Placemaking at Work: Creating Meaningful and Sustainable Workplaces in the Age of Remote Work

A Dissertation Proposal

Abstract

The office is no longer the only place where work happens. Before 2020, only about 7% of remote-capable U.S. employees worked from home. By early 2023, that figure had settled at roughly 35% (Pew Research Center, 2023). U.S. office vacancy rates now sit above 20% (Moody's Analytics, 2024), yet the global coworking sector keeps growing (Coworking Insights, 2024). The demand for physical space has not disappeared. What has changed is that work now spreads across multiple locations, and no single building anchors it anymore.

This dissertation looks at that scattered landscape through placemaking, architectural design, and environmental sustainability. The central question is: How can architects design meaningful and sustainable work environments when the workplace is no longer a single coherent space? I propose a framework I call Distributed Placemaking to think about these intermittently occupied, multi-site environments. Using a mixed-methods design that compares Florida (USA) and France (EU), the research explores how place attachment, spatial configuration, and energy equity play out in hybrid work settings. My aim is to produce practical design guidelines that architects and facilities managers can actually use.

Keywords: workplace architecture, placemaking, hybrid work, activity-based working, sustainability, employee-workplace alignment, distributed placemaking, space syntax, energy justice

1.0 Introduction: The Crisis of Architectural Typology

1.1 The Dissolution of the Container

For more than a hundred years, the office was where you went to work. Whether in a bullpen or a mid-century skyscraper, it required physical co-presence and synchronous management (Waring, 2016; Taylor, 1913). The building was the workplace. There was nothing else to discuss.

The pandemic broke that assumption. Today, work happens at kitchen tables, satellite offices, and half-empty corporate headquarters. I treat this web of locations as a "Distributed Ecosystem" because the architect's problem is no longer about designing a single building. It is about making sense of a fragmented spatial experience.

U.S. office vacancy hit 20.1% in early 2024 (Moody's Analytics), while coworking tripled its global footprint in less than a decade (Coworking Insights, 2024). People still need the physical world to get work done, but they are not tied to one desk anymore. The traditional office now has to compete with the comfort of home and the flexibility of coworking. To justify a commute, it has to offer something you cannot get from a screen: a genuine sense of belonging.

1.2 Workspace Versus Workplace: A Phenomenological Distinction

To understand the current design problem, we need to look past the physical desk. A workspace and a workplace are not the same thing.

A workspace is infrastructure: the chair, the monitor, the HVAC system. It is a functional setting for tasks. A workplace is a workspace that people have made meaningful through use. As geographer Yi-Fu Tuan (1977) put it, we transform "undifferentiated space" into "place" by investing it with value and experience. A corporate building is a workspace. It only becomes a workplace through the rituals and social bonds of the people who use it.

This distinction matters for practice, not just theory. Designers have long optimized functional metrics (daylight, ergonomics, airflow) and assumed that "culture" would handle the rest (Brennan et al., 2002). In a distributed world, that assumption breaks down. A home office can be perfectly equipped but socially empty. A corporate headquarters can be beautiful but feel impersonal when it is only half-occupied three days a week.

The central argument of this dissertation is that architects need to think of themselves as placemakers. That does not mean abandoning building standards. It means recognizing that meaningful environments grow out of deliberate design combined with social practice. Schneekloth and Shibley (1995) defined placemaking as the "art of creating, sustaining, and adapting places that support daily life." For the modern architect, this means working to create a "sense of place" (Cresswell, 2004) across multiple locations, not just within a single building.

1.3 Research Problem and Central Questions

Most modern office typologies, from the open plan to activity-based layouts, assume that people will be there every day. Distributed work shatters that premise. We are now designing for a network of intermittently occupied sites, a challenge without a clear historical blueprint. Placemaking theory, long applied to neighborhoods and parks, hasn't yet caught up to this fragmented reality.

This fragmentation also brings hidden inequities to the surface. While the home office offers autonomy, it also shifts costs onto the individual. Lower-income professionals often face higher energy burdens and lack the spatial resources for deep focus. This raises an urgent question: How can architects champion equity in a landscape where their direct control is increasingly limited?

The dissertation frames these challenges within a single research question:

How can architects employ design principles grounded in place theory, systems thinking, and equity frameworks to create productive, meaningful, and sustainable work environments across the distributed workplace ecosystem of corporate offices, home workspaces, and community work nodes?

