[BIOPHILIC ARCHITECTURE]

2010

DISSERTATION

Table of contents:

Understanding the term biophilia

Biophilia and the human well being

Biophilic design

Why biophilic design is important?

Benefits of biophilic design

Design approaches

Elements and attributes of biophilic design

• Environmental features • Natural shapes and forms • Natural patterns and processes • Light and space • Place-based relationships • Evolved human-nature relationships

Biophilic design strategies

Understanding the term biophilia

First coined by Erich Fromm (humanistic philosopher) in mid1900’s to describe "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.”

Popularized by E.O. Wilson, “Biophilia” (Harvard University Press) – “an instinctive bond between humans beings and other living systems”

“Wilson and other biophilia theorists assert that human beings novtonly derive specific aesthetic benefits from interacting with nature,but that the human species has an instinctive, genetically determined need to deeply affiliate with natural setting and lifeforms.”

Biophilia and the human well being

As noted, biophilia is the inherent human inclination to affiliate with natural systems and processes, especially life and life-like features of the nonhuman environment.

This tendency became biologically encoded because it proved instrumental in enhancing human physical, emotional, and intellectual fitness during the long course of human evolution.

People’s physical and mental wellbeing remains highly contingent on contact with the natural environment, which is a necessity rather than a luxury for achieving lives of fitness and satisfaction even in our modern urban society.

People’s dependence on contact with nature reflects the reality of having evolvedin a largely natural, not artificial or constructed, world.

In other words, the evolutionary context for the development of the human mind and body was a mainly sensory world dominated by critical environmental features such as light, sound, odor, wind, weather, water, vegetation,animals, and landscapes.

Biophilic design

Biophilic design is the deliberate attempt to translate an understanding of the inherent human affinity to affiliate with natural systems and processes—(known as biophilia) into the design of the built environment. Using the local natural environment as inspiration and content for creating a sense of place is a critical component of biophilic design.

Why biophilic design is important?

Interaction with nature is critically important to human well being and development, but sadly has become compromised and diminished in modern times.

We designed ourselves into this predicament and theoretically can design ourselves out of it, but only by adopting a radically different paradigm for development of the modern built environment that seeks reconciliation if not harmonization with nature.

The new design paradigm that aims for adopting a radically different paradigm for development of the modern built environment that seeks reconciliation if not harmonization with nature is called here “restorative environmental design,” an approach that aims at both a low-environmental-impact strategy that minimizes and mitigates adverse impacts on the natural environment, and a positive environmental impact or biophilic design approach that fosters beneficial contact between people and nature in modern buildings and landscapes

Recognition of how much the modern built environment has degraded and depleted the health and productivity of the natural environment prompted the development of the modern sustainable or green design movement, and years of hard work has started to yield significant change in design and construction practices.

Unfortunately, the prevailing approach to sustainable design has almost exclusively focused on the low environmental- impact objectives of avoiding and minimizing harm to natural systems.While necessary and commendable, this focus is ultimately insufficient, largely ignoring the importance of achieving long-term sustainability of restoring and enhancing people’s positive relationship to nature in the built environment, what is called here biophilic design.Low-environmental-impact design results in little net benefit to productivity, health, and well-being .Buildings and landscapes, therefore, will rarely be sustainable over time, lacking significant benefits derived from our ongoing experience of nature. Cutting-edge lowenvironmental- impact technology inevitably becomesobsolete, and when this occurs, will people be motivated to renew and restore these structures?

Sustainability is as much about keeping buildings in existence as it is about constructing new low-impact efficient designs.Without positive benefits and associated attachment to buildings and places, people rarely exercise responsibility or stewardship to keep them in existence over thelong run.

Biophilic design is, thus, viewed as the largely missing link in prevailing approaches to sustainable design.Low-environmental-impact and biophilic design must, therefore, work in complementary relation to achieve true and lasting sustainability.

Biophilic building design is necessary for two primary reasons.

First, it is becoming increasingly well demonstrated that biophilic elements have real, measurable benefits relative to such human performance metrics as productivity, emotional well-being, stress reduction, learning, and healing.

And second, from an environmental standpoint, biophilic features foster an appreciation of nature, which, in turn, should lead to greater protection of natural areas, eliminate pollution, and maintain a clean environment

The measurable benfits include

• Contact with nature has been found to enhance healing and recovery from illness and major surgical procedures, including direct contact (e.g., natural lighting, vegetation), as well as representational and symbolic depictions of nature (e.g., pictures).

• People living in proximity to open spaces report fewer health and social problems, and this has been identified independent of rural and urban residence,level of education, and income. Even the presence of limited amounts of vegetation such as grass and a few trees has been correlated with enhanced coping and adaptive behavior.

Restorative environmental design

Biophilic design

Low-environmental-impact strategy

• Office settings with natural lighting, natural ventilation, and other environmental features result in improved worker performance, lower stress, and greater motivation.

• Contact with nature has been linked to cognitive functioning on tasks requiring concentration and memory.

• Healthy childhood maturation and development has been correlated with contact with natural features and settings.

• The human brain responds functionally to sensory patterns and cues emanating from the natural environment.

• Communities with higher-quality environments reveal more positive valuations of nature, superior quality of life, greater neighborliness, and a stronger sense of place than communities of lower environmental quality. These findings also occur inpoor urban as well as more affluent and suburbanneighborhoods.

Human performance and well being…. Depend no only on the absence of significant (environmental problems, but also on the presence of particular kinds of features and attributes in buildings…. The challenge of green design is….to integrate into buildings the positive biophilic features of our evolved relationship with natureand to avoid biophobic conditions.

- Psychologist Judith Heerwagen

Design ApproachesWe know from a significant body of existing research that particular naturalelements and features are important to people – such as water, large trees,flowers, and rich vegetation. We also know that certain qualities and spatialcharacteristics of natural environments have strong appeal and that these, too,serve as a basis for design -- such as views to the horizon, provision of refuge, asense of enticement that invites exploration, sensory variation, and fractalpatterning.

These elements and features of nature can be incorporated into building designnot only through the use of actual nature elements, but by using the features andqualities of nature in subtle and abstracted ways. Approaches to biophilic designinclude:

Literal—connection to and experience of real natural features and elements(biodiversity, trees, water, shade, light)Facsimile – use of nature imagery and materials derived from natural

resourcesEvocative – using the qualities and attributes of nature in design (sensoryvariability, prospect and refuge, serendipity, discovered complexity.)

The first basic dimension of biophilic design is an organic or naturalistic dimension, defined as shapes and forms in the built environment that directly, indirectly, or symbolically reflect the inherent human affinity for nature. Direct experience refers to relatively unstructured contact with self-sustaining features of the natural environment such as daylight, plants, animals, natural habitats, and ecosystems. Indirect experience involves contact with nature that requires ongoing human inputto survive such as a potted plant, water fountain, or aquarium. Symbolic or vicarious experience involves no actual contact with real nature, but rather the representation of the natural world through image, picture, video, metaphor, and more.

The second basic dimension of biophilic design is a place-based or vernacular dimension, defined as buildings and landscapes that connect to the culture and ecologyof a locality or geographic area. This dimension includes what has been called a sense or, better, spirit of place, underscoring how buildings and landscapes of meaning to people become integral to their individual and collective identities, metaphorically transforming inanimate matter into something that feels lifelike and often sustains life.

The two basic dimensions of biophilic design can berelated to six biophilic design elements:• Environmental features• Natural shapes and forms• Natural patterns and processes• Light and space• Place-based relationships• Evolved human-nature relationships