Mindful of the need to navigate the divide between space and behaviour at work I have devised a programme of workplace change and awareness through Psychosocially Supportive Design. PSD stimulates and engages people, both mentally and socially, using space to trigger positive behaviour in the workplace. This approach, derived from the healthcare sector, is predicated on better engagement of employees through a deeper understanding of their personality profiles by means of co-creation workshops and the Lumina Spark psychometric assessment tool.  

Outputs of Lumina Portrait - Giuseppe Boscherini

Lumina Spark provides a highly interactive experience in which participants explore who they are, using an individualised psychometric profile tool called Lumina Portrait. It provides a framework for self-understanding and helps teams identify how to improve working relationships with one another. Individual and team personalities are translated into work settings, informing the Experiential Workplace.

The Experiential Workplace is not a leveller but an enhancer of personality traits. Productivity remains the target in terms of optimum team performance and engagement, with workplace providing the calming or stimulating touch points that help bridge and bring about cohesion across work personalities.

I seek to create such touch points within the work stage set, where space meets behaviour. In an effort to enshrine ‘how things are best done’ into space I identify and enhance the ritualistic nature of your work. This gives the actors of work an empowering stage set.  As in a choreographed play, the script and corresponding stage directions go hand in hand. Timely and effective work performance is delivered in a scripted manner to great effect, using props when and where necessary. Not all components of a work environment need to be expressed with equal intensity. The bright, as well as the dark, the loud and the quiet, the open and the sheltered, are all scripted and notated to elicit the desired response through spatial design.

This Spacecraft podcast asks what do you get if you cross an Architect with a Psychologist? It turns out you get a personality-based workspace design. In this episode, I discuss how personality can be used to design spaces. We’ve known for some time that personality affects many things, including how we perceive our environments. But this thinking, and research from the fields of psychology and medicine, hasn’t often been fully applied to the workplace.

The outcome of this work choreography takes the form of a Playbook designed to affect both space and behaviour; it sets out a detailed specification and implementation schedule of aligned spatial and behavioural interventions and specifically includes the following deliverables:

SPACE

• Space Assessment and Planning using Emotional Mapping

• Light and Air Design

• Material Quality Specification

BEHAVIOUR

• Etiquette of Engagement

• Tone of Voice and Brand

• Policy of Use

PSD study for premier global Management Consulting firm

Download PDF of PsychoSocially Supportive Design approach: here

I am a WELL Accredited Professional (WELL AP™), advancing health and well-being in buildings and communities globally. The credential signifies extensive knowledge of human health and wellness in the built environment, and the WELL Building Standard™.