Schools, as dynamic microcosms, house diverse members with unique roles, capabilities, and perspectives, influencing and being influenced by local contexts. However, their role in neighbourhood energy transitions is often overlooked. Greengage addresses this gap, offering a transformative monitoring tool developed through interdisciplinary collaboration across 12 European secondary schools.

Greengage is a socio-technical digital solution designed to impart energy knowledge and foster a representative and inclusive learning community. It serves as a collective monitoring tool for a school community to learn about their social and technical contexts that influence their energy consumption and comfort.

Greengage structures the activity of monitoring based on an energy literacy framework. It gives shape to the activity of monitoring by means of Q&A’s in the form of dilemmas, myths, and preferred scenarios. Visual metaphors provide feedback loops to the community on the monitoring process and outcomes. Greengage’s implementation involves 10-inch tablets as digital interactive displays in public areas and an informative large display in a public area.

Key to its success is the use of recognition and procedural justice principles enabling inclusive and collective learning of both hard and soft competencies including cognitive, behavioural, and affective. It combines design techniques of storytelling, gamification, and data visualisation to make learning a playful and sustained practice:

1. Greengage applies storytelling to build an engaging collective learning narrative:
a. E-dentities, E-menies, and E-lemints: characters representing energy social context, social barriers, and energy technical context respectively.
b. Q&A’s formatted as dilemmas, preferred scenarios, and myths: interactions facilitating knowledge sharing of values, preferences and experiences on energy and comfort around daily activities.

2. Greengage implements gamification to build playful interactions for knowledge sharing:
a. Metaphors: A building school, rainbow, and foundations visualize and animate learning progress, encouraging engagement and sustained learning practices.
b. Scoring: The intensity and colourfulness of the rainbow and the physical aspect of the school building visualise the quantification of the frequency and diversity of answers and participation of the community.

3. Greengage communicates the progress and impact of collective learning by means of visual feedback loops:
a. Progress of frequency and diversity of participation using the metaphor earlier explained.
b. Impact of self-reporting and sensing data of comfort and energy variables using two abstraction layers: high level of abstraction using non-technical language to enrich Q&A feedback by aligning answers with collective data and sensing data when available; low abstraction layer provides numeric visualizations of real-time and historical sensing data enhanced by e-lemints visual appearance.

Insights from Greengage implementation highlight three future development: the need to institutionalize learning interactions, support diverse learning levels, and explore cross-community collaborations by establishing Greengage Clubs, AI-supported learning paths, and social computational analysis for valuable local and global contexts insights. Greengage stands as a beacon, showcasing the transformative potential of school communities in accelerating energy transition in European cities.@en

This Special Issue is preoccupied with the question: ‘How can citizens play an active role in co-creating sustainable food systems?’. The issue presents four distinct empirical research studies that explore participatory actions, co-creation and citizen science in moving towards more sustainable urban food systems at the intersection of design and sustainability. The various contributions explore the role of co-design with citizens to create sustainable food systems by address-ing issues related to food production, processing, transportation and consumption. The issue covers diverse topics in distinct settings, from co-creation with agri-food smallholders in Vietnam to a design-led systemic action against homelessness-related food poverty in Turin, Italy.

@en

Background: Current eHealth interventions are poorly adopted by people with low health literacy (LHL) as they often fail to meet their needs, skills, and preferences. A major reason for this poor adoption is the generic, one-size-fits-all approach taken by designers of these interventions, without addressing the needs, skills, and preferences of disadvantaged groups. Participatory design approaches are effective for developing interventions that fit the needs of specific target groups; yet, very little is known about the practical implications of executing a participatory design project for and with people with LHL. Objective: This study aimed to demonstrate the application of participatory design activities specifically selected to fit the needs and skills of people with LHL and how these were manifested within an overarching eHealth design process. In addition, the study aims to present reflections and implications of these activities that could support future designers to engage people with LHL in their design processes. Methods: We used the design process of a smart asthma inhaler for people with asthma and LHL to demonstrate participatory design activities. The study was framed under 5 stages of design thinking: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test within 2 major iteration cycles. We integrated 3 participatory design activities deemed specifically appropriate for people with LHL: co-constructing stories, experience prototype exhibition, and video prototype evaluation. Results: Co-constructing stories was found to deepen the understanding of the participant’s motivation to use or not to use maintenance medication. This understanding informed and facilitated the subsequent development of diverse preliminary prototypes of possible interventions. Discussing these prototypes in the experience prototype exhibition helped provoke reactions, thoughts, and feelings about the interventions, and potential scenarios of use. Through the video prototype evaluation, we were able to clearly communicate the goal and functionality of the final version of our intervention and gather appropriate responses from our participants. Conclusions: This study demonstrates a participatory design approach for and with patients with asthma and LHL. We demonstrated that careful consideration and selection of activities can result in participants that are engaged and feel understood. This paper provides insight into the practical implications of participatory activities with people with LHL and supports and inspires future designers to engage with this disadvantaged target group.