1.4 Scope and Delimitations

Geographic and Regulatory Scope: This research employs a comparative design across two regulatory contexts:

• United States (Florida): Lenient regulatory environment; no employer mandate for home office ergonomics or equipment. Remote work culturally normalized and tax-advantaged. Florida serves as a case of market-driven distributed work adoption.

• European Union (France): Stringent regulatory environment; French labor law (2021 Accord National Interprofessionnel) mandates employer provision of equipment and ergonomic assessment for remote workers. French law also recognizes le droit à la déconnexion (the right to disconnect), a worker protection absent in the U.S. France thus illustrates regulation-driven distributed work design.

This contrast allows me to investigate a key moderating variable: How do regulatory environments shape architectural responses to distributed work? The comparison has practical relevance for U.S. practitioners as policy environments continue to evolve.

Target Population: The research focuses on workers whose jobs are remote-capable: professionals whose work primarily involves information processing, creative problem-solving, and communication, and whose work can feasibly be performed outside a traditional office. This definition aligns with Pew Research Center's (2023) survey methodology and allows focused analysis of an economically significant demographic.

Node Focus: Primary data collection focuses on two nodes: High-Intensity Anchor (HQ/corporate offices) and Ergonomic Periphery (Home workspaces). The third node, Community Node (coworking/smart work centers), is addressed through literature review and secondary data. This narrower focus enables deeper analysis within the dissertation timeline while maintaining theoretical completeness.

Excluded Scope: The research excludes occupations requiring physical presence (manufacturing, healthcare, retail, construction). Embodied carbon is excluded from carbon accounting; only operational carbon is assessed. This represents a known limitation addressed in the conclusions.

1.5 Contributions to Knowledge

Theoretical Contribution: At its center, this work proposes Distributed Placemaking, a framework that extends place attachment theory and placemaking to multi-node, intermittently occupied work environments. It stitches together six theories (place attachment, ecological systems, JD-R, space syntax, activity theory, IPAT) into a model applicable to hybrid work design.

Methodological Contribution: On the methods side, I apply space syntax analysis to low-occupancy, hybrid-use facilities. Space syntax was not designed with half-empty offices in mind, so the key question is testing whether its metrics hold up in contexts quite different from those the method was originally developed for.

Empirical Contribution: I aim to build a comparative dataset linking workplace typologies to worker experience (place attachment, collaboration equity, belonging), productivity outcomes (self-reported and behavioral proxies), and sustainability metrics (carbon emissions, energy burden by income) across two regulatory contexts. Not many studies have tried to measure experience, productivity, and environmental outcomes together, so this dataset would help fill that gap.

Professional Contribution: Finally, the practical deliverable is a set of evidence-based design guidelines for hybrid workplace design: actionable principles applicable to architectural practice and corporate real estate strategy. These guidelines will be grounded in the empirical findings and reviewed through expert feedback (Delphi method).

2.0 Theoretical Framework

2.1 Framework Architecture

This dissertation applies a multi-theory framework. Six core theories directly inform the research hypotheses and drive the research design, while four supplementary lenses provide interpretive perspectives.

I have organized the theoretical framework into two categories. The Core Theories directly shape my hypotheses and the empirical research design. These are the tools I will explicitly test in the field. The Supplementary Lenses, meanwhile, offer critical perspectives that enrich my final analysis, though they do not drive the primary hypothesis testing.

2.2 Core Theories

2.2.1 Place Attachment Theory

Key Sources: Altman & Low (1992); Lewicka (2011); Williams & Vaske (2003)

At its heart, place attachment is about the emotional bonds we form with our surroundings. This connection usually involves three layers: place identity (where the space becomes part of who we are), place dependence (how well the space supports our daily tasks), and social bonding (the community ties that anchor us to a location).

Altman and Low (1992) argue that when these bonds are broken, whether by moving a desk or losing access to a building, people experience a sense of loss similar to grief. Lewicka (2011) later found that in offices, this attachment grows with tenure and the ability to "claim" space through personalization. Since distributed work often restricts territoriality, I will test whether workers can still build a meaningful sense of belonging across multiple nodes at once, and which specific design choices can make this possible in non-territorial, activity-based settings.

2.2.2 Ecological Systems Theory

Key Source: Bronfenbrenner (1979)

Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory allows us to see people not in isolation, but as participants in a series of nested environments. These range from the microsystem (the immediate setting, like a desk) to the macrosystem (broad cultural and legal realities). For my research, this offers a structural logic for the "distributed" part of placemaking. I treat the home office as a microsystem and the corporate headquarters as a hub for interaction within the larger mesosystem. Organizational policies and national labor laws (especially comparing Florida and France) serve as the exo- and macro-level factors that shape the individual experience.

