Research on Differences Between Multiple Workspaces in ABW Offices on Productivity and Communication, Psychological and Physiological Quantities

. In this study, we will investigate the effects of different work environments on intellectual productivity and communication in an Activity-Based-Working (ABW) oriented B-site office of Company A, which has multiple workspaces with different settings for the purpose of improving productivity and health. In this paper, we use a subject experiment and report on the effects of different work environments on the intellectual productivity and physiological and psychological quantities of the subjects in the ABW office, based on the outline of the building where the subject experiments were conducted and the results of objective and subjective evaluations of the subject experiments conducted in the middle and summer periods.


Introduction
In Japan, one of the most critical issues in the "reform of work styles" is the improvement of productivity and health in response to the decrease in the working-age population and other factors [1]. In addition, improving the productivity of office workers is also an important issue for companies. In the field of the built environment, research is also being conducted on forming domains to improve intellectual productivity [2].
Most studies on the intellectual productivity and health status of office workers in actual offices have been based on questionnaire surveys. Studies that conduct experiments on subjects are still in their infancy. Gondo et al. [3] demonstrated the possibility of diurnal variation in psychological, physiological, and intellectual productivity through experiments on students. Ogawa et al. [4] showed that walking activity in the office might contribute to intellectual productivity.
In this study, we will focus on the differences in office space design and clarify the effects of different office environments on intellectual productivity, psychological and physiological levels, and the amount of communication in a new office building at Company A's Site B, an Activity-Based Working (ABW) 1) oriented building with multiple office spaces with different design features to improve productivity and health This paper reports on the impact of different office spaces on subjects' intellectual productivity by comparing ABW offices and conventional offices, based on an overview of the building where the subject * Corresponding author: ru0080ff@ed.ritsumei.ac.jp experiments were conducted, an overview of the subject experiments conducted in the middle and summer periods, and the results of objective and subjective evaluations of intellectual productivity in the subject experiments.

Building Summary
The two buildings within Site B that were the subject of this study are the South Building (hereafter referred to as the "Old Building"), a conventional research office, and the North Building (hereafter referred to as the "New Building"), an ABW-oriented research office that was completed in 2020. The old building includes a conventional conference room (point H) and a common area meeting space (point G).
On the other hand, the new building has various meeting spaces and workplaces designed to promote a free-address, fluid work style that encourages interaction. There are meeting rooms of different sizes (at points D and F) and an open terrace (at point A) that creates a connection with nature. In particular, the common space has several workplaces (at points B, C, and E) that enable flexible work styles, allowing employees to choose where they work. In addition, by providing a place to promote interaction, the company encourages spontaneous exchanges among employees and visitors.
In this study, we selected 8 of these distinctive office spaces in the new building and conducted an E3S Web of Conferences 396, 01060 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202339601060 IAQVEC2023 experiment on subjects in a total of 8 office spaces, including three socalled conventional office spaces in the old building, to clarify the effects of different office spaces on intellectual productivity and physiological and psycho-logical quantities. Table 1 shows an outline of the experiment; 10 male college students aged 22-23 years were the subjects. The spring experiment was conducted in March 2021, and the summer experiments were conducted in September 2021 and August 2022. 2) Subjects were tested in 11 office locations at Company A Site B. Subjects were assumed to be nonsmokers and standard body types 4) without habitual drinking 3) , and wore short-sleeved shirts and suit pants during the summer season at 0.5 clo. Table 4 shows the experimental case, and Figure 1 shows the schedule in the case. Individual cases (Case 1, Case 3) and group cases (Case 2, Case  Table 3 shows an overview of the office locations: points A-F, J, and K are in the new building, and points G, H, and L are in the old building. All the experimental sites in the new building are office locations designed for ABW purposes at the design stage.

Overview of the Experiment Location
In the spring experiment, 6 locations in the new building were tested at the target office locations. In the summer experiment of 2021, 6 office locations were tested: 4 in the new building and 2 in the old building. Point A was an outdoor terrace, Point B was a family table in the cafeteria adjacent to the west window, Point   C was a table in the common space, Point D was a conference room adjacent to the north window, Point E was a high counter in the common space, Point F was a Japanese style conference room without a window, Point G was a common area conference space, and Point H was a conference room without a window. Measurements

Intellectual Productivity (Objective Work Efficiency)
Work efficiency was measured as an objective evaluation of intellectual productivity. Two types of tasks were used: concentration work and creative work. To measure the performance of the concentration task, a 5-minute typing session was conducted as a simulation task. The typing efficiency measured the concentration task's performance for 5 minutes. In addition, a 7.5minute mind map 6) was performed as a simulated creative task to measure the performance of the creative task. The number of valid responses 5) to the mind map was used to measure the creative work performance.