@en

The rise of remote working has highlighted the importance of office spaces that support employees’ social well-being. However, there is a lack of explicit knowledge on how to design such spaces. In order to address this gap, this study explored the strategies employed by practitioners in designing social office spaces. In-depth interviews with fifteen experienced interior designers were analysed using means-end chain theory. This revealed the designers’ common aim to encourage informal social interactions through creating attractive, spacious, recognisable, and spatially integrated breakout spaces. Additionally, communicating group identity, promoting visibility, and offering a cosy atmosphere aimed to foster a sense of connectedness among employees. These findings not only enable more deliberate design decisions but also serve as valuable insights for less experienced designers. Moreover, the framework of design components, affordances and design objectives that emerged from this study can enhance communication between designers and stakeholders involved in office projects.

@en

The original version of the article does not contain information about the funding of the research. The text below can be added to the existing text in relation to funding. ENERGE is an Interreg North-West Europe (NWE) project, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund Project Number NWE-827.

@en

Schools are complex physical and social institutions within national education systems. They account for significant energy consumption and like other buildings can demonstrate inefficient patterns of energy use. Poor energy performance of educational facilities is an intricate issue driven by complex causality of interconnected and dynamic factors. Addressing this issue requires a systemic approach, which is heretofore lacking. The aim of this research is to present and describe a systemic framework to facilitate energy reduction in schools across different European contexts. This transdisciplinary approach to sustainable energy use has been piloted in 13 post-primary schools located in six countries in northwest Europe. The research implements a series of planned activities and interventions, which help to unveil a systemic approach to improving energy efficiency in schools. The findings demonstrate how this approach, together with its ensuing methodologies and strategies, can contribute to reducing carbon emissions and improve knowledge and awareness around sustainable energy.

@en

Schools are learning communities where multiple stakeholders can collaborate to learn about energy efficiency, including via formal curricula, non-formal learning and day-to-day practices. Furthermore, by improving energy literacy among building occupants, the energy efficiency of schools can be improved. However, turning schools into learning communities rather than learning organizations is still problematic. This article details a case study realised in the form of the ENERGE project, which integrates technological, educational and practical activities in 13 post-primary schools from 6 European countries. Owing to an extensive collaboration of diverse stakeholders, the ENERGE project resulted in the origination of a learning community around energy efficiency in the schools. The outcomes of building a learning community within the ENERGE project included: capacity building (in the form of the ENERGE Committees and Teacher Network), the introduction of digital education (via the ENERGE digital platform), development of curriculum-based modules to raise energy literacy, and the establishment of a viable model for expanding ENERGE experience to other schools. The article concludes by explaining the benefits of the ENERGE approach for stakeholders.@en

It is commonly assumed by the projects demonstrating concepts for positive energy districts in cities across Europe that citizens want and need to be involved in the development of these concepts as an essential condition for positive energy districts to be deployed successfully and to achieve the expected societal goals. Six different research and innovation projects are investigating the different forms of energy citizenship in positive energy districts and their impacts. They aim to apply a transdisciplinary approach to collaborative research and to impact assessment. The interim results are described, and preliminary conclusions on impact are drawn. The projects each used different approaches to engaging citizens, while differentiating between different groups. Progress is monitored but only fragmentary evidence on the impact has been gathered. Transdisciplinary approaches are being developed but are still immature.