Bronfenbrenner originally developed this framework for child development, and translating it into workplace architecture. By validating this model empirically, I hope to offer a new way for designers to conceptualize the hybrid experience as a single, connected ecosystem rather than a series of disconnected rooms.

2.2.3 Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model

Key Sources: Bakker & Demerouti (2007); Roskams & Haynes (2019)

The JD-R model views the workplace as a balancing act between job demands (the things that drain energy, like noise or long commutes) and job resources (the things that build it up, like privacy or social support). When demands consistently outweigh resources, workers burn out; when resources are plentiful, they flourish.

I am using this model to operationalize what Aksoy et al. (2022) call the "Coordination Tax." I treat this cognitive overhead as a primary demand of distributed work. My goal is to map out exactly which spatial resources at each location can offset this tax. The result will be an inventory that tells us what each node (home, office, or third place) actually costs a worker in terms of effort, and what it gives back in return.

2.2.4 Space Syntax Theory

Key Sources: Hillier & Hanson (1984); Sailer et al. (2023)

Space syntax moves past architectural intuition to provide a mathematical way of seeing how layouts shape human behavior. By measuring integration (how accessible a room is) and connectivity (visual links), we can predict where people will naturally gather or cross paths. Sailer et al. (2023) have shown that these metrics correlate directly with unplanned collaboration and social energy.

I am applying these quantitative techniques to see if they hold up in hybrid offices where occupancy is no longer constant. I will use Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA) to correlate layout geometry with actual interaction frequency. If these spatial metrics still predict social behavior even when buildings are half-empty, then space syntax becomes an even more powerful tool for the future of distributed workplace design.

2.2.5 Activity Theory

Key Sources: Vygotsky (1978); Engeström (1987)

In Activity Theory, the "unit of analysis" is not a person or a room, but a purposeful activity. This is the goal-directed interaction between a person, their tools, and their setting. The core idea is that a space is only "successful" if it aligns with the activity it is supposed to host. A focus pod is perfect for deep work but a failure for a brainstorming session.

This theory is the foundation for Activity-Based Working (ABW). I will examine whether ABW environments actually deliver on their promise of better "fit." By measuring how well a worker's task matches their environment, I can test if this alignment leads to higher engagement and a lower "Coordination Tax."

2.2.6 IPAT Sustainability Framework

Key Sources: Ehrlich & Holdren (1971); Waggoner & Ausubel (2002)

To measure the true environmental cost of distributed work, I use the IPAT equation. This framework shows that environmental impact (I) is the result of Population (P), Affluence (A), and Technology (T).

Most architects focus only on the "Technology" (T) part, like making air conditioners more efficient. But IPAT warns that these gains can be wiped out by changes in "Affluence" (A) or spatial footprints. I center this framework to question whether remote work is as "green" as it seems. My research looks at the "rebound effect" (where heating a large, drafty home offsets a saved commute) and the "energy burden" placed on lower-income workers. This model allows me to quantify how sustainability and equity are intertwined in the hybrid landscape.

2.3 Supplementary Theoretical Lenses

Four additional theories provide interpretive depth without driving primary hypotheses:

3.0 Literature Review and Gaps

3.0.1 Literature Mind Map

The following mind map visualizes the fundamental theories, architectural eras, and behavioral models surveyed in this literature review. It illustrates the structural relationship between historical workplace paradigms and contemporary phenomenological frameworks defining Distributed Placemaking.

mindmap
  root((Placemaking at Work))
    Workplace Evolution
      Taylorism & Scientific Management
      Activity-Based Working
      Distributed & Hybrid Reality
    Spatial Experience
      Placemaking Theory
      Place Attachment
      Space Syntax
    Productivity & Equity
      JD-R Model
      Collaboration Disparity
    Sustainability
      IPAT Sustainability Framework
      Energy Burden

3.1 Historical Evolution of Workplace Design Paradigms

Era 1: Taylorist Efficiency (1910s-1960s)

Frederick Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Management (1913) reshaped workplace design. Taylor argued that work could be optimized through systematic observation, measurement, and standardization. Architectural historians Worthington (2012) and Waring (2016) document how Taylorism produced the "bullpen" typology: vast, open floorplans with rows of desks designed for visual surveillance and standardized work processes. The office became a machine for efficiency optimization. This paradigm dominated workplace design for five decades and persists today in digital forms of monitoring and standardized task management (Gautié et al., 2020).

