How Architects & Designers Can Reduce Discomfort Caused by Noise, Temperature & Odors

Architects and interior designers can help reduce the most common sources of distraction, irritation, and physical and mental stress including back and neck pain and osteoarthritis through proper acoustical and ergonomic design, and olfactory and thermal comfort.

Exterior noises can be a source of stress and a risk factor for health.  Traffic noise creates a higher risk for hypertension, diabetes, stroke, and heart attack.  Spaces should have an average sound pressure level from outside noise intrusion less than 50 dBA.  Internal noises from electronics, HVAC systems, mechanical equipment as well as the occupants themselves can also be sources of annoyance, distraction, and decreased productivity.  In open offices, the layout should allow for separate loud and quiet zones, and noisy equipment should be separated from occupants.  Walls should have the appropriate insulation and construction detailing and doors should have gaskets, sweeps and a non-hollow core to mitigate sound transmission between rooms.  The noise produced by reverberation can decrease speech intelligibility and cause additional stress.  It’s important to use sound-absorbing materials and design elements.  Using sound reducing surfaces is also a must.  Footsteps and voices can bounce off surfaces that are hard making them louder. If hard surfaces are used, other design elements such as ceiling baffles or acoustical artwork must be added to offset the problem. Ceiling height also affects indoor noise levels.  Yet high ceilings create visual appeal, but to mitigate noise, ceiling clouds, baffles or other design features are needed. A sound masking system can also help.  Complete silence can be just as distracting as loud noise. 

The temperature of a space can affect mood, performance, and productivity, however temperature preferences are highly individual, and balancing the energy requirements of a building with these varied preferences can be challenging.  Thus proper HVAC design is important. Providing occupants the ability to easily relocate workstations is helpful, therefore “hoteling” workstations are recommended over assigned workstations if possible, not only for this reason, but also for light-level and sitting/standing preferences.  Ideally, occupants should have access to individual fans (but not space heaters). Radiant temperature systems are preferable to forced air systems because they save floor space, reduce dust transportation, and increase thermal comfort through the separation of temperature controls and outdoor air supply systems.  With the use of radiant heating, the mean radiant temperature in a space can be kept lower compared to convective heating, providing the benefit of a slightly higher relative humidity in winter.

Overuse of the same muscles and ligaments strains the body especially for repetitive tasks.  The effects of slight visual or physical discomfort compounds which reduces focus and comfort.  Occupants should have the ability to either sit or stand while working at a computer.  At the seated workstations, the height and depth of chairs and the arms should be adjustable. 

Strong odors can also disrupt physical and psychological comfort as well as trigger eye, nose, and throat irritation, nausea, and headaches.  Limiting odors is important.  All restrooms, janitorial closets, kitchens, cafeterias, and pantries should be separated via negative pressurization, walls with self-closing doors, or vestibules or other intermediate areas.

These are all, of course, just a handful of ways architects and interior designers influence the wellbeing of building occupants.   To learn more, please go to www.statementdesignstudio.com.

How Building Design Can Encourage Physical Fitness

Physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for mortality, causing 6-9% of deaths – three to five million deaths - per year worldwide.  Millions of people fail to achieve the minimum level of activity necessary to help prevent type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses.  All healthy adults should engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity five days per week, and muscle-strengthening activities at least two days per week to help maintain good health. 

One of the factors known to impact physical activity levels is the built environment.  Neighborhood walkability, access to and use of mass transit, access to activity facilities near homes and workplaces, stair accessibility in buildings, active furnishings, and many other factors affect physical activity levels. 

The integration of visually appealing interior pathways and stairs within buildings can provide a convenient way to incorporate short periods of physical activity.  To encourage the use of stairs and paths, signage, artwork, music, daylighting, and views to the outside should be incorporated.  Stairs should be located within 25 feet of the main entrance and be clearly visible. 

Property owners can provide on-site fitness programs and facilities within buildings. Spaces with more than 10 regular occupants should provide complimentary access to a dedicated exercise space that is at least 200 square feet per occupant, up to a maximum of 4,000 square feet.  This space should include both cardio and muscle-strengthening fitness equipment as well as space for stretching, yoga, or Pilates.  Creating cyclist and pedestrian-friendly environments around the building can incentivize activity.  