@en

The prolonged working from home during the recent pandemic has increased awareness of the social function of the office: employees missed informal social interaction with co-workers, face-to-face meetings, and spontaneous encounters. If the trend of hybrid working persists, one of the main functions of the physical office will be to support face-to-face interaction and social bonding for increasing well-being, innovation, and organizational commitment. This short paper explores how workplace design could support the social well-being of its users based on established theory in the field of environmental psychology. First, individual social well-being at work and social workplace affordances are defined. Next, workplace affordances for social well-being are deducted from theories on the psychology of space, such as Space syntax theory, Privacy regulation theory, Behavior setting theory, and Place attachment theory. From this analysis, three categories of workplace design features are induced which could support social well-being at work: interaction affordances, privacy affordances, and identity affordances. A conceptual framework is presented that connects social well-being components to these three categories of affordances. This framework can serve as a starting point for the collection of empirical studies, the deduction of specific social affordances from design practice, and the development of design strategies for enhancing social well-being in offices.@en

Background and aim – Lack of privacy is a prominent issue in contemporary offices. This study aimed to identify interior design features that jointly influence satisfaction with privacy and noise in the office workspace, and estimate their predictive power. This knowledge can inform strategic workplace design. Methods – Eight design features were defined that were expected to influence visual, acoustic and physical privacy, noise from other people and acoustic quality, and which would be easy to report for users. Data were collected through an online survey among office workers in the Dutch public sector (N = 323). The joint impact of design features on the experienced privacy and noise was calculated through ordinal regression analysis. Results – The data indicate that small, relatively isolated rooms predict privacy and noise satisfaction better than privacy screens, soft flooring, and visibility control. Workspace soundproofing increases satisfaction with sound privacy and acoustics, but it does not reduce noise annoyance. Originality – This study operationalizes architectural privacy along several dimensions and from a user perspective, and hierarchically relates them to specific workspace satisfaction outcomes, generating actionable insights for workplace designers. Practical and social implications – The study can serve as a source for evidence-based workplace design and management that aims to balance user needs for privacy and quiet against their need for social interaction. Currently, this balance is especially important because hybrid working may increase the need for informal interaction at the office while there still is a need for privacy and quiet spaces. Type of paper – Research paper (full).@en

Even though group mood has a significant impact on organizational functioning, there is no typology available to describe distinct group moods. We propose that designing products and services to facilitate beneficial group mood experiences requires a granular and experience-oriented understanding of the phenomenon. This article introduces an initial typology of eight group moods using a componential approach. The typology was generated via an exploratory study designed to identify aspects and qualities of group mood experienced in professional settings. We observed real-life meetings of five small workgroups. Group mood perceptions were self-reported in situ and later described collectively in a group session. By categorizing the group mood qualities in participants’ descriptions, we developed eight group mood types. This typology aims to facilitate a granular understanding of the group mood phenomenon for designers (practitioners and researchers). We envision this overview of eight group moods as the first step toward developing a systematic knowledge of group mood in the field of design.

@en

This working paper presents an artistic inquiry into the embodiment of group mood through the human expression of dance. The starting point was a previously developed typology of eight distinct group moods. The collaborative inquiry involved choreographers, dancers, and artists for music, filming, costumes, make-up and set design. The result is a set of eight dance video clips, each representing a specific type of group mood. As a next step, we will explore how these video clips can be useful (1) as a form of holistic, multimodal, and appealing knowledge communication, and (2) as representations that can guide further theorizing and hypothesis development about the nature of group mood. The presented work serves as a case that explores and demonstrates the value of artistic inquiry in the domain of experience research.@en

It is assumed by the projects demonstrating Positive Energy District (PED) concepts in cities across Europe that citizens should want and need to be involved in the development of new energy concepts, such as PEDs for these concepts to be deployed successfully. Six different PED research and innovation projects are investigating the types and expectations of citizen engagement. They evaluate the impact of energy citizenship on the success of PED deployment across Europe@en

The literature on Design Anthropology (DA) is skewed towards discussion exploring anthropology's potential for design. In contrast, discourse on how design can contribute to anthropology is somewhat limited. This article proposes an ‘Anthropology through Design’ (AtD) approach by reflecting on a study on the emergent phenomenon of ‘energy exchange’. The AtD approach aims to generate anthropological knowledge of an emergent sociocultural phenomenon through the use of a design intervention. This article describes four intertwined tracks—Framing, Design Intervening, Ethnographic Particular Understanding, and Anthropological General Understanding—of our AtD process. The proposed AtD approach takes a strategic step in relocating ‘design’ from being an object of anthropology to becoming an instrument for doing anthropology.

