Thesis (BS Architecture) University of the Philippines Mindanao, 2018

The physical working environment plays a vital role in keeping its occupants away from acquiring common illnesses and maintain a healthy lifestyle. With this, the researcher looked into how architecture can be used to reduce the risk of people acquiring illnesses, through studying and designing a working environment that would then allow people to perform well and work to their fullest potential.
To come up with a data, the researcher conducted key informant interviews, series of surveys and reviewed existing building structures to analyze the relationship between the working environment, and health and wellness of the occupants. The result of the gathered data suggests that the studied structures fail most of the required schemes and spaces that were suggested to passively limit the acquisition of common illnesses. Inversely, common recurring illnesses were seen as a result of the missing building schemes and features, which strongly suggests the importance of those schemes and features to be implemented to come up with a better working environment. As a result, the architectural translation for this study composes building schemes and features placed all around the proposed structures to ensure overall health and wellness benefits to users.
Altogether, this study highlights the importance of architecture that goes beyond creating beautiful and well-functioning structures, but moreover how it could also take into account the health and wellness status of the people, and build around the concept of creating a healthy working environment.