Providing benches, chairs and tables, drinking fountains, and water bottle refilling stations along the building’s walking routes will encourage people to walk. Making the property exterior visually appealing with a water fountain, plaza, garden, green space, a trail network, nice landscaping, public art is important.  Mitigating any noise pollution problems is also key. 

Providing bicycle storage and a tire pump on-site will encourage more people to use a bicycle as transportation instead of a car.  Providing separate and secure bicycle storage for at least 5% of regular building occupants, as well as short-term bicycle storage for at least 2.5% of all visitors is a good rule of thumb.  Showers and lockers must also be provided.  One shower with a changing facility for the first 100 regular building occupants plus one additional shower for every 150 regular occupants, and one locker for every 5 regular building occupants is recommended. 

Most of us spend the majority of our time indoors in a seated position.  Prolonged sitting is associated with a number of adverse health conditions including obesity, cancer, back problems, and fatigue just to name a few.  Sitting more than 3 hours per day is associated with a 2-year lower life expectancy.  Regular exercise doesn’t negate the health consequences of long periods of sitting, so it’s important to create opportunities to reduce it.  Standing desks can be provided, and it’s recommended that everyone within a workspace have an opportunity to work at a standing desk at least part of the day.  This can be accomplished with adjustable height desks, standard desks with a desk-top adjustable height stand, or a combination of standard desks and standing desks that people can move to.  Treadmill desks, bicycle desks, and portable desk pedal machines can also be provided. 

Physical inactivity poses one of the biggest modern threats to public health.  It’s estimated to be responsible for 30% of ischemic heart disease, 27% of type 2 diabetes, and 21-25% of breast and colon cancer cases.  It also increases the odds of having a stroke 20-30% and it shaves years off of lives.  Property owners, architects, and interior designers can make a huge impact on the health and fitness of building occupants.

These are all, of course, just a handful of ways architects and interior designers influence the wellbeing of building occupants.   To learn more, please go to www.statementdesignstudio.com.

How Design Can Promote Good Mental Health in the Workspace

A fundamental component of human health, mental health is a state of well-being in which people can live to their fullest potential, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively, and contribute to their community.  It is determined by a range of socioeconomic, biological and environmental factors.  Architects and interior designers can support good mental health through the proper design of spaces. 

Incorporating nature into a space supports wellness including light and views, plants, natural materials, natural patterns and colors and artwork depicting nature.  Exposure to plants and other natural elements has been linked with decreased levels of diastolic blood pressure, depression, and anxiety and an increased attention capacity, better recovery from stress and illness, increase psychological well-being, and increased pain tolerance.  Plants also improve morale, efficiency, and job satisfaction, and decrease absenteeism in the workplace.  Incorporating water can also relieve stress, promote job satisfaction, and enhance job performance.  Exposure to natural light has a substantial impact on mood, circadian health, and productivity.  Exposure to greenery and other natural views create positive emotional and cognitive health including stress reduction, memory recall, and other benefits. Contact with actual living nature has a stronger effect than artwork representing nature.  Below are some ways to provide access to nature within a workspace:

·        -A large percentage of the exterior building site has landscaped grounds, rooftop gardens, or other natural elements.

·        -Indoor plants and/or water feature(s) are within a direct line of sight of at least 75% of occupants.  If water feature(s) are included, they should use an ultraviolet sanitation or other technology to address water safety.

·         -Views of nature such as parks, forests, rivers, lakes, and oceans are within a direct line of site of at least 75% of building occupants.

·        -Buildings can be within walking distance, about 1,000 feet, from a park, lake, or beach.