Era 2: Humanistic Counter-Movement (1950s-1980s)

Bürolandschaft ("office landscape"), developed by German designers responding to Taylorism's dehumanization, proposed organic spatial arrangements fostering teamwork and autonomy (Hassanain, 2006). Concurrently, Herman Miller introduced the Action Office system (1968): modular, reconfigurable workstations designed to provide flexibility and partial privacy. Yet as Haapakangas et al. (2022) document in research on Activity-Based Offices, this flexibility was commercialized into the "cubicle farm," a compromise preserving Taylorist control while appearing modernized. Waring (2016) frames this evolution as an oscillation: reductionist efficiency (Taylorism) → holistic humanization (Bürolandschaft) → reductionist efficiency resurrected (cubicle standardization).

Era 3: The Rise of Activity-Based Working (2000s-2010s)

By the start of the 21st century, the concept of "Activity-Based Working" (ABW) had moved from a management novelty into a sophisticated design framework. Rather than assigning workers to a single desk for all tasks, ABW advocates for a landscape of purpose-built settings: focus pods for deep work, lounge areas for casual interaction, and specialized rooms for phone calls or group brainstorming. I see this as a critical attempt to finally resolve the Taylorist-Holist tension that has long plagued office design. Empirical support for ABW's efficacy, particularly from researchers such as Tokumura et al. (2022) and Shinoyama et al. (2019), suggests that when workers have the autonomy to choose their environment, both perceived productivity and job satisfaction tend to rise. However, Haapakangas et al. (2022) offer an important caveat: without careful implementation, ABW can sometimes erode social cohesion and territorial belonging. This fits with the findings of Tulenheimo-Eklund et al. (2025), which highlight how outcomes depend heavily on "Person-Environment fit," meaning a layout that energizes one employee may distress another. Recent research into work activity patterns and collaboration networks suggests that these social and behavioral drivers are now the primary factors for effective space planning and design in modern offices (Tagliaro et al., 2022).

Era 4: Confronting the Digital Discontinuity (2010s-Present)

We are currently navigating what Dragan (2021) describes as a "great discontinuity." As digital knowledge work has detached from physical location, a significant friction has emerged: dispersed teams are often still being forced into open-plan buildings designed for the era of constant co-location. This creates a mismatch where the traditional architectural container, instead of supporting modern work, actually restricts its potential. My research proceeds from the observation that the "office" is no longer just a building, but a series of digital and physical touchpoints.

The Pandemic as a Catalyst and Mirror

The COVID-19 pandemic forced this structural shift into fast-forward. I find a compelling analogy for this transition in the work of Ennes and Gain (2024) on museum digitalization. When museums, spaces specifically designed for sensory, whole-bodied engagement, were suddenly forced into "one-way" digital transmission, the experience changed in ways that went well beyond logistics. This parallels the corporate shift: while we proved that remote connection is functionally viable, the pandemic exposed the deep experiential gap between simply accessing information through a screen and inhabiting a physical space that is intentionally curated to cultivate meaning and belonging.

Era 5: The Emergence of the Distributed Ecosystem (2020s)

In this current decade, the workplace has splintered into a multi-node ecosystem. To address this, my study proposes a move toward three primary spatial typologies: the Headquarters as a high-intensity destination for culture and collaboration; the home as an ergonomically and technologically supported workstation; and various community nodes, such as coworking spaces, acting as "third-fourth places" (Yang et al., 2019) that bridge the divide between public and private. I believe this requires a fundamental shift in the architect’s role, moving away from designing static buildings and toward the curation of dynamic spatial networks.

3.2 Applying Placemaking Theory to the Workplace

My theoretical approach is heavily informed by Placemaking, a field that traditionally belongs to urban design and community planning. As Schneekloth and Shibley (1995) argue in their work on building communities, placemaking is fundamentally the "art and practice" of creating and adapting spaces that support the daily lives of a community. I extend this by viewing the workplace not just as an asset to be managed, but as a site where meaning is co-created through the interaction of physical architecture, social rituals, and collective practice.

Human geographer Tim Cresswell (2014) provides a vital distinction between "space," the abstract, geometric container, and "place," the space that has been imbued with human meaning. His framework identifies three essential dimensions: location (one's position in a system), locale (the tangible attributes of a setting), and the sense of place (the emotional connection). This division is particularly useful for understanding distributed work, where employees rotate through multiple locations, each with its own locale: from the intimate control of the home to the public, collective nature of the office, and must somehow maintain a sense of place in all of them.

