Before, I used to think workplace productivity was closely tied to the most cutting-edge tech gear, the most ergonomic seating, and the most phenomenally streamlined workflows. But then I walked into a biophilic office and everything changed. The natural environment is characterized partly by infinite richness, what Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson has called “half of the total mystery of the world,” and some of that life-giving, energizing, infinitely inventive and rejuvenating feel has been brought into the built environment. To great effect. Even on our built persons.
Integrating nature into our surroundings is the definition of biophilic design. It’s a movement that has gained steam in recent years for a very simple reason: it’s beneficial for our mental and physical health. The whole concept is to take what we know intuitively about the pull “towards the outer world” that we feel when we’re cooped up inside and to use “a structure of knowledge” to help us make better decisions about design, ones that lead to a healthier, happier time for all of us spent in buildings. But how, you ask?
The well-being of people is closely tied to their connection with nature, with copious research substantiating the salutary effects of environments in which the human bond with nature is allowed to express itself. Biophilic design has, as its essential purpose, the creation of salutary work environments. What makes biophilic design an especially potent driver of human happiness and productivity? Here are the few of the most compelling findings from our research.
Enhanced Mental Wellness and Stress Reduction
Among the most important reasons to adopt biophilic design is that it is linked to several indicators of positive effects on mental health. Exposing people to nature and natural spaces, even if they’re just pictures of it, can create physiological responses that increase our wellbeing. Compared to when we’re exposed to, say, a sterile hospital room or a fluorescent-lit office space, being in a space that embodies natural elements can lead to stress reduction, mood improvement, and increases in cognitive ability. Our brain’s evolution in natural spaces, a large part of which occurred over the 200,000-some years that the human species has existed as selected for a range of responses to nature that are good for us. The structures we build can either harness these beneficial effects for us or cut us off from them.
Not long ago, I served in an office setting which had just become the object of a biophilic redesign. Enormous fresh portals to the sun and the outdoor world had been blasted through the walls, allowing natural light to pour inside. The floors had been carpeted with wild grasses and reeds, and if I listened closely, I could almost hear the wind rustling these now-indoor plants. Both humans and animals, resource economists say, have a demonstrable need to connect directly, and even intimately, with the natural world. We all know we feel better for it. But how is that personal well-being tied to the indoor environments in which we do most of our living and working now?
Boosted Imagination and Overcoming Obstacles
Creativity and enhanced problem-solving abilities often are inspired by nature, and when we look to her for assistance, we rarely are turned away without aid. In the realm of the built environment, this impulse toward the innovative led directly to biophilic (“nature+love”) design (pronounce it “bio-FEE-lik,” please). This was a field pioneered by the late biologist and Tacoma native E.O. Wilson, who defined biophilia as “the urge to affiliate with other forms of life.”
A meeting room that looked out onto a relaxation garden made for a nice change, as this one did. Bright sunlight bathed the room, and the lush greenery almost made you forget that you were at one of the highest points in the otherwise murderously hot, extremely urbanized city. That you were in the presence of natural light and natural vegetation was probably no coincidence. The odd thing is that the setup seemed to be working and creative juices flowed freely.
Boosted Concentration and Output
An individual’s productivity and attention to detail can also be improved by the natural world. Research has found that working in an environment filled with natural elements increases one’s output and reduces the number of errors made. And it’s not just any plants and views that will do. According to the studies, good old natural light concentrations also serve as a fatigue antidote for the hard-working employee.
At a different workplace, I got the chance to move my workstation from a dingy, windowless cubicle to an office that overlooked a park. My windowed work office was truly a game-changer. I found that having a sunlit office to myself and a scene of the great outdoors doubled my attentiveness and productivity throughout the day. Being able to see the world outside the window from my office was the best of both worlds.
Biophilic Design: A Practical How-To
It is not complicated or expensive to incorporate biophilic design into the workplace. Here are some fairly simple and cost-efficient ways you can add a touch of nature to where you work.
Optimizing Natural Light
Biophilic design draws on the power of natural light and uses it as an essential component. It harnesses our mood-enhancing and energy-increasing relationship with light and ensures we have it in places where we are supposed to be, and at peak times when we are supposed to be there. To get natural light indoors, one can use wide windows, skylights, and transparent walls. Observe where and when the sun comes up and goes down. Workstations should be set up next to windows and make use of the light. If possible, don’t block the light with window coverings. An overly bright and direct light should be avoided.
We recently renovated the office where I work and decided to add skylights in the central atrium. The transformation was incredible; the skylights made the place look not just lighter, but more expansive as well. They also seemed to put everyone in a better mood. Everything is now properly lit, so we can actually see what’s going on!
Incorporating Houseplants into One’s Living Space
Incorporating nature into the workplace is as simple as including plants, which are much more than mere decorations. Plants clean the air. They give off large amounts of oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide and potentially toxic materials. All of which makes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) consider plants in the workplace to be one of its main strategies for creating healthier working environments.
My workspace is adorned with a collection of little succulents and a large fiddle leaf fig. The touch of green enlivens the place and makes it feel naturally pleasant. The increased natural oxygen also has a bonus effect of making the space feel much more inviting. I’d be lying if I said I always remembered to water them, though. It was the occasional watering that my mom stressed to me that led to my reimagining of the workspace.
