The busyness of modern life often makes us overlook that we, too, are part of the natural world. Though the National Park Service “sets aside certain places to preserve and protect,” mature engineer-y types know that even dams and urban plazas are basically geological constructions; power plants and massive highway interchanges are mighty, up-to-date technologies of the buffalo hunt.
So, what is biophilic design all about? Biophilic design is a fresh way of doing things, a method that is likely to gain a lot of attention in the coming years. It is going to permeate a lot of different aspects of life, from architecture to interior design, so I had better make sure that I get this right. But some topics turn out to be complicated. Are you supposed to understand every single thing you read the first time you read it? Probably not.
The idea of biophilic design is to weave elements of nature into our constructed spaces. Biologist E.O. Wilson is largely responsible for our current understanding of the concept. He proposed that humans are inherently drawn to the kinds of landscapes where our species first evolved. Now, some leading-edge designers are translating this work into creating real spaces meant for people to live and work in. They are mixing forms and materials found in the natural world with “artificial” stuff in ways that just feel right, making spaces that serve people’s well-being and that connect us to our evolutionary home.
Picture yourself entering an office building. It doesn’t feel like you’re walking into a business so much as it does that you’re sauntering into some sort of romantic, 19th-century urban greenhouse. The lichgate alone is enough to knock you across the noggin with Biophilia. That’s the kind of eventuality Eugiene Tsui had long envisioned when he was an architecture student at the University of California, Berkeley.
Take the Amazon Spheres, for instance. In the heart of Seattle, Washington, there exist these beguiling, large, and almost otherworldly glass orbs. Within them are housed not just any greenery, but the very stuff one might expect to find were one lost in the jungles of the Amazon Rainforest. From the outside, they seem like something that could only be true in one’s imagination. From the inside, by all accounts, they’re quite wondrous. One’s suspicions that they aren’t a marvelous concoction but instead entirely real must be confirmed by the signage nearby, which reads: “The Spheres. 7th and Lenora. Public Pocket Park.”
The Significance of Biophilic Design
Why is Biophilic Design significant, particularly when we consider the many global problems we face? First, Biophilic Design is significant because it emphasizes the life-friendly design of healthy habitats, a definite departure from many of our current failing models. Second, Biophilic Design is crucial because it manifests how we can solve problems and live well without another round of toxic indoor environments or knocking more trees down to build. Third, Biophilic Design is important because it appeals to our evolutionary need and biological demand for natural elements. In short, if we can’t build a shack in the woods and be mentally, physically, and ecologically satisfied with just that, then we shouldn’t lead lives of virtual contentment in the indoor technologies creating our discontents.
The biophilic approach isn’t simply about crafting good looks; it’s about fashioning spaces that buttress human health and productivity. Research has shown that when people are exposed to natural elements, it can lead to de-stressed states, enhanced moods, and even improved cognitive functioning. So, when it comes to the biophilic workspace, what’s happening in the workplace can happen at home as well, and for many of the same reasons.
Visiting a friend who had used the principles of biophilic design in her apartment stays with me in memory. In her living room, plants abounded, and sunlight poured in from large windows. The two of us heard the plashing of a small, indoor “water wall,” one of her apartment’s living features meant to bring nature indoors. If the visitor has different experiences in different parts of the apartment, and if those experiences are largely positive, the visitor will remember that space in a more positive way.
I hadn’t known the real effect of a little greenery and light on the human psyche until I spent a few days at my friend, Laura’s, place,” I told my companion one day many years ago. “Once you step over her threshold, you enter another world. It’s as soothing as a lullaby, and at the same time, it perks you up like a DOUBLE ESPRESSO with foamed milk.”
Regenerative Design: Tomorrow’s Buildings
Biophilic design creates healthy indoor environments. The regenerative architecture, on the other hand, orients these wholesome inside spaces to engage with their larger outdoor surroundings. Very often the design of every interior part is rethought not to the same kind of sustainable assembly. Interstate 5 is a cut off from the Salish Sea and the North Central Puget Lowland Ecoregion. Our project, located within a mile of Elliott Bay, the southern side of the Salish Sea, needed to orient all of its indoor spaces toward the restorative structure of the outside regions.
Regenerative architecture is about taking the construction of buildings, most often thought of as producing harmful environmental effects, such as air pollution or damage to wildlife, to a radically different level of environmental responsibility. Up until now, most architects have been content with trying to reduce a building’s negative impact on the environment by using some or all of the “Three R’s” (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). But most often, those practices have involved highly imaginative and unusual uses of traditional or non-traditional construction materials. Regenerative architects use a wide variety of building materials, but with common purposes: achieving substantially reduced environmental damage, and producing highly efficient, healthy, and visually pleasing buildings.
Fundamental Tenets of Regenerative Architecture
1. Ecosystem Rejuvenation: A building should not stick out like a sore thumb. The more it can blend into its environs in appearance (and in use) and actually improve them say, through green roofs or the planting of native local plants the better. And any twofer in which a building or site component can improve the local environs and do something else useful (like capture stormwater or create habitats) is highly desirable.
Renewable Energy: Regenerative structures often produce their power from solar panels, wind turbines, or some other source of safe, renewable energy. They are both highly efficient and power sufficient, requiring very little help from the outside to meet the demands of the structure within.
Wholesome Substances: Utilizing substances that are not harmful to people or the planet is key in regenerative design. We know we should sidestep certain noxious compounds whenever we can, but the question remains: What should we use instead? If natural, rapidly renewable resources are better, why aren’t more architects making the switch?