I also draw on the phenomenological perspective of Yi-Fu Tuan (1977), who reminds us that place emerges through human experience and time. His observation that "what begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it and endow it with value" gets at a real problem with the modern office: occasional or rushed visits may not be enough to generate real meaning, while the steady routines of home work may, almost by default, build deeper attachment there.

Identifying the Literature Gap: Placemaking has been studied extensively in the context of public plazas and neighborhood blocks, but it has not yet been applied systematically to the spatially fragmented, temporally intermittent environments of distributed work. My dissertation aims to address this gap by investigating how placemaking can function when the spatial landscape of work is no longer a single, coherent unit.

3.3 Productivity and Wellbeing: Navigating the Contradictions

The Productivity Paradox

One of the most persistent themes in the literature on distributed work is what I would call the "productivity paradox." Remove the commute, offer greater flexibility, and productivity should rise. That is the logic. But the evidence tells a different story. Many employees report feeling more productive and often log more hours, yet their actual output does not scale proportionally. I believe this gap often comes from the unseen cognitive and organizational friction of working apart.

For instance, Aksoy et al. (2022) analyzed over 10,000 IT professionals and found that while total working time increased during work-from-home periods, output per hour dropped by 8% to 19%. They point to "coordination costs" as the main factor: the mental and temporal overhead of scheduling and formalizing interactions that used to happen spontaneously. That finding comes from a single firm and sector, but it is consistent with what Yang et al. (2022) observed at Microsoft, where remote work caused collaboration networks to become more static and siloed, with employees leaning more heavily on asynchronous tools to compensate for the loss of face-to-face interaction.

The Wellbeing Paradox

This friction extends into the sphere of worker psychology, creating a second, related paradox. A recent report by Gallup (2024) shows that while fully remote workers often exhibit the highest levels of workplace engagement, they also report lower overall life satisfaction and higher rates of stress and loneliness. To me, this suggests a critical imbalance: high professional output or engagement does not automatically equate to holistic wellbeing. The "office" is being reconsidered not just as a place of work, but as a site for belonging and social connection. I treat the ongoing efficacy of the physical workplace as an open field of inquiry rather than a settled question, seeking to understand where and how the physical environment becomes indispensable.

3.4 Sustainability, Equity, and the Rebound Effect

The Complexity of Carbon Savings

Remote work is often discussed as an environmental benefit, but the reality is more complicated than it looks. Research by O'Brien and Aliabadi (2020) suggests that full remote work could potentially cut carbon footprints in half, yet those savings depend heavily on individual energy use and commuting patterns. The California Air Resources Board (2024) has documented a "rebound effect" in which commute reductions are partly offset by an increase in non-work trips. On top of that, heating and cooling many dispersed homes is often less efficient than managing a single centralized commercial building.

Energy Burden as a Matter of Justice

The environmental question is inseparable from equity. As Drehobl and Ross (2016) have documented, lower-income households spend a significantly higher share of their income on energy. When the cost of powering the workplace shifts onto the employee, distributed work may disproportionately penalize those living in older or less efficient housing. Hook et al. (2020) make the point that the environmental gains of distributed work are not shared equally; they tend to benefit affluent workers in well-insulated homes, while lower-income workers may face greater financial strain. My dissertation intends to measure both carbon impact and energy burden across different income levels to make these disparities visible.

4.0 Research Objectives and Framework

4.1 Defining the Inquiry

My primary inquiry asks: How can architects use design principles rooted in place theory, systems thinking, and equity frameworks to build work environments that are not only productive but also meaningful and sustainable across the entire distributed ecosystem?

4.2 Specific Research Questions by Study Phase

Phase 1 (Literature Review):
- RQ1: How has the theoretical conception of "workplace" evolved from Taylorist efficiency (1910s) through Activity-Based Working (2000s) to contemporary distributed models (2020s)?

Phase 2 (Survey):
- RQ2a: Which spatial characteristics of HQ environments foster place attachment and belonging in hybrid-use contexts?
- RQ2b: Do workers in Activity-Based Working environments report higher place attachment than workers in traditional assigned-seat offices?
- RQ2c: How does the coordination tax vary across workplace typologies and regulatory contexts?

Phase 3 (Case Studies):
- RQ3a: Which spatial interventions (furniture geometry, camera placement, acoustic design) reduce collaboration disparity between remote and in-room meeting participants?

