Most knowledge-based industries have adopted open-plan or activity-based workplaces, as these allow a wide range of concurrent work conditions for a distributed workforce that is often present intermittently and are considered more energy- and space-efficient compared to more private offices. Yet, post-occupancy evaluations consistently show worker dissatisfaction, especially with acoustics, lack of control, insufficient space, or lack of privacy. Existing ‘adaptive’ architectural technologies like automatic shadings or smart lighting attempt to address these issues by using real-time sensor data to automate building services. However, studies show that these current technologies cannot fully mitigate all health concerns, as they fail to address multiple risk factors simultaneously, ignore individual preferences, and underexploit potential benefits that could enhance resilience.
The premise of SONATA is that architectural technologies should be ‘orchestrated’ so that several elements of the workplace altering its conditions can physically and jointly adapt to the changing needs of workers, instead of that workers need to adapt to their workplace. SONATA is developing and testing the impact of different technologies: electrochromic glass, lighting control, robotically moving ceiling panels and floor partitions, and height-adjustable desks. By evaluating these technologies separately and jointly within controlled labs, living labs, and three different real-world hybrid workplaces, SONATA is generating a wealth of empirical knowledge. Lastly, SONATA is investigating how the health and wellbeing benefits from these technologies should become equitably negotiated between the often-conflicting work situations coexisting in a shared workplace. These situations are challenging to determine as they are predicated by the unpredictable nature of work activities, along with the changing personal preferences of workers executing them.
SONATA is generating evidence-based recommendations on:
- the equitable, situational-aware orchestration of multiple shared-workplace adaptive technologies to augment health and wellbeing benefits and mitigate risks.
- the indicators that capture the impact of architectural adaptations in the shared workplace to short-term and long-term health and wellbeing risks and benefits.
- the more effective application of architectural adaptation for workers, organisations, architects, OSH experts, building certificate consultants, and technology manufacturers.
SONATA actively involves partners with SSH expertise to take up a human-centric and holistic methodological approach in understanding, rethinking, and redesigning the future of workplaces, including academic, industrial, and target group representatives. These partners deploy a wide variety of SSH knowledge and approaches, such as developing participatory and co-design methods, capturing worker experiences qualitatively, designing architecturally valid strategies, and analysing recommendations for socio-economic and uptake challenges.
SONATA focuses on Europe’s most common hybrid workplace typologies: open offices, coworking spaces, and home offices. Given the economic weight of knowledge-intensive work and the widespread burden of work-related health issues, even modest, empirically grounded improvements in adaptive workplace carry significant societal value. SONATA has the potential to extend healthy working years, reduce stress-related costs, and align objective indicators with comfort and autonomy. Commercially, it strengthens Europe’s smart-office ecosystem by making adaptive solutions more accessible to designers, owners, OSH experts, and manufacturers. Uptake will be supported through actionable recommendations translated into pilot credits to guide building ratings and product standards.
