Cover The office may have many plants and a fruit bowl in the pantry. But are you leaving the office after every workday a healthier person? (Photo: Declan Sun/Unsplash)
The office may have many plants and a fruit bowl in the pantry. But are you leaving the office after every workday a healthier person? (Photo: Declan Sun/Unsplash)
1 / 1
Fresh air, a quiet place to think and some control over your surroundings may matter more than the amenities that usually make the office tour
An office can offer a gym, a wall of plants and a generous bowl of fruit. And yet by midmorning, its meeting rooms might still feel stuffy, every call might travel across the floor, and the one quiet booth might be permanently occupied. So which details actually help people feel and function better at work?
The answer starts with a less photogenic idea: pay attention to the conditions people experience all day. Building standards such as Well now address air, light, sound, movement, thermal comfort and community, and they offer a useful framework. But an office also needs to be judged while people are using it.
Singapore offers a chance to see how that plays out. Since 2005, the city’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has run its Green Mark scheme, which was designed for the tropics and looks at how a building affects the people inside it—from ventilation and filtration to thermal comfort, lighting and noise. One study measured conditions in eight Green Mark-certified offices and six non-certified offices, and surveyed 367 occupants. Workers in the certified buildings generally reported greater satisfaction with their indoor environments and fewer acute symptoms such as headaches and fatigue. The study compared existing buildings, so it can’t establish that a certificate caused the difference. It does show the value of measuring conditions and asking the people who spend their days there. Here’s what to look for.
Don’t miss: The science behind less conventional stress therapies
Indoor air quality: how to tell if an office is properly ventilated
Air quality is easy to overlook until a room fills up. When you talk to a building manager, ask about outdoor-air supply, filtration and sources of indoor pollution, and whether the ventilation system is maintained and adjusted for occupancy. In polluted cities, the quality of the air entering a building matters too.
In a yearlong study of 302 office workers in six countries, including China, India and Thailand, researchers found that higher indoor fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) and CO₂ readings were associated with slower responses and poorer performance on short cognitive tests. A separate experiment with 40 adults in an urban office used desk air purifiers to lower PM₂.₅ exposure; participants reported less mental effort, although effects on cognitive tests were limited. Together, the studies give us reason to take the air seriously, without promising a dramatic productivity boost from a filter.
Also read: Air quality at home: Why it matters and how to keep it clean
Above An air purifier sits in an office amidst indoor plants (Photo: Dan Smedley/Unsplash)
An air purifier sits in an office amidst indoor plants (Photo: Dan Smedley/Unsplash)
1 / 1
A CO₂ monitor can flag a busy, poorly ventilated room, but the reading doesn't capture every pollutant. Nor is 1,000 parts per million a universal pass-or-fail line. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) says its ventilation standard sets no such indoor CO₂ limit. A building that takes air seriously should be able to tell you what happens when readings rise in an occupied room, and how it keeps track of particles, ventilation and filtration. In a polluted city, that includes the air coming in from outside as well as the air already in the room.
Office noise and privacy: finding quiet space at work
Above When Citi moved to new offices at the Citi Tower in Hong Kong, the new design incorporated open work areas, quiet rooms, private spaces and places for team meetings (Photo: M Moser Associates)
When Citi moved to new offices at the Citi Tower in Hong Kong, the new design incorporated open work areas, quiet rooms, private spaces and places for team meetings (Photo: M Moser Associates)
1 / 1
Office noise often isn't noise at all; it’s somebody else's perfectly ordinary conversation. Even then, it takes a toll on mental and physical wellbeing. Researchers studying the noise levels in a simulated open-plan office measured subjects’ heart rate, skin conductivity and facial expressions alongside self-reported mood. They found that the noisy environment didn’t slow people down on the spot, but it did increase physiological stress and worsen mood compared with a quieter setting.
Privacy is also something else to consider. A 2025 study combined acoustic measurements with surveys of 349 people in 28 open-plan offices, and found that lack of privacy was a stronger contributor to acoustic dissatisfaction than noise disturbance. A room can register an acceptable sound level and still make a confidential call or sustained concentration difficult.