Phase 4 (Carbon & Equity):
- RQ4a: What is the net carbon impact of hybrid work when accounting for office, home, and commute emissions?
- RQ4b: How does energy burden vary by household income and housing characteristics?
- RQ4c: Are the environmental benefits of hybrid work equitably distributed, or do they accrue primarily to affluent workers?

Phase 5 (Synthesis):
- RQ5: Which evidence-based design guidelines achieve practitioner consensus for feasibility and impact?

4.3 Hypotheses

Each hypothesis is derived from a core theory and grounded in existing evidence:

5.0 Research Design and Methodology

5.1 Methodology: A Mixed-Methods Sequential Design

I have structured this research as a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design, integrating quantitative data and qualitative exploration across four distinct phases. My goal is to ensure that the statistical findings from surveys and spatial analysis are enriched and contextualized by deep observational insights, creating a comprehensive picture of the distributed experience.

5.2 Phase 1: Systematic Mapping Review

My first task is to organize and synthesize the literature. I will review between 60 and 80 peer-reviewed sources to trace how workplace design has evolved from the rigid Taylorism of the early 1900s to the distributed models we see today. Following the mapping guidelines set by Petersen et al. (2015), I will categorize these findings to see where current theory falls short of the hybrid reality. I expect to complete this synthesis by April 2026.

Timeline: January 15 - April 15, 2026

5.3 Phase 2: Surveying the Distributed Workforce

5.3.1 Defining the Sample

Who exactly is the "distributed worker"? For this study, I am looking at professionals in Florida and France whose jobs are primarily remote-capable. To be included, participants must spend at least one day a week working from home, split their time between multiple locations, and have been in their role for at least six months. My target is a total of 350 respondents, split evenly between the two regions.

A power analysis shows that this number will give me enough statistical weight to detect even moderate effects (d=0.3) in how people experience place and productivity. This sample size allows me to look closely at differences in income, housing types, and specific office layouts across the two different regulatory cultures.

5.3.2 Reaching the Participants

I have planned a multi-pronged recruitment strategy to ensure a diverse and representative group of voices:

1. Organizational Partnerships (Target: 40% of sample, n=140)
   - Florida: Partner with 3-4 organizations (Target: technology, finance, professional services, higher education)
   - France: Partner with 3-4 organizations (equivalent sectors)
   - Each partner provides access to employee email lists; survey administered during work time
   - Target completion: Fall 2026

2. Professional Networks (Target: 30% of sample, n=105)
   - IFMA (International Facility Management Association) Florida chapter
   - AIA Florida and Ordre des architectes France
   - UF alumni networks (College of Design, Construction & Planning)
   - LinkedIn targeted outreach to remote-capable professionals

3. Online Recruitment Panels (Target: 30% of sample, n=105)
   - Prolific Academic, screened for remote-capable workers in Florida/France
   - Screened to match organizational sample demographics

5.3.4 Pilot Testing (May 2026)

Before launching the full survey, I will run a pilot with about 50 participants to make sure every question is crystal clear. I'll be using a "think-aloud" protocol with a small group to see where people might get tripped up, especially regarding utility bills and energy consumption. If any questions prove confusing or if I see "ceiling effects" where everyone answers the same way, I'll refine the instrument before the main rollout in June 2026.

The Core Scales:

I am building the survey around four main pillars. First is the Place Attachment Scale to measure identity and dependence at each work site. Second is a custom Workplace Demands-Resources Inventory to see what actually drains or supports a worker in a home vs. office setting. Third, I've developed a Collaboration Equity Scale to look at whether remote participants feel their voices are truly heard in hybrid meetings. Finally, I will measure the Coordination Tax in literal minutes per week to quantify the overhead of distributed work.

I also collect detailed data on housing types, utility costs, and household demographics to ground the energy burden and sustainability analysis in real-world financial contexts.

5.4 Phase 3: Field Work and Case Studies

To ground my quantitative data, I am conducting deep-dive field studies in both Florida and France. I will be visiting "High-Intensity Anchors" (major HQ buildings) and virtually visiting the "Ergonomic Periphery" (the home offices of my survey respondents).

In Florida, I'll be looking at the Ramos Collaboratory in Gainesville, a building explicitly designed for post-pandemic collaboration. In France, I'm partnering with organizations in Paris and Lyon. These French sites offer a fascinating contrast because of labor laws that legally require employers to assess the ergonomics of their employees' home offices. This institutional support is a form of "policy-driven placemaking" that I want to compare against the more lenient U.S. approach.

Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE)

I will use a systematic Post-Occupancy Evaluation to see how these buildings actually perform in the real world. This involves observing how people move, where they choose to sit, and how they interact. My goal is to see how HQ designs either support or unintentionally hinder a true sense of place and collaboration.

Timeline: September 2026 - March 2027

Applying Space Syntax in the Field

To quantify these interaction patterns, I will use Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA). By analyzing the floor plans of my case study sites, I can mathematically map accessibility and "visual energy." I will then correlate these spatial metrics with my own observations of over 60 meetings to see if a building's geometry can actually predict where collaboration is most likely to happen, even on low-occupancy days.

Software: Depthmap (University College London space syntax software); QGIS for spatial visualization

Hypothesis Test: H2 (spatial integration predicts unplanned interaction frequency)

Analysis: Correlate space syntax metrics with observed meeting frequency and interaction patterns using Spearman rho.

5.5 Phase 4: Modeling Carbon and Energy Burdens

My final major phase involves building a multi-scalar carbon model. While most studies focus only on "saved commutes," I am looking at the full operational footprint (Scope 1, 2, and 3). I will model five distinct work scenarios, from pre-pandemic full office use to entirely remote work, to see where the real environmental "tipping points" lie.

Emission Sources & Data:

The Equity Balance: Energy Burden

Beyond total carbon, I want to reveal the human cost of these emissions. I will calculate the Energy Burden as the percentage of household income spent on these shifted utility costs. By cross-referencing survey data with regional electricity rates, I will identify if distributed work creates a hidden "tax" on lower-income populations. To ensure the model is robust, I include a sensitivity analysis with conservative and optimistic cases, accounting for potential variabilities in how people report their own home energy use.

5.6 Phase 5: Validating the Guidelines (Delphi Method)

The final step is to turn my data into practical architectural advice. I will present a set of draft design guidelines to a 12-member expert panel, including architects, facilities managers, and HR leaders from both Florida and France. Through a three-round Delphi review, I will refine these guidelines based on their professional consensus on what is actually impactful and feasible to implement in the field.

Round 1 (April 2027):
- Present 10-15 candidate design guidelines synthesized from Phases 1-4
- Each guideline: empirical basis, implementation feasibility (1-5 scale), potential impact (1-5 scale)
- Panelists rate and comment; identify gaps

Round 2 (May 2027):
- Synthesize Round 1 feedback
- Present revised guidelines with consensus summary
- Panelists re-rate; consensus threshold: ≥70% agreement on Feasibility ≥3 AND Impact ≥3

Round 3 (June 2027):
- Final round if needed to resolve disagreements
- Generate final validated guideline set

Output: 8-12 evidence-based, practitioner-validated design guidelines

5.7 Ethics and Data Security

My research is governed by the UF Institutional Review Board, and I've planned every step to protect participant privacy. All survey and interview data will be stored on UF's encrypted servers, and every participant will provide informed consent. To protect organizational identities, all case study sites and interview quotes will be anonymized in the final reporting.

6.0 Expected Contributions and Significance

6.1 Expanding Theory

If this research works as planned, it should establish a new theoretical grounding for Distributed Placemaking. By stitching together frameworks like ecological systems and energy justice, I am trying to fill a major gap in architectural theory, moving past the single-building focus to a multi-location perspective. I also aim to offer the first systematic testing of space syntax in low-occupancy settings, proving whether these visual and geometrical metrics still hold their predictive weight in a hybrid world.

Finally, by bringing energy justice into the conversation, I want to show that workplace architecture is not just about floor plans, but about the economic and environmental realities of the people who use them.

6.2 Practical Impact

The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to give architects and facilities managers the tools they need to make informed decisions. I will produce 8 to 12 evidence-based guidelines, each validated by industry experts, that map theoretical concepts to real-world architectural interventions. This includes a decision-support framework that allows designers to see clearly how their choices impact everything from social belonging to energy burden.

Detailed analysis of 2-3 HQ facilities, documenting successes and challenges in hybrid workplace design; applicable to satellite campus planning and office renovation projects.

7.0 Timeline and Milestones

8.0 Reflecting on Limitations and Scope

There are clear limits to what this study can achieve, and I want to be upfront about them. In terms of geography, the scope is narrow by design: limited to a comparative analysis between Florida and France. While this provides a rich look at two distinct regulatory and climatic environments, contrasting Florida's hot-humid Zone 2A with France's more temperate Zone 4A, these results should not be viewed as universally applicable to other global or even regional contexts. Similarly, I have focused my data collection on sectors where distributed work is most established, such as technology, finance, and higher education. My conclusions may not generalize to more location-dependent industries like healthcare or manufacturing.