@en

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to aid conceptualization of social well-being at work by identifying its components in a contemporary office context, so adequate measures can be developed to monitor social well-being and to assess the impact of interventions in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach: This study used existing interview data from recent post-occupancy evaluations of two large activity-based flexible offices in the Dutch public sector. Data-driven concept mapping of 182 different employees' statements on social aspects of well-being was used to find communalities in their perceptions. Findings: From the data 14 key concepts emerged referring to employees' social needs, reactions to (anti-)social behaviour of others and perceived social affordances of the work environment. Contrary to established theory, social well-being appeared to be a context-bound phenomenon, including components of both short-term hedonic and long-term eudaimonic well-being. Research limitations/implications: The findings serve as an inductive source for the further development of adequate measures of social well-being at work. Limitations concern the specific (cultural) setting of the cases and the use of existing data. Practical implications: Preliminary suggestions for fostering social well-being include change management, participatory design, being alert of the identified risks of activity-based offices and supporting privacy regulation, identity marking and a sense of community, as well as a diversity of informal face-to-face interactions balanced with quiet spaces. Originality/value: This article contributes to the conceptualization of social well-being in contemporary offices by discussing established social well-being theory and analysing real-world data, using a method novel to management research.

@en

Purpose: The covid-19 pandemic has increased awareness of office workers’ need for real-life social interaction, connectedness and belongingness at work. The purpose of this paper is to present a way to study this important, but still under-examined, social dimension of employee well-being in relation to workplace design. A conceptual model outlines how the physical work environment might support or inhibit perception and behaviour related to social well-being of individual office workers. A research strategy is presented to develop a framework for guiding the design of workplaces. Theory: Several well-being theories consider relatedness a basic human need. Fulfilling this need requires satisfying social interactions, leading to positive relationships and feelings of belonging. Spatial characteristics could encourage or discourage social interaction by influencing natural movement, visibility and privacy. In the workplace social interaction can be a support as well as a burden, depending on, for instance, privacy preferences and work activities. Therefore, the conceptual model presented here includes spatial characteristics encouraging or discouraging social interaction as well as the employee’s perception, behaviour, personal and situational factors. Methodology: First, workplace design and social well-being are defined and their relationship is depicted in a conceptual model. Subsequently, a mixed-methods approach is proposed to develop this model into a framework of relationships between specific workplace design elements and components of users’ social well-being. The proposed research strategy starts with an exploratory phase of additional literature study, analysis of case-study data, and pilot studies to identify parameters and try out methods. The subsequent phase of main data collection and analysis includes (a) a large-scale quantitative study using statistic modeling to identify significant relationships between outcome and predictor variables, and (b) a series of field experiments applying empirical research through design for studying ways to manipulate key predictors of social well-being using design interventions. The third phase synthesises the findings and translates them into a framework to guide workplace designers and other stakeholders. Findings: The model states that workplace design influences social well-being through actual and perceived affordances and behaviour, influenced by organizational and personal factors. Therefore it is acknowledged that measures for both the actual and the perceived work environment need to be developed. Similarly, measurement of both actual and perceived social interaction adds value to the insight in the relationship between workplace design and social wellbeing. Collecting data in real-life settings in contemporary offices will enhance the internal and external validity of the framework. Originality/value: The concept of social well-being at work has not yet been well defined and studied in a comprehensive and systematic way, nor has it entirely been connected to actual and perceived characteristics of the physical work environment. This paper makes a start with unravelling the complex relationship between workplace design, social interaction and social well-being, and offers a framework and practical suggestions for further research. @en

In this paper, we report on an interactive visualization that served multiple purposes and diverse roles in a research-through-design (RtD) study. The visualization is part of the study on the sociocultural factors that shape energy exchanges between households. It showcases an ethnographic data combined with quantitative logs collected for 11 months, comprising of around 1200 energy exchanges between 27 energy-receiving households and one energy-giving household in a rural village in India. In this paper, we reflect on how designing the visualization as a process as well as the visualization as a tool, played three significant roles in the RtD study. First, as a process, it helped design researchers to select, reduce, and summarise qualitative and quantitative findings and find connections between them. Second, interactive visualization as a tool became a means of disseminating longitudinal data. Third, interactive visualization as a boundary object enabled interaction, cooperation, and collaboration amongst designers, researchers, engineers, and anthropologists. Overall, we suggest to the design research community to consider designing of an interactive visualization as a way to make sense of longitudinal collected in a RtD project and to utilize their design skills for such creative ways of analysis and knowledge dissemination.@en