Teleworking has increased progressively over recent decades, although its most notable expansion occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdown measures forced many organizations to adopt the remote model. According to the Global Survey of Working Arrangements, which in 2023 analyzed more than 40,000 workers across 34 countries, 25.6% of employees currently engage in hybrid arrangements, working from home at least 1 day a week, while 7.9% work entirely remotely (Shockley and Allen, 2024). This shift in working practices has brought multiple challenges, among them the need to adapt homes to accommodate functional and healthy work environments (Rotimi et al., 2024).

Although teleworking has been the subject of numerous studies, there is no universally accepted definition of the term (López-Igual and Rodríguez-Modroño, 2020). The literature employs various expressions to describe alternative forms of work organization, such as teleworking, remote work or working from home (Cuerdo-Vilches et al., 2021b), each carrying different nuances. In general, “teleworking” refers to any work activity carried out away from the usual workplace by means of information and communication technologies (ICTs), whereas “working-from-home” refers specifically to tasks performed in one’s own residence, either partially or entirely (Lescarret et al., 2022). As teleworking has become more widespread as a mode of employment, new spatial categories have emerged to describe where it can be undertaken. For those who telework primarily, home has become the “first place” for performing work activities. The traditional office—where in-person work organized by the employer takes place—assumes the role of “second place” (Krauss and Tremblay, 2024). The concept of the “third place”, introduced by Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1989), refers to environments such as cafés, libraries, or community centres, which today also include coworking spaces (Lescarret et al., 2022). These locations offer a balance between productivity and socialization by enabling work outside the domestic setting. More recently, some authors have proposed the emergence of a “fourth place”, represented by hybrid spaces that blur the boundaries between home, work, and social life—such as creative hubs and co-living arrangements (Morisson, 2017). These environments integrate residential, work, and social functions, reflecting the growing hybridization of personal and professional life in the era of teleworking (Krauss and Tremblay, 2024). In addition to these categories, some authors have drawn attention to the proliferation of what Marc Augé termed “non-places”: spaces characterized by the absence of identity, history, and social relations, such as airports, stations, shopping centres, or underground carriages (Augé, 1993). Defined by their transient and anonymous nature, these settings contrast with Oldenburg’s “anthropological places” in that they do not foster bonds or a sense of belonging. Although not originally conceived as workspaces, increasing digitalization has enabled many knowledge workers to use these transit spaces for brief work-related tasks (such as checking emails or connecting via mobile devices), highlighting a progressive detachment between work and physical location. This transformation—driven by ubiquitous connectivity and new ways of labour organization—illustrates how even spaces traditionally unrelated to the professional sphere can acquire new functions within the knowledge economy.