One practical response is to offer different settings for different tasks. When Citi consolidated thousands of Hong Kong employees into Citi Tower at One Bay East, its published project profile described open work areas alongside quiet rooms, private spaces and places for teams to gather. The work floors were broken into smaller “neighbourhoods”, with nine types of work setting on each floor.
A few simple things to check: can people make a video call without broadcasting it across the room? Is a quiet area genuinely quiet, and can someone reach it without booking days ahead? Can colleagues meet spontaneously without making focused work impossible nearby?
Natural light vs thermal comfort
Daylight is appealing, but a desk beside a window is less useful when glare makes the screen hard to see or the blinds stay shut all afternoon. Look for access to daylight and views, with shades and task lighting that let people work comfortably.
In a small crossover study, 30 office workers spent a week in each of two otherwise similar spaces with different window treatments. Under the condition that provided better daylight and views, they slept longer and scored better on a decision-making simulation. The study was short and sponsored by a window-technology company, so its headline numbers shouldn’t be treated as a promise for every office renovation. It does make a modest case for looking at the light people actually receive at their desks.
Comfort also includes temperature and air movement. An office that is too cold for some workers and too warm for others will struggle to serve everyone with a single setting. In Singapore, researchers have tested personally controlled air movement with people accustomed to a tropical climate. Their work points to a useful design question: what can occupants adjust when the central air conditioning doesn’t suit them?
In case you missed it: Home tour: inside a terrace house in northeast Singapore designed for a five-year chapter, not forever
Standing desks and other ways to keep moving throughout the day
Above Are standing desks, also known as sit-stand desks, a good, long-term solution to prevent sedentary patterns at work? (Photo: The Standing Desk/Unsplash)
Are standing desks, also known as sit-stand desks, a good, long-term solution to prevent sedentary patterns at work? (Photo: The Standing Desk/Unsplash)
1 / 1
An adjustable desk can help people spend less of the day sitting. A 2025 review of 12 studies found that people with sit–stand desks sat less at work. It's less clear whether that holds over the long term. In a small trial, workers using the desks reported less weekday sitting after six months, with no significant advantage on the psychological outcomes measured.
Simple design choices can do a lot to encourage movement elsewhere: accessible stairs, a pleasant route to lunch, space to step away from a screen and permission to take a walking break. What matters is that people can change position and move through the day, however they prefer to work.
Mental health at work: why control and support matter
An inviting communal space can give colleagues somewhere to meet, eat or talk between tasks. Whether it brings people together depends on the rhythm of the workday: can they take a break, spend time with their team and still find a private place for a difficult conversation? A café will see little use if everyone eats at their desks to keep up with the workload.
People also need some say in the conditions around them. That might mean choosing a quieter setting for concentrated work, adjusting an uncomfortable temperature or raising a problem with the layout and seeing it addressed. The World Health Organisation (WHO) identifies high demands, low control and poor social support among the conditions associated with greater mental-health risks at work. For employers, the question extends beyond where people gather: do working hours, expectations and management practices give them the chance to use the space well?
Above The WHO identifies several factors for mental-health risks in the workplace, and poor social support is among them. (Photo: Vitaly Gariev/Unsplash)
The WHO identifies several factors for mental-health risks in the workplace, and poor social support is among them. (Photo: Vitaly Gariev/Unsplash)
1 / 1
The most useful measure of a healthier office, then, may be what happens after opening day. Does someone check air and comfort when the rooms are full? Are there enough places to concentrate? When employees report that a booth is always occupied or a floor is too noisy, does anything change? A space that can answer those questions—and keep responding to the answers—will do more for a workday than one designed only to look good.
Kristine Fonacier is a widely published journalist and author, covering lifestyle, business, politics and travel. She was the editor in chief at the Philippine editions of Esquire and Entrepreneur, and the founding editor of Grid magazine. At Tatler, she was previously the regional editor for T-Labs, Power & Purpose and Asia’s Most Influential.
