Exploring office comfort and productivity in living labs: A yearlong structural equation modeling study

The relationship between workers' environmental comfort and productivity has been extensively studied over the years, yet real -world investigations remain limited. Living labs provide an opportunity to observe interactions between different comfort domains and their impact on occupants' attitudes and preferences. This study aims to investigate the connection between contextual factors, visual and thermal sensations, and comfort, and how they relate to the self-perceived productivity of office workers in a Living Lab setting, utilizing Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Comfort and sensation perception surveys were conducted during each session over a year, alongside a sensing system continuously monitoring air temperature, illuminance, and window/door operations in the five offices of a dedicated living lab participating in the study. Subjects working in single offices reported higher productivity than those in shared offices across all comfort conditions. Contextual characteristics, such as the time of day, had a significant impact on defining thermal and visual satisfaction. A significant cross -modal effect was observed between thermal and visual domains, highlighting that evaluating factors in isolation from comfort assessment overlooks critical elements of building physics. These findings underscore the importance of considering the broader context when assessing people's perception of their surroundings and how operational changes in office spaces can enhance employees' productivity judgment.