However, during the COVID-19 lockdown, the home was consolidated as the main (and in many cases the only) place for teleworking, exposing significant limitations in the configuration and suitability of dwellings. This adaptation process involved a reconfiguration of domestic spaces, which came to serve both home and work functions, often leading to overlapping uses that affected workers’ comfort and productivity (Park et al., 2023). Within the project on social confinement, housing and habitability, [COVID-HAB] (Cuerdo-Vilches et al., 2020), carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than one-third of Spanish domestic spaces intended for teleworking were found to be inadequate, with negative consequences for teleworkers’ satisfaction and wellbeing. Among the results, it was notable that perceptions of the adequacy of the home workspace were strongly influenced by aspects of the architectural design of the dwelling, with natural lighting being one of the most valued elements, alongside thermal comfort, ventilation, furniture, and acoustic insulation (Navas-Martín et al., 2022). This perception of inadequacy was linked not only to the lack of exclusive rooms for working, but also to the environmental quality of such spaces. Among the most positively rated factors was natural lighting, present in more than half of the cases; however, this was generally concentrated in main areas of the home such as living or dining rooms, which were often shared with other household members or used for other purposes, thus hindering privacy and the performance of tasks requiring concentration or confidentiality. Other elements, such as noise insulation, ventilation, quality of furniture, and thermal comfort also played a relevant role in the overall assessment of the workspace (Cuerdo-Vilches et al., 2021a). Similar results were observed in Latin American contexts such as Mexico, where problems were reported in relation to thermal comfort, lighting, acoustic insulation, and the lack of exclusive spaces to work-from-home during lockdown (Jaimes Torres et al., 2021). The coexistence of multiple domestic activities during lockdown, together with the absence of prior planning for such environments, revealed the structural limitations of many dwellings in accommodating remote work satisfactorily​ (Cuerdo-Vilches et al., 2021a). The lack of dedicated workrooms, combined with the limited availability of adequate digital resources, emerged as key factors influencing perceptions of the suitability of the home environment for remote work, particularly during home confinement due to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. This structural deficit was exacerbated in households where several people had to telework or study simultaneously, leading to overcrowding of shared spaces. In many cases, the areas with the best natural lighting conditions (such as the living room or dining room) became the preferred locations for setting up a workstation, despite being areas of circulation or family interaction, which negatively affected acoustic insulation and privacy. Likewise, shortcomings in ergonomic furniture, limited ventilation, and a lack of control over the physical environment contributed to perceptions of discomfort and distraction, hindering job performance and increasing stress. Altogether, this showed that the adequacy of those settings depended not only on material factors, but also on the simultaneous use of rooms and the internal household organization during a prolonged lockdown period (Cuerdo-Vilches et al., 2021b). These difficulties affected not only physical comfort but also emotional wellbeing, revealing that household resilience and the emotional management of its occupants were key factors in coping with confinement (Navas-Martín and Cuerdo-Vilches, 2023).

In this context, the COVID-19 pandemic further consolidated the home as the primary place for teleworking, revealing important structural and environmental limitations in many dwellings. Institutional assessments conducted during the pandemic highlighted that, residential environments—often acting as the first line of protection for health—frequently lacked the spatial, environmental, and functional conditions required to adequately support professional activities on a sustained basis (Abellán García et al., 2021). These findings reinforced the need to address housing habitability not only from a social or organizational perspective, but also from an environmental and health-oriented approach.

Although numerous studies and investigations on teleworking have been carried out over time—both in terms of how it is implemented and its implications—to date no specific research has been conducted focusing on assessing the quality of those domestic spaces and their indoor environmental conditions associated, even more bearing in mind regular conditions, not in extreme ones, such as a pandemic. Despite the rapid expansion of teleworking, research explicitly addressing Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) in home-based workspaces is still scarce and fragmented. A recent scoping review identified a limited and weakly interconnected body of literature on the relationship between IEQ and working from home, with most studies concentrated in a small number of countries, often siloed and largely focused on exceptional contexts such as the COVID-19 pandemic rather than regular teleworking conditions (Navas-Martín et al., 2025).

This lack of comprehensive and standardized assessment tools highlights the need for integrative approaches capable of systematically evaluating the environmental adequacy of domestic teleworking spaces. The aim of this contribution is to present the results of the research process through which, using an adapted transdisciplinary Delphi Method, a questionnaire has been developed on the indoor environmental conditions of the home teleworking space, considering factors such as temperature, relative humidity, natural and artificial lighting, acoustic comfort, and indoor air quality—elements that have a significant impact on people’s wellbeing. Furthermore, these environmental factors have been related to socio-demographic and economic variables, as well as to others linked to the participant’ status as a teleworker, and general variables concerning housing conditions. To ensure the legitimacy of this questionnaire and given that it contains questions from both the sociological and the technical/architectural domains, only questions taken from official surveys, such as those of the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) have been used. For questions related to the technical aspects of housing, teleworking spaces and IEQ aspects, items were drawn from existing international standards or from those widely used in the relevant IEQ literature. Thus, it is the only existing questionnaire that comprehensively covers issues indoor environmental conditions (hygrothermal, acoustic, lighting, and indoor air) of the teleworking space, in regular conditions, as an integrated and detailed approach, as a final aim, and not as a means to analyze other aspects, such as conciliation, productivity, or workers’ mental health.

