Articles

Here is a New One to me, BIOPHILLIC Design

Biophilic design is a concept used within the building industry to increase occupant connectivity to the natural environment through the use of direct nature, indirect nature, and space and place conditions.

Biophilic design dates back to the early 1980s, when the biologist Edward O. Wilson outlined his philosophy of biophilia, hypothesizing that humans have an innate, biological affinity for the natural world. Biophilic design takes this idea one step further: Because humans today spend 90% of our time indoors, according to the 2001 National Human Activity Pattern Survey, it’s necessary to bring the outdoors in and create indoor environments that reference nature in both obvious and subtle ways.

If design doesn’t focus on aspects of the natural world that contribute to human health and productivity in the age-old struggle to be fit and survive, it’s not biophilic.

​Biophilic design seeks to connect our inherent need to affiliate with nature in the modern built environment. An extension of the theory of biophilia, biophilic design recognizes that our species has evolved for more than 99% of its history in adaptive response to the natural world and not to human created or artificial forces. We became biologically encoded to associate with natural features and processes. Rather than being vestigial – or relevant to a world that no longer exists – this need is thought to remain instrumental to people’s physical and mental health, fitness, and wellbeing.

These distinctive characteristics yield a set of five conditions for the effective practice of biophilic design. Each underscores what is and IS NOT biophilic design:

1.   Biophilic design emphasizes human adaptations to the natural world that over evolutionary time have proven instrumental in advancing people’s health, fitness, and wellbeing. Exposures to nature irrelevant to human productivity and survival exert little impact on human wellbeing and are not effective instances of biophilic design.
2.   Biophilic design depends on repeated and sustained engagement with nature. An occasional, transient, or isolated experience of nature exerts only superficial and fleeting effects on people, and can even, at times, be at variance with fostering beneficial outcomes.
3.   Biophilic design requires reinforcing and integrating design interventions that connect with the overall setting or space. The optimal functioning of all organisms depends on immersion within habitats where the various elements comprise a complementary, reinforcing, and interconnected whole. Exposures to nature within a disconnected space – such as an isolated plant or an out of context picture or a natural material at variance with other dominant spatial features – is NOT effective biophilic design.
4.  Biophilic design fosters emotional attachments to settings and places. By satisfying our inherent inclination to affiliate with nature, biophilic design engenders an emotional attachment to particular spaces and places. These emotional attachments motivate people’s performance and productivity, and prompt us to identify with and sustain the places we inhabit.
5.   Biophilic design fosters positive and sustained interactions and relationships among people and the natural environment. Humans are a deeply social species whose security and productivity depends on positive interactions within a spatial context. Effective biophilic design fosters connections between people and their environment, enhancing feelings of relationship, and a sense of membership in a meaningful community.
6. The fundamental challenge of biophilic design is to address these deficiencies in the modern built environment by initiating a new framework for the beneficial occurrence of nature. The effective application of biophilic design begins with adhering to the previously described basic principles. From there, particular practices of biophilic design can be employed to help implement positive and beneficial outcomes. These applications of biophilic design are listed below, although more detailed descriptions can be found in Kellert and Calabrese, The Practice of Biophilic Design (www.biophilic-design.com).
7. DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF NATURE
    Light
   •    Air
   •    Water
   •    Plants
   •    Animals
   •    Natural Landscapes and Ecosystems
   •    Weather
8. INDIRECT EXPERIENCE OF NATURE
    Images of Nature
   •    Natural Materials
   •    Natural Colors
   •    Mobility and Wayfinding
   •    Cultural and Ecological Attachment to Place
   •    Simulating Natural Light and Air
   •    Naturalistic Shapes and Forms
   •    Evoking Nature
   •    Information Richness
   •    Age, Change, and the Patina of Time
   •    Natural Geometries

Example of Natural materials, light and plants.