A thread on infrastructure x health x work performance: Productivity in the industrial age was easily measured and it birthed Industrial Engineering. People conducted repeatable/simple tasks which could be measured + improved by better machinery, biomechanics,etc. equally the

improvements could be measured by how much output had increased. This is not the case when the looking at office work, you cannot measure productivity as the tasks are not repetitive or mechanical. They are cerebral. The best we can do is look at human performance and its

relation to health afforded by infrastructure. an example of this would be transport. new studies have pointed to 60 min on the tube is equivalent to 24hr street air pollution exposure. The body's stress response enganges regardless if you aware psychologically aware or not

of the "stressor". With continual exposure and stress response engagement, the stress response can dysregulated. This could manifest as sleep distrumption, which can lead to fatigue. Or it could lead to developing anxiety, which can lead to sleep disruption - ending in fatigue.

eventually, worker performance will be affected by the air quality in public transport. Fatigue is one of the most direct measures for assessing work performance as it affects core mental/cognitive functions; ability to concentrate, completing tasks, managing stress, alertness

@TheCentricLab's theory is that the external urban environment has as much influence in work performance than the building. So, when looking at workspace design- where your building is located and how people access it - plays as an important role as the building features.

Finally, even though we can't look at productivity for the mental tasks of office workforces- we can look at factors that affect work performance like fatigue, anxiety, or depression.