This questionnaire is part of a research project, also supported for two additional ones, indicated in Funding section. While this project envisaged its application at the national level in Spain, the questionnaire could be applied to any other geographical region where this mode of work takes place. The support by international projects, such as one of the additional referred in Funding section, aims to ease its implementation in other contexts and regions worldwide.

The process of developing the questionnaire to be used for the CHAMBER research project achieved a high level of consensus among experts regarding the elements to be considered for assessing the environmental conditions required for home-based teleworking, initially designed for the Spanish context. Through the Delphi process, a total of 18 items in the field of social sciences and 59 items in the field of building sciences were collected, prioritized, and refined, organized into four thematic blocks related to the socioeconomic teleworker’s conditions (I) and work-from-home experience (II), dwelling conditions (III), and workspace (IV), paying attention to the environmental quality conditions.

In the case of the social sciences expert group, the prioritized questions focused on sociodemographic aspects and technological resources for teleworking, considered key contextual elements for interpreting the home’s environmental conditions. Particular emphasis was placed on the importance of identifying the highest educational level attained (item 6) and current occupation (item 7) as variables influencing the capacity to work from home. Likewise, the proportion of the working day carried out in teleworking mode (item 15) and the evaluation of the quality of the digital resources available at home (item 19) were prioritized. These results provide a better understanding of how personal circumstances and technological resources shape, facilitate, or limit the teleworking experience, but should be understood as complementary variables to the analysis of indoor environmental conditions, which form the central focus of the present study.

The results obtained for the social sciences expert group are consistent with previous literature on teleworking. Various studies have indicated that factors such as educational level and current occupation significantly influence the ability to adapt to remote work (Allen et al., 2015; Messenger and Gschwind, 2016). A higher level of education is generally associated with better digital skills and greater work autonomy, two conditions considered key for effective teleworking. Similarly, the proportion of the working day spent teleworking has been linked in earlier research to perceptions of efficacy, wellbeing, and productivity (Eurofound et al., 2017). The quality of the digital resources available at home has also been identified as an essential determinant in the teleworking experience, both in terms of performance and satisfaction (Felstead and Henseke, 2017). Therefore, the results of the present study not only align with previous findings but also reinforce the importance of considering sociodemographic and technological variables in the design of effective teleworking policies.

Regarding the items prioritized by the experts in the field of building sciences, fundamental aspects highlighted included the type of dwelling and its usable floor area (items 23 and 27), as well as the availability of a dedicated space regularly used for teleworking (item 38). High scores were also assigned to the quality of daylighting in the home (item 31) and in the workspace (items 65 and 67), alongside satisfaction with artificial lighting (item 66) and overall lighting (items 78 and 76). Thermal comfort, both in winter and summer (items 45 and 44), the acoustic environment (item 57), indoor air quality (item 60), and the ergonomics of the workspace (item 79) completed the set of environmental conditions deemed priorities. These results highlight that fundamental environment factors—lighting, temperature, air quality, acoustics, and physical space—are perceived as essential to ensure an adequate teleworking environment at home.

