I am an engineer that does power design for commercial spaces. These “wellness” rooms show up a lot. They are there simply so your corporate overlords can tick a little box under “workplace atmosphere” and add it to the list of bullshit features on their website no employee ever actually uses. It’s very similar to “mother’s rooms”, only those can be considered code compliant based on your location. Sometimes they are also called “phone rooms.”

I think architects upsell them into designs to boost their self esteem.

It’s a lot like when old apartment buildings gut a storage room, put a few pieces of shitty gym equipment in it, and then add “on site fitness center” to the website, and also tack a small monthly fee on your rent.

If I had a dollar for every existing office space I’ve surveyed that ended up just piling office supplies in them, or found them covered in 3 inches of dust… I’d probably have like $100. Not a ton, but enough to definitely make them seem ridiculous.

When what you really need to relax is the comfort of white noise from the air ducts in the walls, florescent lighting and a sense that not only does time not pass, but it doesn’t even exist. Enjoy your mental health liminal space, employees.

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If you pad the walls with sound proof material and allowing people to scream and shout till their lungs burst, then it becomes a real wellness room

The design is very human.

It’s a literal requirement in many commercial buildings. They’re for breastfeeding in the code of many municipalities, but you can’t call them booby rooms so they’re “wellness rooms”. A commercial space I was looking at required 2 nursing/wellness rooms because of the size. For a team of 10 dudes. Ridiculous

This looks like, and “Wellness room” sounds like, a gender neutral term for a lactation room.

The description in that Wikipedia article sounds much nicer and more elaborate than what we actually had at my last office.