A good business promotes a healthy work-life balance, an inviting culture and is driven by inspiring leaders. But what about the design and flow of the office space itself?

Studies conducted by the American Academy of Sleep Science has found that poor air quality, heating and lighting in the office can actually increase sick days and affect sleep patterns, resulting in a decline in both performance and productivity.

Workers in offices without proper lighting or windows reported poorer outcomes in overall sleep quality, sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances and daytime dysfunction.

“The extent to which daylight exposure impacts office workers is remarkable,” said the study’s co-author Ivy Cheung, a doctoral candidate in the interdepartmental Neuroscience program at Northwestern University in Chicago.

“Day-shift office workers’ quality of life and sleep may be improved via emphasis on light exposure and lighting levels in current offices as well as in the design of future offices,” said Cheung.

The study followed 49 dayshift workers; 27 in windowless workplaces and 22 in workplaces with windows.

For architects and designers, however, the relationship observed between good building design and employee health and wellbeing is not exactly a new concept. Good air quality, thermal comfort and natural lighting all play an important role to maintaining a healthy productive office space.

One such component that experts agree can greatly reduce eyestrain and glare in the office, as well as the need for artificial temperature control, is the type of glass that is selected.

The use of glass has long since been a key element to consider when designing a functional work space and increasingly so. The right kind of glass has the ability to not only create aesthetically stunning architectural showpieces, but can also work to yield excellent results for solar control and thermal insulation.

One such product specially calibrated to capitalise on the best functional aspect of the sun, natural lighting, whilst minimising the potentially negative attribute of the sun and excessive heat, is Glassworks LoE-340®.

Blue/grey in colour; LoE-340® is a performance glass product featuring market-leading, solar stopping power, that promotes a productive working environment by reducing the sun’s glare exponentially. In fact it produces a Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) figure of 0.18, the lowest of any stocked and readily available glass in Australia.

Unlike other like-minded products where the visibility is compromised, LoE-340® achieves a Visible Light Transmission (VLT) figure of 38 percent; well within the desired range of 30-40 percent for commercial projects. And with an external reflectivity level of only 11 percent, LoE-340® meets stringent building codes and permits, with ease.

The ability to take full advantage of the sun’s natural light to reduce the need for artificial light as well as block the thermal implications caused by direct sunlight, thereby reducing cooling loads, not only saves on energy but also enhances the happiness and wellbeing of occupants in a building.

In addition, LoE-340® comes standard with Neat® technology, an innovative self-cleaning coating system by Glassworks, that harnesses the sun’s rays to loosen dirt for the rain to wash away; resulting in a low energy, low maintenance product designed for optimum performance.

Providing the perfect backdrop to achieving a productive, harmonious working environment; Glasswork’s LoE-340® sets new benchmarks in performance glass products.

Sources:

http://www.aasmnet.org/articles.aspx?id=3943

http://www.worldgbc.org/files/6314/1152/0821/WorldGBC__Health_Wellbeing__productivity_Full_Report.pdf