During the workday, people experience fatigue caused by a depletion of physical and mental resources, resulting in an accumulated need to recover from mental fatigue and stress.  Prolonged fatigue causes psychological stress including decreased mental acuity, low motivation, and irritability.  Providing indoor and outdoor restorative spaces, ideally both, for people to step away, recharge, and refocus helps alleviate this issue.  Incorporating nature and other restorative elements into these restorative spaces further helps alleviate this issue.  Within a workplace, there should ideally be designated interior spaces to be used exclusively for relaxation, contemplation, and restoration.  A total of 75 square feet per building occupant up to a maximum of 800 square feet is recommended.  Proper lighting design, acoustical design, and proper temperatures are a must within these spaces. Moreover, they should be private, accessible to those with disabilities, have calming colors, textures and forms, and have a variety of seat types such as cushions, mats, chairs, etc.  Outdoor spaces for restoration are also recommended, and should include the same design requirements mentioned above.

The layout of a space can make a huge impact on someone’s ability to focus and manage stress.  Open-plan offices result in lower productivity, increased distraction and concentration, and poorer health, primarily because of increased background noise and distraction on working memory.  People with jobs that require high levels of concentration are negatively affected more than those that do not require as much concentration in open-plan office spaces.  A lack of privacy and control over the surroundings create psychological discomfort.  While private offices are ideal for productivity, concentration, reduced stress, and overall health, it’s often not feasible to provide them for most employees.  Offices spaces that have an open plan can mitigate some of the negative effects by allowing individuals to adjust their environment according to personal preferences and task requirements.  To support opportunities for focus, the below can be incorporated into the design of a space:

·       - Provide work zones that support a variety of work functions such as quiet work vs. collaborative work that people can use, and a system for booking the various spaces.

·        -Provide a process for requesting an alternative workspace if the assigned workspace doesn’t meet someone’s needs. 

·        -Designate quiet zones, rooms, and hours.

·        -Provide noise-cancelling or noise-reducing headphones and/or earplugs.

·        -Provide a system to indicate do-not-disturb time such as a flag system.

·        -Provide lockers for those that don’t have a permanent workstation to store personal belongings so people can move workstations to one located in an area that fits their needs.

Good sleep quality is fundamental to good mental and physical health.  Regularly sleeping fewer than seven hours per night is associated with a number of chronic, adverse health problems including impaired immune function, weight gain and obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, anxiety and depression, physical pain, impaired performance and productivity, and increased errors and accidents.  Getting less than 6 hours of sleep for just one night is also linked to about 20% of car accidents and 6,000 fatal crashes per year in the U.S.  To mitigate the effects of sleepiness, offices can provide a private napping space, at least one per every 100 people.  For more information on how sleep affects health and the ways to support good sleep through design, see our other article: https://statementdesignstudio.com/increase-wellness3

About 18% of adults will experience a mental health condition over a 1-year period of time.  Over 30% of people will experience one in their lifetime. The mind and body are very interdependent.  Mental and physical health impact each other greatly, and building and interior designers can have a significant impact on the both.

These are all, of course, just a handful of ways architects and interior designers influence the wellbeing of building occupants.   To learn more, please go to www.statementdesignstudio.com.

Why and How to Start an Eco-Resort

By Elisa Garcia, Architect

The luxury camping or “glamping” industry is a $1.3 trillion dollar industry and it’s growing.  Companies like AutoCamp and Under Canvas recently received millions of dollars in funding to develop new resorts throughout the U.S.  Each currently has resorts under construction at Yosemite.  As more and more people are slaves to technology and work non-stop in a faster and faster paced world, they want to disconnect in nature for a few days at a time on a regular basis.  But they don’t want to “rough it” in their tiny bit of free time.  They want to spend their hard-earned dollars to experience nature in comfort and style. How do hotel companies, small property owners, and traditional real estate investors wanting to cash in on the boom go about expanding into or starting an eco-resort to accommodate those hurried and momentary nature-seekers?

Obtain Property

The first step is to obtain property that is in a desirable location that can be zoned for a hospitality use.  The easiest approach is to place your eco-resort on a property that already has a resort, lodge, B&B, or campground on it.  It is also possible to find a raw land site that is zoned for a hospitality use.  If the property is not already zoned for a hospitality use, then it will be necessary to get city or county approvals for the use which can take anywhere from a couple months to a couple of years depending on the area. 

