A more efficient attention recovery of workers during their break time is essential for achieving higher productivity and wellness. In recent years, the biophilic design that introduces indoor plants has become one of the solutions to these problems. This study aims to determine the impact factors and corresponding levels related to indoor planting design concerning workers’ attention recovery. Firstly, the volume ratio, layout, and leaf size of indoor plants and the corresponding levels were put forward by a focus group study with ten participants. Secondly, the orthogonal experiment method established nine virtual recovery scenarios based on characteristics extraction of staff break areas in the factory. Thirdly, eighteen participants were guided to feel fatigued by experiencing the sustained attention to response test to measure the baseline attention level of participants. Then, participants rested in the virtual scenarios. Lastly, the attention test was conducted again to observe participants’ attention recovery degree. The difference values of participants’ sensitivity, reaction times, and the number of correct responses between the two detection targets were applied to evaluate the attention recovery. Results showed that the volume ratio of indoor plants had the most significant effect on workers’ attention recovery; 3% by volume ratio, mixed floor and wall plants and floor planting with large leaves were demonstrated as the optimal indoor planting design for attention recovery.

It is a common phenomenon that the stairs of modern historical brick and wood buildings can not meet the existing fire protection specifications, which has become a difficulty in the repair. Based on this, this paper proposes two different repair strategies for the Chinese Baroque "Hui" shaped building in Harbin, and uses the computer fire evacuation performance simulation as the method to explore the influence of the changes of stair width, number, location and building size on the safety movement duration and number of individuals who failed to evacuate in the two repair strategies, and compares the effectiveness of common fire prevention measures. It is found that the fire development laws of the two building repair methods are similar when corre-sponding to the same stair state and building volume; When the width of stairs in-creased from 900mm to 1100mm, the evacuation effect was not significantly improved; Increasing the number of existing interior staircases from one to two increases the proportion of safely evacuated occupants from 68% to 91%.; The exterior corridor staircase shows the highest evacuation efficiency, with a single staircase sufficient to ensure the safe evacuation of all occupants; Given the same increment in total area, the increase in evacuation movement time caused by adding stories is approximately twice that caused by expanding the building footprint.; The fire prevention effect of automatic sprinkler and mechanical smoke exhaust is more obvious.

It is a common phenomenon that the stairs of modern historical brick–timber buildings cannot meet existing fire protection specifications, something which has become a difficulty in their renovation. In response, this study proposes two different renovation strategies for the Hui-shaped Chinese Baroque brick–timber building in Harbin and constructs multiple fire scenarios. Using a coupled PyroSim–Pathfinder (version 2023.2.0816) simulation approach, a finite element model of the building under fire and a corresponding evacuation model are established. The aim is to investigate how variations in stair width, number, position, and overall building scale under the two renovation strategies influence evacuation movement time and the number of evacuation failures, and to compare the effectiveness of common fire protection measures. The results show that, for the same stair configuration and building mass, the fire development patterns of the two renovation strategies are similar. Increasing the stair width from the original 0.9 m to 1.1 m produces no significant improvement in evacuation performance. When the number of indoor existing stairways increases from one to two, the proportion of occupants evacuated safely rises from 68% to 91%. External corridor staircases provide the best evacuation performance, and a single such stair can satisfy the safe evacuation of all occupants. When the same additional floor area is provided, increasing the number of storeys extends the evacuation movement time by approximately twice that caused by increasing the building footprint. Automatic sprinkler systems and mechanical smoke exhaust systems exhibit more pronounced fire protection effects.