The integration of high-quality nature spaces into urban areas can be an effective strategy to reverse the current decline in children's well-being. However, the effectiveness of these nature spaces depends on a myriad of design and contextual factors. This paper identifies effective urban nature design strategies that maximize the potential benefits and accessibility of nature for children. This is achieved by developing design solutions that synthesize existing research on sustainable urban design and the effects of nature on children's well-being, in ways that effectively address key urban design and socioeconomic issues of modern industrial communities that negatively affect community members' nature access, well-being, and sustainability. The developed solutions demonstrate that urban nature design solutions should directly and indirectly address a community's negatively performing socioeconomic and design issues that function as barriers to children's access to high-quality urban nature areas, in order to be effective. Designing communities for children's well-being benefits community members, the municipality, and the natural environment, because it necessitates the development of more holistically sustainable and valuable communities than existing industrialized communities provide.@en

The type and range of tasks that knowledge workers conduct has received considerable attention by a myriad of research domains over the last century. However, the relative value of various typical workspace types for performing a variety of typical work tasks has received relatively scant research attention. In addition, existing research indicates that natural environments may be beneficial spaces for conducting a diverse range of work tasks, yet the relative value of conducting work tasks in natural environments compared to typical work environments is still not well understood. To this end, this paper reviews the results of a survey of knowledge workers that was conducted in Delft, The Netherlands in 2012. The primary goal of the survey was to identify the types of work environments that promote the performance of knowledge workers, in regards to a diverse range of work tasks. Participants were presented with images of different physical environments, including typical work environments, such as an open floor workspace, cellular office, and lounge, as well as several different natural environments. The participants then ranked the different physical environments in descending order, from best to worst, in terms of their perception of how well the workspaces promoted their performance on the work tasks. The results of the survey indicated that knowledge workers prefer a much broader and diverse range of work environments than are currently provided in office buildings. Notably, natural environments were found to be considerably more preferred than traditional work spaces for conducting a number of work tasks, particularly creative work tasks, such as brainstorming. In addition, at least one type of natural environment was ranked as at least the third best work environment for every work task evaluated.@en

Traditionele kantoor- en werkomgevingen en de bijbehorende klimaatsystemen
hebben een negatief effect op de gebruiker en de gebouwprestatie. Het resultaat
is een excessief energiegebruik, lage productiviteit, verminderde mate van
creativiteit en vermindert het algemene welbevinden. Klimaatsystemen waarin
kwaliteitscomponenten en -ruimten, zoals Microforests, worden mee ontworpen
kunnen energie-efficiënter zijn. Daarnaast kunnen zij de productiviteit, het comfort
en het algemeen welbevinden verhogen. Samengevat zijn kwaliteit gebaseerde
klimaatsystemen effectiever en waardevoller voor gebouweigenaren en gebruikers.@en