In Seattle, the Bullitt Center stands as a leading model of regenerative architecture. The six-story office building isn’t just energy efficient—the architects aimed for it to be net positive, to generate more energy than is used in constructing and operating it, and to do so within an urban site, using only existing technologies, by the time it opened in 2013. It’s a cool structure. It embodies the sort of transformative ideal that the project’s proponents want of it. They want it to be a lighthouse project, to show what’s possible, to get ever more virtual.
The Rewards of Regenerative Architecture
Regenerative architecture has wide benefits. For the environment, it means low pollution, reduced resource use, and renewed biodiversity. For people, it means healthier living and working conditions. And because regenerative design is naturally energy-efficient, when we apply it to our buildings, we can expect lower utility bills. And since people seem to be happier and more productive in these kinds of spaces, we can also expect an enhanced living experience to be part of the next dividend.
Last year, I was fortunate to be able to tour a regenerative building. The differences between it and a traditional building were astounding and a lot of it had to do with what I, as a visitor, could take in with my senses. The air inside was so much fresher. Every room was filled with natural light. Countless design features made it clear that this was a building meant to work with the local climate, not seal itself off from the Triangle’s weather patterns.
“Entering that structure felt as if I were taking in a lungful of clear mountain air,” I told a fellow faculty member. “Somehow the architects of that space managed to create a pathway through which fresh air from the outdoors came to me as I stood inside the building. Pure genius!”
Ways to weave these ideas into the fabric of your existence
“This is all very wonderful,” you may be thinking, “but how can I introduce these novel concepts into my personal existence?” Fortunately, you don’t have to construct a fresh residence or relocate to an avant-garde office complex to take advantage of what biophilic design and regenerative architecture have to offer. There are lots of simple, doable ways in which you can remodel your living or working space to be more overtly nature-friendly. And it doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money.
Begin Simply with Biophilic Design
Bring in the Houseplants: The most straightforward way to bring nature into your home is with houseplants. A house filled with a variety of plants has almost as many different visual “feels” as a house filled with a variety of colors. Some plants are small and delicate, while others are large and take up a lot of space. Some have many tiny leaves, and others have a few very large leaves. All of these combinations of sizes and shapes give a room all sorts of different, clearly nature-based visual appeals. You can start with a single small, low-maintenance plant on your desk and then build. Start with a succulent or a snake plant as your first venture into indoor greenery.
Let in as much sunlight as you can. If your designing a new place, think about how to include large windows or even skylights.
Choose Natural Materials: Select furniture and decorations created from natural materials, such as wood, stone, and bamboo. They offer the option of adding a cozy look to your space since they’re filled with warmth and texture.
My friend just finished remodeling her home office, increasing the biophilic effects within the room. More types and greater numbers of house plants appear with each passing week. As I virtual-meet with her in this space, I am envious of the oversize wooden desk that is now her base of operations. It’s a feast for two human senses: sight and touch. … And I must not forget the mirror. She hung it on a wall behind the desk, and it serves an impressive triptych with the window and the desk. The natural light + house plants combo means there isn’t (artificial) a light “down” moment in the day for her.
Adopt Regenerative Practices
Energy Efficiency: Increase your home’s energy efficiency by switching to appliances that save energy, insulating spaces where outside air has easy access, and installing LED lights. These measures will build a scenario in which you not only save energy but also save money and reduce the number of greenhouse gases our homes and private spaces produce.
Landscaping for Sustainability: Should you possess some outdoor space, contemplate the provision of native species. They’re great, less demanding in terms of resources, and really good at providing habitat structure. A rain garden will take the native plants, please, and it will do something terribly important but kind of prosaic and dull, it will manage your backyard’s very own stormwater runoff.
Wholesome Materials: It is of the utmost importance to select materials that are not harmful to your health or the environment when renovating or decorating. You can do this by ensuring that the materials used are sustainable in nature and have been supplied in a practically reduced CO2 manner. Besides that, the type of processing the materials go through also plays a role. So, an FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification for wood products, for example, is something that should be taken seriously and considered.
I began with baby steps. I changed over to LED light bulbs and installed a rain barrel in my garden,” I revealed to my next-door inhabitant. “However, you’d be amazed at the difference even such a seemingly small behavior shift can make. I hardly think of it now, but it seems I am always considering it in the context of how my life’s decisions blend with the big e.”
The Architecture of the Future
Going ahead, the tenets of biophilic design and regenerative architecture will only grow in importance. What path that growth will take remains to be seen, but these two fields embody the principles that can reshape the built environment into something both beautiful and beneficial. We in the West should follow these leads. For all our great wealth and power, why aren’t we the world’s greatest builders? Why can’t the space-making endeavors of the capitalist class be tantamount to the re-emergence of the modernist utopia?
If you’re a homeowner wanting to make some changes or a developer planning something new altogether, you can look to biophilic design for inspiration. While the idea of setting aside a big chunk of a building as a dedicated biofilter is all well and good, many Mithun projects actually do something a lot less space-consuming and primarily use plants in a way we could do in our own homes or lower-rise designs. Bringing even a little bit of nature back into our buildings is an important part of regenerative design.
“The positive effect of these transformations on my life leaves me not just optimistic but downright enthusiastic about the future of architecture,” I told a friend recently. “To me, it’s awe-inspiring that we can develop buildings and whole habitats that serve us better than the ones that have come before and that somehow also serve the planet better.”
Innovation and rethinking are afoot in how we create spaces. Looking ahead, it’s easy to see that our mandate is for green design, and the green design movement is already well established. Architects are being tasked with creating buildings, open structures, and even closed doors in a way that emits the sorts of gases that warm the earth at a far reduced rate and with far-reduced harm.
