The facade is the first impression a building makes, a critical membrane between the outdoor world and the human experience within. We often associate facades with high-tech materials like glass and steel developed through the last century. Biophilic facades, on the other hand, seem to work at a different level—they blend nature and structure into a kind of expressive skin that engages our senses, bringing a building to life. I remember, when I was at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, sitting across the table from my mentor, the biophilic design architect Jason McLennan, and talking about this idea of building skin. How can a facade not only protect but also connect, allowing those inside to feel intertwined with the outdoor world? For me, biophilic design seems to hold the potential to transform a facade from a place where wildlife encounter humans to a dynamic ecosystem that interacts with the environment in an energy- and water-positive way.
Biophilic Architecture
The concept of biophilia and biophilic design dates back to the 1960s and was popularized in the 1980s. Biophilic design is now being embraced by architects and landscape architects as a way to create living systems in our buildings and surrounding environments. The buildings we occupy can and should exist in a reciprocal relationship with the living things that inhabit those spaces or are nearby. In practical terms, this means buildings can provide the same outcomes as improved biophysical environments for all the creatures who exist with and in them. Faced with the oncoming crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and human disconnection from the natural world, biophilic architecture offers a hopeful and tangible solution.
What is really amazing is how well we can meld nature into the built environment. I have always had a fascination with buildings that move, or even breathe, like the Al-Bahr Towers in Abu Dhabi. They do not move in the way we usually associate with living beings, but they do open and close in a way that creates light and shadow, heat and coolness, mashing up our Western understanding of biophilia with the mashrabiya, an age-old Islamic latticework. The Al-Bahr Towers do not suck or blow like a lung, yet they achieve what E.O. Wilson, the father of biophilia, envisioned: a built environment that is in tune with its occupants and, at least partially, nature.
Stories and Illustrations of Biophilic Facades in Action
I consider myself fortunate to have visited multiple projects where biophilic facades significantly affect not just building performance but also the emotional and psychological wellbeing of the occupants. One visit that stands out was to the Parkroyal on Pickering, in Singapore. I have seen many extraordinary buildings in my life, but Parkroyal—an almost twelve-story structure—takes the cake. While the facade is perforated with thousands of “windows,” few seem to actually lead to a human-scaled view of the outside world. That said, the imaginative use of integrated vegetation and water features along the facade; in the u-shaped courtyard; and within the building itself does much to contribute to a sense of tranquility and connection to nature.
My observations about Parkroyal on Pickering center not only on its beautiful facade but also on how the facade plays a crucial role in the building’s performance. The vegetation that clads the facade indeed makes the building cooler (think of evapotranspiration) and gives us a truly remarkable urban environment: the only place in a dense city that’s been offered up to birds, bats, and insects. But the facade, with its well-planted pockets, isn’t merely a nice, green place to hang out. It’s part of-Parkroyal’s energy system, helping with cooling. There’s a certain peace one feels inside this building, knowing that it’s working, that it’s part of a larger, electrical system involving sun, wind, and water that keeps the building in tune, its inhabitants in rhythm with one another, and all of us both in tune and at peace with the denser city we’ve created. One Central Park is a blended development on either side of the dividing line that is the former Camperdown cemetery, halfway between the Sydney CBD and Sydney Harbour.
The influence of biophilic facades has unexpectedly reached schools and educational facilities, one might not think that such a thing as biophilic facades could exert an influence on learning, but that’s exactly what happens at the Eden Project in the UK. The domes and the structure itself is a concept that is more about physics and engineering than biology, but the exterior design mirrors the basic forms found in nature, which is exactly what students and visitors see when they walk up to the place. They look and wonder, which is what the project and its mission is all about—an educational experience of such immersion that you suspect it’s not just an atmosphere but a kind of ecosystem itself.
Why Architecture Shouldn’t Just Imitate Nature but Also Revitalize It—Biophilic Architecture of Tomorrow
The imperative for biophilic facades is clear. As our urban centers swell, the artificiality of our surroundings becomes more pronounced, which in turn amplifies the necessity for buildings to provide some semblance of the natural world. Mental health concerns are higher than ever, and many studies have shown that spending time in nature—seeing it, hearing it, even smelling it—can drastically improve one’s state of mind. Biophilic facades, which literally bring biology to the architecture, offer ways in which to nearly replicate nature, if not completely.
Our bond with nature is primal and profound. It is something we are hardwired for—just as the buildings we create and inhabit are hardwired for something when they connect to the elements of nature: water, light, heat, and air. Research has shown that contact with these elements, or even remote contact with nature, changes our physiological and psychological states, and our brains respond positively. Urban environments can be naturally poor spaces, but architects can design buildings that interface with nature in profound ways via so-called “biophilic design.” I use this term to refer not to a design method, for which the term is mostly used, but instead to the profound effects that the connectivity of a building to the elements of nature can have on the occupants and passersby.
With a focus on sustainability, biophilic facades provide more than just eye-appeal. “Living facades,” composed of the right kinds of plants, can effectively help mitigate the urban heat island effect, where the heat absorbed and radiated by expansive swaths of asphalt and concrete raises the ambient temperature in city centers. Obviating the need for as many chillers and cooling towers, biophilic facades not only cut down on energy use; they also improve the quality of the air we breathe by soaking up various pollutants (and, of course, CO2), much more efficiently than the “human scale” trees that populate our streets.
The notion of regenerative architecture is on the upswing, and biophilic facades are integral to it. Unlike traditional architecture, which is often extractive and resource-intensive, regenerative architecture seeks to give back. A biophilic facade can contribute to biodiversity in two ways: First, it can significantly increase the amount of facade real estate available to a variety of bird, insect, and even small mammal species. And that alone can make otherwise dead facades active. But in several projects I’ve seen, architecture has integrated birdhouses and insect hotels right into the biophilic facade, creating a kind of miniecosystem. The Montana biophilic facade design shown here is a window to what ecologically regenerative architecture at its best can look like.
