Paper short abstract:

This paper presents the role of users' daily life as cultural and contextual influences in the design of sustainable workplaces. Using the example of a mosque designed into a workplace building in Oman, we show the marginalization of such knowledge in current approaches to design for sustainability.

Paper long abstract:

By considering the characteristic of current design approaches for social sustainability in the workplace, we explore the contradictions between these approaches' intentions and users' actual practices. This study is based on a recognized problem that design intention is often wrongly assumed to be an accurate prediction of a future user action, leading to lower-than-expected building performance when measured quantitatively through Post Occupancy Evaluation surveys.

Our contention is that an inadequate understanding of the structure of users' daily practices has resulted in this design problem. Empirical data comes from an ethnographic case study of an office building in Oman, including observations, shadowing, interviews, and documentary analysis. In particular, we focus on the example of the mosque's design, set a short walk from the building, and the unintended consequences this revealed. User engagement design consultations are shown to be superficial, and the resulting impressive prayer building, with its air-conditioned connecting tunnel, soon becomes replaced by prayer rooms in the main building itself.

Focusing on those who tend to be ignored in traditional design processes (such as cleaners) uncovered some surprising vignettes. One of these is used as the basis for this paper, demonstrating the role of cultural and contextual influence in the constitution of daily activities of users, which tend to be overlooked by current design approaches. This research goes beyond the traditions of POE to offer new insights into the design for social sustainability that contribute to the limited knowledge of sustainable workplace design and use within a Middle Eastern context.