International Outdoor Office Day is celebrated worldwide on June 11, but in Lithuania, this idea has already gone beyond a single day – an entire week is dedicated to it. Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) went even further: this year, the university community tried various forms of outdoor work and activities throughout June.
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“The idea of an outdoor office is more than just the opportunity to simply change the workplace. It encourages paying attention to how the surrounding environment affects well-being, creativity, concentration, and interpersonal connections,” says Greta Kotova, curator of KTU’s employee well-being program “How are you?”.
From a symbolic step to a developing tradition
The idea of an outdoor office at KTU began to develop in 2025, when one of the community initiatives encouraged the university to join International Outdoor Office Day.
“At first, expectations were quite modest – it seemed it would be a meaningful but more symbolic step encouraging the community to try working outdoors. However, as people started to get involved, the initiative received much more interest than we expected,” says the idea’s initiator, KTU Environmental Engineering Institute (APINI) associate professor Dr. Inga Gurauskienė.
According to the KTU researcher, the initiative quickly went beyond a one-day event. Some employees moved their usual computer work outdoors, while others held student consultations there.
“One of the most memorable moments was the rehearsal of the academic anthem ‘Gaudeamus’ outdoors, preparing for the diploma awarding ceremony. This showed that outdoor spaces can be a place not only for individual work but also for nurturing academic traditions,” shares I. Gurauskienė about last year’s experience.
The outdoor office idea goes beyond the university
The first experience encouraged further development of the outdoor office idea at KTU. In 2026, the employee well-being program “How are you?” joined in, inviting the community in June to move more activities outdoors. The aim is that over time, working outdoors will become not only a special initiative but also a natural part of the university’s daily life.
This year, the KTU community also participated in the Outdoor Culture session-workshops. During these, participants tried different university and city spaces, evaluated which activities they are best suited for, and looked for ways to more often move work, studies, and meetings outdoors.
However, the outdoor office idea is not limited to KTU alone. University alumna Sandra Galdikaitė, a promoter of the Outdoor Office initiative in Lithuania, has actively popularized this practice in Lithuania for a year. This year, she led outdoor office sessions and consulted organizations wishing to try working outdoors. She also founded the organization “Outdoor Office Lithuania.”
Meanwhile, KTU graduate Evelina Lekešiūtė, studying in Australia, presents the outdoor office concept to local organizations and companies and looks for ways to adapt it to different climate and work culture conditions.
“It’s nice to see that the initiative lives on beyond the university. This shows that working outdoors can be relevant not only to the academic community – this practice finds a place in different organizations and even different countries,” says I. Gurauskienė.
Outdoor office – also in scientific research focus
The idea of an outdoor office at KTU is not only tested practically but also studied scientifically. Kotryna Krasauskaitė, a master’s student in the “Sustainable Management and Production” program, analyzed the green spaces of the KTU student campus in her final thesis and evaluated how suitable they are for outdoor work and studies. She was greatly helped by GIS specialist Aidas Gudaitis, who significantly contributed to the research and the creation of the GIS map.
The study used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to assess the student campus spaces, and a community survey helped identify its needs and attitudes towards working and studying outdoors.
Although 53.5% of respondents would like to exchange indoor spaces for outdoor ones more often, 58.1% currently do not use them for work or study.
Respondents would most like to use outdoor spaces for relaxation between lectures (72.1%), creative work (60.5%), and informal meetings (55.8%). Practical reasons – lack of shade and infrastructure adapted for this – hinder working or studying outdoors more often.
One practical result of the study is a KTU student campus map-guide that helps find suitable places for work, study, or relaxation outdoors. Based on the community survey results, it marks spaces of varying suitability – from most to least adapted for outdoor activities.
These spaces have great potential for outdoor work, but this does not necessarily mean they are already adapted for it. The student’s thesis analyzes possible scenarios for how these spaces could be adapted to community needs.
The study’s conclusions are also used to prepare proposals on how the student campus outdoor spaces could be better adapted to community needs. Opportunities for working and studying outdoors are also examined in the international Erasmus+ project SWEPPP (“Sustainable Well-being – education for personal, professional and planetary well-being”), which focuses on personal, professional, and planetary well-being.
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