Employing Natural Materials and Hues
Using natural materials such as wood, stone, and bamboo can make a workspace feel warm and textured. The colors pulled from nature, think greens, browns, and blues can have a calming and “keep-you-present” effect. A person could zone out just about anywhere, but when you’re in a space where you feel grounded and almost “friends” with your furniture where you trust the textures, the materials, and the general makeup of your workspace you’re not going to abandon it during your work day.
In a previous workspace, my team decided to do something a little different with our interior: new bamboo wooden flooring and all-new wooden desks. We weren’t exactly huge fans of the carpeting before, and the bamboo really brightened the place up. (I’m not just saying that because it was my idea.) All in all, it was a pretty cozy office.
Individual Accounts of Change
The real influence of biophilic design can only be grasped when one understands the lived experiences and personal narratives of the people affected by it. The following are a handful of true stories that, taken together, make a powerful case for just what “good” this practice is capable of achieving across a diverse range of contemporary settings.
Renewed Open Office Space
A friend of mine is employed at a tech company that recently decided to take on a profound renovation of its open office space. The principles of biophilic design guided the transformation. Those responsible for effecting the change drenched the office in natural light, put up plant-covered “green walls,” and utilized natural materials in many aspects of the reimagined space. The result was an environment that not only looked and felt different but “worked” differently, too. The more or less continually stressed employees of the past now say they serve as serene and productive presences within that environment figures of focus instead of nerves.
How to Give Your Small Business a Makeover
A small marketing agency in an urban office was short on space but wanted a workspace that incorporated biophilic design. They had little budget and much less space—yet, they started making some simple strides. They added plants to their office space: a mix of small and large pots, and hanging planters. They also put a few pieces of nature-inspired art on their walls. These decorations, of the pioneers in an urban office, started to serve a far greater purpose that went beyond looks: The office felt less cramped, and the employees in it seemed far less irritable.
Transforming the Personal Workspace
From what I’ve seen, altering my workspace with biophilic components has boosted both my productivity and wellness. I used to have a standard office setup at home with scant natural elements. After I came to understand biophilic design, I figured I’d make a few changes. I pulled my desk up to a window, introduced several plants, and worked in some natural materials (a wooden desktop and a stone lamp, for instance). Those modest alterations together made for a workspace that felt both more inspiring and cozy. I think I now work with more focus, less stress, and greater productivity.
Introducing Biophilic Design to Your Work Environment
Are you prepared to improve your workspace using biophilic design? The following pointers can help you begin:
1. Evaluate Your Space: Inspect your current workspace, then identify spaces where you can add elements from the natural world. When looking myopically at different aspects of biophilic design, you need to consider the amount of natural light available, current air circulation around the plants, and how much space is alotted for these living decorations.
2. Initiate Minor Changes: It’s unnecessary to renovate your whole office to make the most of biophilic design. The key here is making beneficial design elements accessible to all visitors and employees in the office. Add a couple of plants or trees to the office environment. If you don’t have windows, even a picture of green scenery on the wall will do. Rearrange the furniture so that it makes the most of any natural light coming in. Second, concentrate on using a better lighting strategy throughout the office. Biophilic design elements are all about bringing the lighting from outside to the inside when it’s in the office environment; it’s even better when it’s in the cubicle environment.
3. Work with your team to figure out how to include elements of nature in your office space. Your group’s creativity can result in great ideas. Indeed, collaboration almost ensures that the resulting ideas will satisfy most, if not all, team members. Participatory, or democratic, decision-making often works best when you’re trying to figure out how to change the physical environment of a workspace in a very important way.
4. Give Top Priority to Well-being: See to it that the umbrella of well-being covers each one of your design choices. Making well-being a top priority and allowing your employees to voice their concerns gives you a healthier and more productive digital workplace. Training helps a lot with this. One study found that businesses with higher workplace well-being were around 30% more innovative than their counterparts.
5. Test and modify: It would be an odd quirk of biophilic design to not itself be part of the experimentalist tradition. Biophilia is a theory of inclinations, but still a theory that gains or loses force through our experience of its tenets. What penetrates a working situation to make it seem so intrinsically alive? And what keeps the biophilia project going? And especially, how do these two forces congeal into a project that has a prospect of engaging, without demanding, urban citizens for many years?
In conclusion, adopting biophilic design makes for a more productive workplace.
Designing with biophilia is not just the latest fad, but a matter of increasing the health and potency of our workspaces. Biophilic design can reduce stress, enhance creativity, and even improve our well-being. These workspaces incorporate natural environments in ways we can readily imagine when we think of a spa, a summer cabin retreat, or a visit to an oceanside boardwalk. They can be as relaxed as a tree-shrouded space that exists next to a flowing fountain.
When you’re planning a new workplace or trying to improve your existing one, the facets of biophilic design can lead you to a more naturally intuitive human workspace. The work we do here, identifying what makes us feel “connected” to a place or “detached” from it, and then coming up with conceptual, fantastical renderings for what the human workspace could be, is a pretty good start. And while biophilic design may seem aspirational (particularly when it comes to the reunion of “office” and “treehouse”), I would argue that it is grounded in hard science. What is science saying about it?
Why not start today? Look around your office and think about how you can bring a touch of the outside world indoors. Whether it’s capitalizing on sunlight, planting a few plants, or using natural materials for some of your office furnishings and supplies, these changes can be simple, but they make a truly profound difference. I like to think of it as creating a workspace that celebrates the tranquil beauty of nature and provides a pick-me-up in productivity for everyone who walks through your door.
