Critical reflections on the process of interdisciplinary building science research

METHODS	SUBPROJECTS
METHODS	WORK FROM HOME	MULTI-UNIT RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS	CAMPUS ENVIRONMENT
Indoor environmental monitoring	None	Indoor environmental monitoring equipment in a subset of study participants’ apartments Sensors measured the following: indoor air quality, temperature, humidity, noise levels, occupancy, ceiling fan usage and window operations over a 12-month period	Indoor environmental monitoring equipment in multiple instructional spaces within four study buildings Sensors measured indoor air quality, temperature, humidity, noise and CO₂ levels over a 12-month period
Inhabitant surveys		In-depth, online, seasonal inhabitant surveys (×3) administered in-person by the same on-site researcher Additional survey administered to a subset of participants who participated in the in-suite monitoring, smartwatch monitoring and photovoice components	One-off, brief, in-classroom online surveys administered during instructional breaks in study classrooms Secondary survey about wider experience on-campus and at the university that was completed outside of the study classroom
Smartwatch-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA)	None	Subset of participants wore smartwatches for three two-week periods immediately preceding seasonal surveys Participants were prompted to answer five questions about their indoor environments and overall wellbeing five times between 09.00 and 17.00 hours	None
Semi-structured interviews	Semi-structured interviews with participants who addressed their working routines, indoor environments, and overall living and remote work experiences	None	None
Photovoice	All participants participated in a photovoice exercise. They were asked to respond to prompts about their work-from-home environments. Sense-making sessions were then conducted one-on-one with a member of the research team	A subset of participants participated in a photovoice exercise. This included responding to prompts about their experiences of their apartments and wider building community All participants took photographs with titles and captions and discussed their images in a group sense-making session	A subset of participants participated in a photovoice exercise. This included responding to prompts about their experiences in the study classroom as well as their overall experience on-campus All participants took photographs with titles and captions and discussed their images in a group sense-making session

Table 2

Estimated researcher time spent with participants of the multi-unit residential buildings subproject during the data-collection period.

EVENT OR STAGE	RESEARCHERS PER VISIT	VISITS PER EVENT	AVERAGE TIME PER VISIT (H)	TOTAL PERSON-HOURS ON-SITE PER VISIT
Launch event	5	1	3	15
Survey 1	1	5	4	20
In-suite sensor installation	2	3	4	24
Survey 2	1	5	5	25
Sensor monitoring and troubleshooting	2	3	2	12
Smartwatch training and distribution	2	2	3	12
Survey 3: smartwatch collection	1	4	4	16
Sensor monitoring and troubleshooting	2	2	2	8
Photovoice training; smartwatch distribution	2	3	3	18
Survey 4: photovoice data collection; smartwatch collection	1	3	4	12
In-suite sensor removal	2	3	7	42
Photovoice sense-making session	4	1	3	12
Key findings presentation and thank you event	4	1	2	8
		Total visits = 36		Total hours on-site = 224

References

Authors

Metrics

Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bc.797 | Journal eISSN: 2632-6655

Journal RSS Feed

Language: English

Page range: 653 - 666

Submitted on: Feb 10, 2026

Accepted on: May 9, 2026

Published on: May 28, 2026

Published by: Ubiquity Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

Keywords:

interdisciplinary research,

© 2026 Garrett T. Morgan, Marianne F. Touchie, John Robinson, Alstan Jakubiec, Judy Tran, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 7 (2026): Issue 1