17.02.2025
SONATA’s First Adaptive Workspace Recommendations Workshop Kicks Off in Aachen
On Thursday, 6 February 2025, the SONATA project held its first Adaptive Workspace Recommendations Workshop at the Reiff-Museum, Faculty of Architecture, RWTH Aachen University in Germany. The event was organised in a hybrid format, with over 50 people joining either in person or online. Participants included members of the SONATA consortium as well as researchers from other institutions.
This was the first of four workshops planned during the project. Its goal was to share and discuss SONATA’s initial set of baseline recommendations, which are based on early findings from the project’s study tracks.
Before the discussions began, participants visited the Aachen Workplace Simulation Lab, where they experienced the world’s first full-size prototype of an adaptive office. This gave them a better sense of the technologies and design ideas SONATA is working with.
The event opened with a welcome from Uniklinik RWTH Aachen and a short overview of the project by coordinators from KU Leuven. This was followed by a keynote talk from Dr. Ir. Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek of Eindhoven University of Technology, focusing on office design and its impact on mental and social wellbeing.
After these introductions, the main part of the workshop began. Participants split into small groups to review and discuss some of the more challenging SONATA recommendations. Each group then shared their thoughts with everyone, leading to a wider discussion aimed at improving the proposals.
The workshop created space for valuable feedback, and the SONATA team is grateful to everyone who took part. The input from external participants will help shape the next version of the recommendations.
The next Recommendations Workshop will take place in November 2025 at the University of Perugia in Italy. This time, the focus will be on gathering feedback from policymakers. By then, new findings from SONATA’s Living Labs in Aachen and Perugia and the Field Track in Leuven will help further develop the recommendations.