The results prioritized by the experts in building sciences show remarkable consistency with the existing literature on teleworking and the quality of the built environment. Several studies have emphasized the importance of housing characteristics, such as building type and available usable floor area, in shaping teleworkers’ perceptions of comfort and productivity (Awada et al., 2021; Cuerdo-Vilches, Navas-Martín, and Oteiza, 2021; de Klerk et al., 2021; López-Igual and Rodríguez-Modroño, 2020; Nguyen et al., 2020). Likewise, the availability of a dedicated workspace has been linked to significant improvements in subjective wellbeing and work efficiency. Regarding environmental conditions, daylighting quality, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality are recognized as key determinants of environmental satisfaction in teleworking spaces (Awada et al., 2021; Cuerdo-Vilches, Navas-Martín, and Oteiza, 2021). Additionally, the presence of an adequate acoustic environment has been directly associated with reduced levels of distraction and mental fatigue (Awada et al., 2021; Casla-Herguedas et al., 2023), critical factors for maintaining performance and psychological wellbeing. Finally, the emphasis placed on the ergonomics of workspaces reinforces previous findings indicating that having ergonomically suitable furniture and equipment helps reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders and improves job satisfaction (Awada et al., 2021; Moretti et al., 2020).

Regarding the validation of the questionnaire through the two constructs, the differentiation between Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and Physical Adequacy of the Teleworking Space provides relevant theoretical and methodological insight into the assessment of home-based teleworking environments. While both constructs address environmental conditions, their distinct psychometric behaviour confirms that users distinguish between the experiential perception of comfort (temperature, noise, light and air) and the structural suitability of the physical workspace configuration (layout, furniture, finishes or spatial organization). This separation reinforces the need to avoid treating the home teleworking environment as a single homogeneous variable, supporting instead a multidimensional perspective that differentiates between perceived environmental comfort and architectural-functional appropriateness. Such distinction has practical implications for future research and policy-making, as interventions aimed at improving teleworking conditions should address not only environmental comfort parameters but also the physical design and spatial quality of the workspace itself.

In addition, the concept of home-based teleworking was consensually defined, distinguishing it from other forms of remote work and establishing a clear reference framework for its evaluation in future studies. Although the COVID-19 health crisis prompted renewed interest in examining teleworking undertaken in the home—owing to its widespread adoption and its direct link with housing and environmental conditions—there is still no consensus definition that strictly differentiates residential teleworking from other remote working modalities.

Studies such as those by Bailey and Kurland (2002) had already highlighted definitional issues surrounding teleworking, emphasizing the lack of clarity regarding who teleworks, under what conditions, and what the effects are. These authors advocated for a broad view of the phenomenon, recognizing its diversity in terms of frequency, modalities, and locations, rather than categorizing it rigidly. Meanwhile, Messenger and Gschwind (2016) proposed an evolutionary classification of teleworking into three generations—Home Office, Mobile Office, and Virtual Office—reflecting how remote work has diversified thanks to advances in information and communication technologies. Although the Home Office represents one of these forms, their approach does not limit itself to a strict differentiation between domestic spaces and other environments but rather seeks to understand the phenomenon as a whole. Both studies underline the need for greater conceptual clarity in telework research but do not establish a categorical distinction between “working from home” and other forms of remote work. In contrast, the COVID-19 crisis, as noted by the International Labour Organization (ILO 2020), prompted a more specific focus on residential teleworking due to the urgent need to ensure workers’ health and safety during periods of lockdown. This new context has provided an opportunity to more clearly delineate the analysis of the environmental and organizational conditions of teleworking conducted exclusively from home.

Consequently, this study adopts and proposes a precise definition of working from home, distinguishing it from other forms of remote work, with the aim of providing a robust framework to specifically assess the indoor environmental conditions of the domestic space intended for teleworking. Unlike traditional workspaces, such as offices or corporate centres, which are subject to specific health and safety regulations, private homes constitute personal spaces where there is no strict regulation regarding environmental conditions for work. This lack of formal regulation makes it even more necessary to clearly delineate the concept of working from home, in order to adequately analyze the factors of comfort, wellbeing, and health affecting teleworkers in their own residences.

To summarize, these results underscore the need to address the physical and environmental conditions of the built environment for working-from-home in an integrated manner, in order to promote home-based teleworking spaces as healthy, efficient, and sustainable settings.

