Space Design · February 2019
TOPPAN
When brainwaves show focus slipping, the visuals, the sound and the scent all change. TOPPAN's focus-space solution.
Overview
Can an environment change how well someone concentrates? In February 2019 TOPPAN announced a focus-space solution that pairs brainwave measurement with a room that responds. The setting was a private room in Workstyling Yaesu, a shared office run by Mitsui Fudosan.
The room answers the moment focus slips
Users wear an earphone-type brainwave device. When it detects concentration dropping, a tablet suggests a break and the room switches — visuals, sound, and scent together. Rather than waiting for people to notice their own fatigue, the space makes the first move.
In a small room, the scent must not stay
Scent came from Aroma Shooter 2. A private room is small, and fragrance that lingers muddies the next switch. Nothing is sprayed: the scent needed arrives at the moment it is needed, and once the room switches, the previous scent is gone. A space that moves between focus and rest depends on exactly that.
Trial results
- 69% of participants said they could concentrate in the staged environment (31 of 45)
- 61% showed a higher rise in concentration after the environment switched (22 of 36)
Scent is not only a way to stage a space. It is also a way to change how people work.
In numbers
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