Location is obviously the most important factor when selecting a property.  Will people want to pay to go there?  Is it easy to get to? Is it close to an airport or major metropolitan area? Is there already a lot of competition in that area?  Is it beautiful? If it’s not beautiful, is there an experience that would draw people there like a sports arena, race track, vineyard, or a renowned spiritual retreat?  A market study should always be completed before committing to a location to determine the demand.

You may assume a lot of upfront capital is needed to obtain land to start an eco-resort.  However, it is not necessary to purchase land. It’s typically much more economical to lease land, but finding and contacting land owners that may be interested in leasing a portion of their land to you is much more time-consuming than finding land for sale.  Yet it can be done and is worth the investment.

Funding

Once a property has been identified, a business strategy and a proforma can be developed in order to obtain funding from either a fund manager, bank, or private lender or investor.  Yet you’ll see below that a lot of upfront capital is not necessarily required especially if you have good credit.

Design & Upfront Costs

By using a luxury off-grid guest room that is technically a certified RV such as an Airstream Trailer or a “Zen Den” (www.zendentinyom.com), the initial capital investment can be quite low because it can be financed with an RV loan.  A typical monthly payment is around $400/month, and only a 10% down payment – about $5k - is needed per guest room.  An RV loan is much easier to obtain than a construction loan for a permanent structure.  Depending on the location and overall guest experience, the monthly earnings for one guest room is typically between $3,000 to $10,000 per month, so the ROI is significant.  There is a huge advantage to utilizing RV’s as guest rooms because they don’t require a building permit as yurts or other structures that are not on wheels do plus they have air conditioning, heat, and other creature comforts on board the unit.  Zen Dens can also be custom-designed to represent your proposed brand.

Another approach is to provide yurts, teepees, or beautiful wood and canvas tents which are temporary and fairly inexpensive to build, however they cannot be easily relocated as an RV can, don’t stand up to weather as well, require building permits, and don’t include off-grid kitchens or bathrooms. With these options, communal kitchens or bathrooms must be built, or brought in on wheels or temporary shipping containers which increases costs as well as approval timeframes with the city or county.  In many cases, anything other than an RV may not be allowable.

When developing an eco-resort, the goal is to keep the natural environment as undisturbed as possible and to blend in with the surroundings.  To provide your guests with a place to sleep, go to the bathroom, and possibly cook, some infrastructure is needed even if you utilize a Zen Den which is can be fully off-grid and self-contained.  It’s ideal if there’s power available at the site or it’s nearby and can be brought to the site.  Without grid power, solar panels are the only good way to provide air conditioning, and solar panels cost about $10k per unit. A generator can also be used by they are noisy and smelly.  Batteries can be used to power smaller items such as an iPhone or laptop, for a few days at a time.  A heater, stove, and refrigerator can be fed off propane if needed. 

Another major infrastructure requirement is a road.  You’ll need to provide an adequate road that will not be washed away in the winter so your guests and vendors can access your resort.  The road will require a permit, and the city or county will possibly request an analysis of the increased traffic that will result from the development. Access to drinkable water is also a nice-to-have, although that can be brought in by a truck.  Another consideration is how to eliminate sewer. A truck can go to the resort and empty sewer tanks regularly, or an on-site septic tank can be built if there is no access to a public sewer line.

Day-to-day Management

Once the physical aspects of your resort are set up, guest “rooms” will need to be cleaned before each new guest arrives, and of course, they’ll need to be booked which will take marketing and management.  Other amenities such as meals prepared by a chef, yoga classes, guided hikes, workshops, entertainment, etc. will require careful selection of outside resources and will add value and create a draw for your resort. There are numerous hotel management companies that can run the resort or assist with whatever tasks are needed. 

Turnkey Eco-Resort Development Consultant

Whether you're looking to add off-grid guest rooms quickly and inexpensively to an existing campsite, lodge, B&B, or winery, or create a satellite experience nearby, create an entirely new resort, renovate your existing resort, or create one-off pop-up resorts for special events, Garcia Architects offers comprehensive turnkey development services for eco-resorts. Both large hospitality companies and small land owners rely on our turnkey solutions when it comes to launching one-of-a-kind experiences for their guests while maximizing ROI.  Learn more at https://www.garciaarchitects.com/eco-resort-development.