Intellectual Productivity (Subjective Work Efficiency)
As a subjective evaluation of intellectual productivity, a questionnaire was administered to subjects asking for their subjectively reported value of work efficiency. Subjects responded with a score between 0 and 100% for the subject's work efficiency in the relevant case, with the highest work efficiency being 100% and the lowest being 0% (hereafter referred to as subjective work efficiency).

Psychological Evaluation
A questionnaire survey was conducted on 12 items (heat, wind, sunlight, brightness, sound, smell, space, height, view, materials, color, overall satisfaction, -3. dissatisfied to 3. satisfied: answered on a 7-point scale) regarding satisfaction with the office environment.

Physiological Evaluation
A biometric sensor 7) was attached to the subject's chest, and the heart rate and sympathetic nervous system indices were calculated using the physiological parameters shown in Table 5 and the software supplied with the biometric sensor. In addition, salivary amylase, one of the stress measurements, was measured in each case.

Environmental Measurements
Environmental measurements were taken at representative points at each office location shown in Table 3. The environmental measurement items are shown in Table 7, and the measurement equipment installed at the tripod is shown in Figure 6.

Differences between spring and summer experiments
Case 4 was not conducted in the summer experiment, while all the combinations shown in Table  3 could be completed in the interim experiment 8) . In addition, the office locations used for the experiment were locations A through F for the interim experiment and locations C through H for the summer experiment. In addition, one of the four subjects in the interim experiment was changed for the summer experiment.

Intellectual Productivity (Objective Work Efficiency)
Figures 2 show the intensive work performance and creative work performance by location and the respective subjective work efficiency. The table's lower row of data labels shows the work performance, and the upper row shows the subjective work efficiency. Table 6 shows the average simulated work performance and significance probabilities by old and new buildings. The mean values of intensive and creative work performance for the old building (points G, H and L) were 46.5 and 46.0 points, respectively. The mean values for the new building (points A-F and K) were both 50.4 points, respectively, with the new building being 3.9 and 4.4 points higher than the old building for both tasks, respectively There is a significant difference between the new building and the old building in both intensive work performance (p=0.074*) and creative work performance (p=0.041**).
Regarding the objective evaluation of work performance, the intensive work performance was exceptionally high at points D, F, and H, which are private rooms. At the same time, this trend was not observed for creative work performance, suggesting that private rooms may be more suitable for intensive work.

Figures 3
show the results of the comparative analysis between the two groups, the new building and the old building. The figure on the left is for intensive work performance. It is clear that the new building is significantly higher than the old building. The figure on the right shows the results for creative work. The new building was found to be superior to the old building.
These results clearly indicate that the new building is better for both intensive and creative work. In particular, the new building may be considerably better for intensive work.

Conclusions
This paper presents an overview of the subject experiment conducted to clarify the effects of differences in office space on intellectual productivity and psychological and physiological quantities, as well as the results of intellectual productivity evaluation and analysis of physiological and psychological quantities, with the following findings. The new building had better work performance and subjective work efficiency than the old building in both objective and subjective evaluations of work efficiency in the intellectual productivity assessment for the new ABW-oriented office and the old building, which was a conventional office. The significance of the results was higher for creative work than for intensive work, suggesting that the ABW-oriented office may improve intellectual productivity, especially in creative work. In this report, it was impossible to clarify what physiological, psychological, and environmental factors caused the differences between the two workspaces. In the future, we will explain the relationship between the results of communication, psychological/physiological, and environmental measurements and intellectual productivity and physiological/psychological variables by case, which could not be reported in this report. Although there is no clear definition of ABW, this study defines it as "a way of working that allows people to work in an environment appropriate to their work context," referring to Engelen [5] et al. [6] . According to the definition, ABW includes workspaces outside the office, such as home, cafes, and trains, but in this study, only inside the office was covered. 2. To prevent infection with the novel coronavirus, subjects underwent PCR testing one week before the experiment to confirm negative results. In all experimental cases, subjects wore non-woven masks and maintained a physical distance of at least 1 m. 3. A habitual drinker is "a person who drinks more than one gram of sake equivalent per drinking day on three or more days per week" (National Health and Nutrition Survey, Ministry of Health, Labour Standards: For Foreign Workers in Japan (Information on Labour Standards)). 4. Standard body size was defined as a BMI between 18.5 and 25.0. 5. To eliminate differences in individual ability, deviation values were calculated for everyone, and these deviation values were treated as work performance and tabulated by location. (Individual deviation) = 50 + 10 x (work performance -mean value per subject) / (standard deviation per subject). 6. He writes down words associated with a given the word and connects them with a bar line. He was evaluated by the number of words answered in time (number of valid responses). 7. Silmee Bar Type Lite by TDK Corporation was used as the biometric sensor. 8. The experiment period was shortened due to the rapid spread of the new coronavirus during the experiment period. 9. Cases were combined and analyzed as the same experiment for the midterm and summer experiments. 10. Independent sample t-tests were conducted. p is the significance probability. *: p < 0.10, ** : p < 0.05