concept, which further opens up the horizon.

The book features an ongoing dialogue between a theoretical focus and its practical translation. Each chapter not only develops the theory (origins, content, interest, limits, etc.) but also its concrete and operational applications and implications.

As a sign of the enthusiasm shared by the research community, nearly 60 chapters have been received, so that a second book is already in preparation.

"With this book, we wanted to show how research could be used to address concrete challenges. For example, many companies are still attached to objective performance indicators in the quality assessment of their work environments, notably through labelling, whereas it is known that a large part of an employee's suitability for his or her workspace is subjective. We would also like to thank Kardham for its financial support, which enabled us to make the book freely available to everyone. This makes it possible to reach the business community, which might not have thought of buying a book based on research," says Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, associate professor at the Technical University of Eindhoven.

"The Kardham Group is pleased to have contributed to the publication of this high-level book and to make its contents known, convinced as we are of the value of sharing knowledge in our businesses, and probably even more so in the current period. We also share with this book the idea that accompanying the evolution of work environments and spaces is a complex mission, which embraces many dimensions and must therefore always be questioned on a case-by-case basis", underlines Frédéric Miquel, Managing Partner of the Kardham Group.

The Kardham Group has always been committed to promoting research and knowledge sharing around work environments and spaces: beyond its internal productions and in particular those of its R&D department, the Group provides significant support to independent academic research (researcher's books, ESSEC Workplace Management Chair, etc.), certain that the increase in an ecosystem's knowledge, even if it challenges our certainties, is for the benefit of all.