Using Wood in Offices

Ojala and colleagues share that they gathered data “in two rooms: a room with wooden elements and a control room without wood. The participants first performed cognitive tasks by the computer to imitate typical office work and increase their stress level and then had a rest period in an armchair in the same room. . . . The anxiety felt was clearly lower at the end of the experiment in the wooden room than in the control, while the other psychological measures showed only a slight indication that the wooden room was more beneficial for relaxation. Performances in sustained attention to the response task were similar in both rooms. . . . the results support slight positive effects of wooden material on mood on humans in the office environment. . .  In the wooden room, 50% of the surface material was pinewood.” No surfaces were wooden in the control room.

Ann Ojala, Joel Kostensalo, Jari Viik, Hanna Matilainen, Ida Wik, Linda Virtanen, and Riina Muilu-Makela.  2023. “Psychological and Physiological Effects of a Wooden Office Room on Human Well-Being:  Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial.”  Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 89, 102059, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102059