- PROJECT CODE: O2-0386
- PROJECT TITLE: A model for citizen engagement for sustainable and healthy homes
- PROJECT TEAM: dr. Michael David Burnard (leader), dr. Ana Slavec, dr. Niki Hrovatin, Gertrud Fábián, Špela Vrtovec, Tara Vovk
- PERIOD: 1. 9. 2025 – 31. 8. 2026
- BUDGET: 24.860,36 EUR
- FINANCING: ARIS
- PROJECT COORDINATOR: InnoRenew CoE
The BuildWell project aims to explore the integration of nature-inspired solutions into interior environments to improve occupant wellbeing. By focusing on the built environment’s exposome and its interaction with personal and sociocultural factors, BuildWell seeks to identify key mechanisms through which environmental features influence psychosocial, physiological, and community wellbeing. This citizen science initiative extends the study from the working environment to the home environment, providing more complete understanding of how building interiors affect the health and wellbeing of occupants. The project will monitor the indoor environmental quality (IEQ), design, decoration, and subjective wellbeing in our everyday living environments. In this project, we will recruit households from the coastal region to participate. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to define research goals and methods and gather data via co-creation workshops, in-depth interviews to understand perceptions and behaviours, observations of household habits such as ventilation practices, and continuous monitoring of (IEQ) parameters like air quality, light, temperature, and relative humidity using sensors. The findings will be integrated with BuildWell’s results from workplace settings, enabling comparisons to identify common patterns and close the gap in understanding the relationship between the built environment and wellbeing.
The citizen science project complements the existing project by:
– Enriching the role of citizens to co-design how data about them is collected, managed, and analysed.
– Extending the investigation of nature-inspired design solutions and environmental quality (IEQ) factors into residential spaces. Extending our understanding of how indoor environments impact wellbeing.
– Including personal, cultural, and social moderators in household settings enriches the data on how diverse conditions influence wellbeing.
– Monitoring habits and environmental conditions in real households offers practical insights that lab or office-based studies may miss.
– Acting as a testing ground for innovative methodologies by combining qualitative interviews, co-creation activities, sensor data, and individual psychological factors. This mixed-methods approach contributes to giving citizens a larger and more active role in defining research conducted to understand their wellbeing.
– Aligning with BuildWell’s goal to drive a paradigm shift towards personalised design for wellbeing this project provides a practical framework for personalized wellbeing interventions at home.
This initiative bridges scientific research and community-driven action by empowering citizens to contribute to and benefit directly from the study. It also serves as a replicable model for engaging diverse populations in personalized approaches to enhancing environmental quality and wellbeing.
