Interactive chart to detect trends and further development potential of contemporary façade design for workspaces

This is an interactive PDF chart that reports data gathered in a worldwide survey-based study conducted among professionals in the building and construction sector. The chart shows collected opinions regarding building and facade design in workplaces. Information on the study and further explanation on the chart can be found on: Pastore, L., Andersen, M. (2019), "Detecting trends and further development potential of contemporary façade design for workspaces", Architectural Engineering and Design Management. DOI: 10.1080/17452007.2018.1561414.

For a correct visualization and use, the chart must be downloaded and visualized through the programme Adobe Acrobat (version 6.0 or later).

Data are shown according to two categories: the type of profession and the targeted climate.

It was developed with a twofold aim:

- First, to enable the exploration of the “type of potential” that is attributed to building and façade design aspects/technologies applicable in office buildings. In other words, we wanted to identify whether they are already acknowledged to hold a low or high potential in the current professional practice, or if their recognition is uncertain, hence revealing a potential for further research and development. The level of potential was determined on the survey response to their importance or desirability, calculated from the grand mean of the considered category and readable on the y-axis.

- Second, to enable an immediate visualization of the influence of the type of profession or type of climate on the rating of a certain design parameter displayed along the x-axis of the chart that reports the p-values from the Null Hypothesis Significance Testing. All the points standing on the left side of the y-axis indicate a statistically significant difference in group answers (p<0.05), i.e. a significant influence of the type of profession or of the targeted climate, depending on the selected category.

Data can be visualized in two ways. From the legend it is possible to select the category (Profession or Climate) and the section to explore. From the chart, one can click on the points which present an external circle to connect to related items. Moreover, all the underlined items that appear on the left side of the chart, when hovered over, pops up the distribution of each group’s mean (Architects, Academics, Engineers and Consultants for the category “Profession”; Tropical, Dry, Temperature and Continental for the category “Climate”).

The chart can serve as a tool to further guide professionals operating in the research field and the building industry in the identification of themes and aspects related to façade design that may be worthwhile to probe.