Self-report data is another limitation worth naming directly. Relying on participants to estimate their own productivity, wellbeing, and home energy use introduces potential biases and recall errors, though I attempt to mitigate these through rigorous sensitivity analysis. While my study explores the multi-node ecosystem, my direct data collection is focused primarily on the HQ and the Home; the role of coworking spaces and other "third places" is addressed predominantly through my review of existing literature. Finally, this inquiry focuses on operational carbon rather than the embodied carbon of building materials. While this excludes a significant part of the lifecycle impact, it allows me to isolate and analyze the environmental consequences of ongoing human behavior and operational policy.

9.0 Annotated Bibliography

This bibliography is divided into two sections. The first presents the five references that most directly shaped the theoretical direction of this dissertation. The second section lists all literature surveyed, in alphabetical order.

9.1 Core Theoretical References

1. Schneekloth, L. H., & Shibley, R. G. (1995). Placemaking: The art and practice of building communities. John Wiley & Sons.
URL: https://www.wiley.com/
Annotation: I rely on this foundational text to frame placemaking not as a static design goal, but as a continuous, community-driven practice. In the context of my dissertation, it informs a shift in the architect’s mandate: from designing isolated physical containers to curating the complex social rituals that unfold within distributed spatial networks.

2. Tuan, Y.-F. (1977). Space and place: The perspective of experience. University of Minnesota Press.
URL: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/space-and-place
Annotation: This is a seminal work in human geography that establishes the distinction between abstract space and meaningful place. I use Tuan's framework to explore the phenomenological gap between a mere "workspace," such as a desk at home, and a true "workplace" that is generated through consistent ritual, social presence, and shared experience.

3. Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328.
DOI: 10.1108/02683940710733115
Annotation: This provides the core framework I use to evaluate the nuances of worker wellbeing. By categorizing different physical environments as offering either "resources," such as privacy or peer support, or "demands," such as the commute or digital coordination tax, I can empirically evaluate the effectiveness of multi-node working arrangements.

4. Hillier, B., & Hanson, J. (1984). The social logic of space. Cambridge University Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511597237
Annotation: As the definitive text on Space Syntax, this work establishes the mathematical tools I use to evaluate how architectural configurations regulate social interaction. It provides a means to predict whether specific office layouts will foster the unplanned "water cooler" collisions that are often cited as the primary reason for returning to the corporate office.

5. Hook, A., Sovacool, B. K., & Sorrell, S. (2020). A systematic review of the energy and climate impacts of teleworking. Environmental Research Letters, 15(9), 093003.
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab8a84
Annotation: This thorough meta-review is critical to my sustainability analysis, as it demonstrates how the carbon savings gained from avoiding commutes are often offset by increased residential energy use and non-work travel. This establishes the "rebound effect" that my model seeks to measure and mitigate.

9.2 Comprehensive Bibliography

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• Altman, I. (1975). The environment and social behavior: Privacy, personal space, territory, crowding. Brooks/Cole. URL: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5028087M/The_environment_and_social_behavior
• Altman, I., & Low, S. M. (Eds.). (1992). Place attachment (Human behavior and environment: Advances in theory and research, Vol. 12). Plenum Press. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4684-8753-4
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• Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328. DOI: 10.1108/02683940710733115
• Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Doubleday. URL: https://books.google.com/books/edition/The_Social_Construction_of_Reality/F_m6U_4k_XoC
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• Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press. URL: https://docs.edtechhub.org/lib/X94S6SED
• California Air Resources Board. (2024). Telecommuting impacts on vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. Research brief. URL: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/telecommuting-impacts-vmt-and-ghg-emissions
• Coworking Insights. (2024). Global coworking growth study 2024. URL: https://www.coworkinginsights.com/global-coworking-growth-study/
• Cresswell, T. (2004). Place: A short introduction. Blackwell. URL: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Place:+A+Short+Introduction
• Cresswell, T. (2009). Place. In R. Kitchin & N. Thrift (Eds.), International encyclopedia of human geography (Vol. 8, pp. 169–177). Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/B978-008044910-4.00310-2
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• Haapakangas, A., Hallman, D. M., Mathiassen, S. E., & Jahncke, H. (2022). Understanding activity-based work. In Handbook of theories on designing alignment between people and the office environment (pp. 265–290). Routledge. DOI: 10.1201/9781003128830-19
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• Lewicka, M. (2011). Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31(3), 207–230. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.10.001
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