In-the-Wild Wearable Sensing for Opportunity Based Design: A Pilot Study for Framework Toward Computational Design for Wellbeing

The built environment influences occupants’ behaviour, health, and well-being, yet empirical methods capable of capturing these links in real settings remain limited in architectural research. This study proposes an in-the-wild, data-centric methodology that integrates commercially available smartwatches with spatial analysis to quantify relationships between behaviour and well-being. In a pilot study, five participants wore Garmin Venu 3S devices for three weeks (adaptation, pre-intervention, post-intervention). The devices generated continuous streams of movement indicators, which included step count, activity type, and the duration of moderate to vigorous physical activity, as well as well-being outcomes such as sleep score, device-reported stress, and time spent in low, medium, and high stress states. The study outlines a practical data-ingestion pipeline and evaluates the feasibility of integrating wearable-derived data with spatial analysis. Although the small sample precluded inferential statistics, observed behavioural changes demonstrate the potential for evidence-based, human-centred evaluation of real environments and provide a scalable framework for future investigations linking spatial configuration, behaviour, and well-being to support computational design practice for pre-occupancy evaluation.