“Let us be clear on this point: any occurrence of nature in the built environment cannot be called biophilic design if it has no bearing on our species’ inborn tendencies that have advanced our fitness and survival.”
Biophilia, derived from Greek, means “love of life.” The term, first coined in the 1960’s by a German-American social psychologist Erich Fromm, stands for “the passionate love of life and of all that is alive.” In the early 1980’s, Harvard entomologist, E. O. Wilson, popularized the idea in his pivotal book, Biophilia. Wilson defined it as humans’ innate and evolutionarily based need to connect with nature. The late, Stephen R. Kellert, Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology and senior research scholar at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, pioneered the concept of biophilic design in architecture.
According to the biophilia hypothesis, humans are psychologically wired to respond to natural conditions such as the weather, seasonal changes, and time of the day. For over 99% of its history as a species, we have evolved in adaptive response to the natural world. Historically, survival depended on our ability to act upon threats and opportunities the natural world offered. Knowledge of our surroundings and appropriate responses to natural cues (e.g. colors, shapes, forms, and light, to name a few) were necessary for us to endure and thrive. Consequently, with time, these successful adaptations became biologically encoded into humans and resulted in “a diverse set of inclinations to affiliate with natural patterns and processes.” (Kellert) Today, this close connection to the natural world remains one of our fundamental needs, necessary for our wellbeing and both, physical and mental health. However, with a broader shift from agrarian to urban lifestyle in the modern world, even merely maintaining the connection proves to be a major challenge.
Currently about 50% of the world population lives in cities. The figure is predicted by the United Nations to increase to nearly 70% by 2050. Moreover, people spend approximately 90% of their time indoors. If such man-made environments do not offer a genuine connection with nature, we become separated from an essential part of ourselves. As Florence Williams, the author of The Nature Fix, aptly states, “we’re losing our connection to nature more dramatically than ever before. Thanks to confluence of demographics and technology, we’ve pivoted further away from nature than any generation before us. At the same time, we’re increasingly burdened by chronic ailments made worse by time spent indoors, from myopia and vitamin D deficiency to obesity, depression, loneliness and anxiety among others.”
Since the early 1980’s a body of academic and scientific research has grown, testing E.O. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis. We are, hence, at an exciting moment in time where this seemingly common-sense idea of nature’s positive health and wellbeing effects should finally be legitimized by hard data. One of the first experiments using standards of modern medical research was conducted by Roger Ulrich, testing hospital recovery rates of patients exposed to nature. His study showed that mere views of nature were beneficial to patients’ rate of recovery post-surgery or from infections. Another of Ulrich’s experiments, conducted nearly a decade later, involving heart surgery patients, tested whether simulated nature views had comparable effects as real views. Again, results proved beneficial effects.
Kellert emphasizes that biophilic design is not simply about bringing nature indoors. A lonely plant placed in a room does not equal to biophilic design. Biophilic design requires engaging and interconnecting with natural features and processes. In his final book, Nature by Design, Kellert defines biophilic design as a “deliberate, systematic and informed approach to bringing beneficial contact with nature into the modern built environment.” He offers a comprehensive design framework, listing 9 basic principles, 3 elements and 25 attributes of biophilic design. Keller, however, remains cautious that this practitioner’s list needs to be carefully tailored to particular uses, conditions, circumstances, history and culture of a building or constructed landscape.
Terrapin Bright Green, an environmental consulting and strategic planning, offers its version of a framework, identifying 14 patterns of biophilic design. Building on the work by S. R. Kellert and other prominent researchers in the field, their publications provide guidelines for applying biophilic patterns as tools for improving health and well-being in the built environment.
I am yet to decide which framework to use when analyzing the case studies that I will visit during my upcoming travels. I acknowledge the concise approach of Terrapin Bright Green. On the other hand, there is much value in Keller’s comprehensive original framework from the seminal book, co-authored by Judith Heerwagen and Martin Mador, Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life. This is the framework used by Amanda Sturgeon’s, the CEO of the International Living Futures Institute (ILFI), in her latest book, Creating Biophilic Buildings. Fortunately, as Timothy McGee, IFLI’s Biophilic Design Manager recently told me, all of these frameworks are related and are provide essential tools helping us understand the critical aspects of biophilic design. More from my interview with Tim coming up soon in a future post!
“We are just beginning to find that these environmentally impoverished habitats foster fatigue, symptoms of disease, and impaired performance, and the simple introduction of natural lighting, outside views, and vegetation can result in enhanced health and productivity.Thankfully the practice of sensory deprived, static and artificial interiors is being revolutionized.”
Stephen R. Kellert
natuRE:engaged 
0 comments on “What Is Biophilic Design?”