Although the questionnaire has demonstrated strong conceptual coherence and high internal consistency—particularly for the Physical Adequacy construct—its empirical validation is currently limited to the Spanish context. This may constrain the immediate transferability of the results to other national settings without prior contextual adaptation. In addition, the length of the questionnaire, designed to ensure a comprehensive assessment of social, spatial, and environmental dimensions, may pose challenges for its application in large-scale surveys or time-constrained contexts. Future research could therefore explore the development and validation of a short-form version aimed at facilitating its use in applied, comparative, or policy-oriented studies, while preserving the core conceptual structure of the instrument.

With regard to the analytical structure of the questionnaire, adaptive environmental control behaviors—such as the use of heating, cooling, or artificial lighting—were included within the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) construct, as they mediate the relationship between objective environmental conditions (provided by housing design and constructive featuring) and subjective experience (in which other factors, as reactive behavior, seeking comfort, could be addressed, as coping actions). These behaviors reflect occupants’ capacity to respond to environmental stressors and therefore form part of the lived environmental quality of the teleworking space. However, under the premises of this questionnaire, both perspectives might be asked through differentiated questions, in order to better understand which is the cause of the whether it of the environmental discomfort, if any, and if this is alleviated by alternative (active) means - as artificial lighting or heating/cooling devices, or not. Nevertheless, future research could also examine these behaviors as a distinct analytical dimension, particularly in studies focusing on energy use, adaptive capacity, or environmental equity.

Given that private dwellings are not subject to occupational environmental regulations, instruments such as the CHAMBER questionnaire may provide an evidence-based framework to inform future housing and labor policies. By identifying minimum environmental and spatial conditions associated with adequate home-based teleworking, such tools could support the development of guidelines, recommendations, or incentive schemes aimed at improving habitability and protecting workers’ health in residential settings, whilst privacy and other sensitive aspects of their private life remain protected.

Finally, the application of the questionnaire in international contexts may present challenges related to differences in housing typologies, cultural practices, and climatic conditions. These factors may influence both environmental perception and adaptive behaviors, making contextual adaptation necessary. Consequently, cross-national applications of the CHAMBER questionnaire should consider cultural and climatic calibration of specific items, while preserving the core conceptual structure to ensure comparability. Moreover, according to future analysis of the replies depending on each region, it is also possible to obtain relevant information on which factors are more valuable for teleworkers according not only to their individual needs, but also to social, economic and cultural conditions surrounding their ways of living and working. This info is key to further implementation of labor and social policies regarding telework, as well as actionable measures to incentive suitable, safe and engaging home-based work environments from companies and/or third parties.

This study, conducted within the framework of the CHAmbER research project, has enabled the development of a consensus evaluation tool to analyse the priority environmental conditions for working from home, distinguishing them from other forms of remote work. The results highlighted the importance of both sociodemographic and technological characteristics, as well as environmental factors of the domestic space, such as daylighting, hygrothermal and acoustic comfort, air quality, and ergonomics. It is worth noting that studies on indoor environmental quality in the home workspace for teleworking have traditionally focused on productivity or the experience of discomfort and other health issues, rather than aiming primarily to evaluate the quality of such spaces from a comprehensively environmental perspective.

This contribution not only provides value to the assessment of those environmental conditions of the domestic workspace, but also validates the tool generated to make possible this evaluation worldwide. This relevant step forward will allow to diagnose the existing housing stock wherever needed, what could be helpful to retake the debate on the adequacy of home for this recently-massive home activity and, when relevant, reconsider and balance work and housing design-related regulations, policies and implementation strategies, implied in indoor environmental conditions, and the role of any stakeholder involved, to improve those IEQ conditions for the domestic workspaces.

The agreed definition of working from home also provides a solid conceptual framework for future research and for the design of policies to improve the working environment within the residential context. The developed questionnaire constitutes a robust diagnostic tool that can be applied in future comparative studies and in the formulation of teleworking policies, which is particularly relevant given that homes, as private spaces, lack the specific labour regulations that govern traditional work environments.