How to Eliminate the Permit Process for Small Room Additions

Adding the smallest amount of space to a house requires a lengthy and expensive process in many cities, especially in California.  As an architect, I sympathize with my clients who, quite logically, assume that a small room addition should be quick and easy to accomplish.  The reality is that a small project takes as much work for an architect as a much larger one due to zoning and building department requirements, making the architectural fees and permitting costs, as well as the project timeframe, proportionally out of whack with the scope of the project.  Moreover, the desired addition may not even be allowed due to the setbacks, open space requirements, solar angle requirements, etc., etc., etc.  So Garcia Architects came up with a workaround:  tiny buildings on wheels that are manufactured in our RV-certified factory per RV (recreational vehicle) and Department of Transportation codes.  As RV’s, they can be placed anywhere an RV can, and building departments have no jurisdiction plus they can be financed with an RV loan, and delivered in under 3 months, whereas the timeframe to permit a traditional room addition, even a small backyard prefab building, is about 6-9 months.  For more information, go to www.zendentinyom.com

The Glamping Boom

Luxury camping or "glamping” is a $1.3 trillion industry, and it's growing fast with millions of dollars being invested in the next two to three years for new eco-resorts. The ROI is many times higher than a built development because the capital investment is so much less, yet guests are happy to pay as much per night for the unique experience. Whether you want one guest room or 100, we can help you get your "glampsite" up and running.  For more information, go to http://www.zendentinyom.com/

Become a “Glampsite” Vacation Rental Owner: The Quick & Easy Way to Earn a Ton of Passive Income on Your Property

Do you dream of quitting your job and earning passive income?  If you own or rent property, especially property that is private, beautiful, and in a desirable location, you can make probably make a huge income renting space.  Luxury camping or “glamping” has become big business.  Many companies such as AutoCamp, Under Canvas, and Glampotel, are investing millions into offering rustic accommodations in natural settings.  Websites like HipCamp and Airbnb offer vacationers the opportunity to rent anything from a patch of dirt for a tent to an Airstream trailer or cabin.  If you own property, or even just rent it, you too can get in on the action.

Many vacationers will spend as much as $700/night for a glamping experience.  Ventana Big Sur on the California coast charges $525/night for a fancy tent.  There are just several steps to getting set up to rent out space on your property.

1. Zoning.  You’ll need to contact your city to see if renting out space on your property on a short-term basis (30 days or less) is allowed.  Some cities only allow short-term rentals in areas zoned for a hospitality use.  Moreover, many cities require owners to pay hotel taxes on their short-term rental income.  Booking sites such as Airbnb can automatically add the tax onto bookings to make the process more seamless.  If you plan to build numerous cabins or guest rooms on your property, then you might need a conditional use permit from the city, in which case you may need to hire an architect to assist you. 

2.  Accommodations.  Building a permanent structure requires a permit which is a lengthy and expensive process.  Permitting in a typical California town can take about 6 months and can add about $25k to the construction cost.  Zen Dens, luxury off-grid guest rooms are the perfect solution.  They can be fully self-contained and easily moved.  They can be financed for under $400/month with an RV loan, and they can be delivered within 3 months of ordering, and do not require a building permit.  Learn more at www.zendentinyom.com.

3.  Booking:  Airbnb, VRBO, and the newer HipCamp, are some of the websites that make booking easy and simple, offering insurance in case anything is damaged, a means to make a claim on a security deposit, and seamless payments through Paypal.  It can also help to have your own website and advertise with Google adwords.

If you don’t own property, you can consider renting and living on a property that has extra space.  Just make sure your lease allows you to rent out space.  Or perhaps the rental income will make it financially feasible for you to purchase.  As more and more people are looking to have unique experiences and unplug from the stress of everyday life, this might just be the perfect time to get into the business.