When we consider what the future holds, biophilic architecture and facades may not be limited by imagination. Integrating smart technology may allow facades to react dynamically to environmental conditions. Envision a building that grows not only plants but also sensors along its facade. These ‘smart’ sensors would monitor air quality, temperature, and humidity. Imagine too that the building could adjust its systems optimally in both human comfort and ecological performance. The structure as a whole, including the biophilic element, would act symbiotically. This is our chance to build hope.
Whether we do or not is, of course, up to us. Whether it can be accomplished in this particular college of architecture is, of course, a conversation that can happen across disciplines.
To sum up, biophilic façades achieve two things: first, they strive to create a modern architecture that is in tune with the nature in which buildings exist; second, they aim to fashion living façades as a way to troubleshoot multiple issues that come with ever-more densely populated and built-upon urban centers. By increasingly creating ecotonal conditions (they’re façades, after all), biophilic architecture aims to find a way to make the urban dwelling serve as a place that is conducive to life’s flourishing in all its forms.
The Function of Biophilic Facades in Sustainable Architecture
The intersection of biophilic design and sustainability has always been one of my greatest passions, and nowhere is this connection more apparent than in the evolution of facades. If I were to choose a single reason why biophilic facades are so crucial for the future, it would be because they offer a solution to a fundamental problem: the core of sustainable architecture has long been concerned mostly with energy-efficient materials and convincing solar panel- and passive-cooling strategies. But what if a facade did more? What if it served not just to “sustain” (through performance) but also to “biophilic design,” acting as a means to reintegrate urban life with the natural world? An evolving, living facade offers exactly that without sacrificing the basis of sustainable architecture.
A particularly striking biophilic facade project is the M6B2 Tower of Biodiversity in Paris, often referred to as “La Tour de la Biodiversité.” This tall residential building isn’t merely graced with the kind of greenery that transforms a conventional building into something worthy of the term “living architecture.” Instead, the building’s vertical gardens—specifically engineered to serve as habitats—attempt to attract and shelter local biodiversity, right in the middle of the bustling city of Paris. My visit to the building was a trip to Eden. The lush beauty of the vertical gardens, with their apparently limitless vertical-topiary potential, was stunning in itself. But the building’s actual structural ecology design is what made this project memorable for me and earns it a place on my list of top ten biophilic designs of the twenty-first century: I saw that the M6B2 was trying to (quite literally) build a facade ecology of local pollinators and other insect species in the vertical garden pathways, and that was such a beautiful thing.
It is especially critical to insert biodiversity in fast-growing urban centers where almost all natural habitats have been impacted by infill development. It is indeed inspirational to think that building envelopes can house not just insects, but also many kinds of birds and other wildlife. It will not make up for the loss of all the many kinds of natural places lost to development, but it could help offset some of that, particularly in neighborhoods where there are very few natural places left. And when we think of green roofs, living walls, and other forms of biodiversity on buildings, we really ought to consider those types of building features as crucial urban infrastructure.
In addition to enhancing biodiversity, biophilic facades can also help with energy conservation. They can and should be designed to do this, just as conservation was long a guiding principle of building design. I have worked on projects where passive design strategies were the principal means of achieving a building’s energy performance goals. In those projects, I paid a lot of attention to plants. Not only can they help achieve a building’s LEED point total, but their presence, particularly in certain forms, can enhance a facade’s energy performance—in good and bad ways. One increasingly popular feature of energy-efficient buildings, the “living wall,” is a perfect example of plant presence enhancing a facade’s energy performance.
One project I admire for its innovative use of biophilic design elements is The Edge, the Amsterdam office building that is often hailed as one of the most sustainable structures on the planet. The energy efficiency of The Edge is, of course, a remarkable achievement, even setting the bar for what other “smart” buildings can accomplish. Most interesting to me, however, is the incorporation of biophilic design elements—features that I’m certain most architects envision for daytime performance—that allow The Edge to perform better at night and in the winter. All of this is in keeping with the building’s sustainable operating model.
Biophilic Facades and the Well-Being of Humans
Most of the talk about biophilic facades emphasizes the environmental advantages they provide. Meeting the LEED credits can help with the certification of a green building. But biophilic design’s real boon, in my view, is human health and wellness. Countless studies show that just a glimpse of nature can have a powerful effect on our brains. Looking at the facade of a biophilic building can lower our pulse and the level of cortisol (the stress hormone) in our blood. And what if the nature we experience is on an exterior wall? A study from the University of Washington last year found that a biophilic design can have a 10% to 30% improvement in benefits over a simple green building facade, which highlights the pretty plants.
One of the clearest examples of the connection between facades that exhibit biophilic design and enhanced human wellbeing is the Therme Vals spa in Switzerland. The building’s facade most closely resembles traditional Swiss stonework, but it is laid up in a way that is much less traditional. The local masons used the spa’s design to roughly pattern their work after the region’s profile. Standing in front of the building, I felt a kind of tranquil reverberation with my surrounding atmosphere. Indeed, the building’s designers very much wanted that comfort. The meshing of body and building—hulled in the surrounding mountain’s resonance—dropped me into an enjoyable and profound nothingness.
One project that emphasizes the health benefits of biophilic facades is the Ng Teng Fong General Hospital in Singapore. This hospital is designed to infuse green spaces throughout its structure. It features a biophilic facade filled with vertical greenery, which is intended to draw nature into the healing process. The facade is structured in a way that allows for cooling, and it also provides patients with views of the nature that surrounds the hospital. Direct access to views of nature has been shown to correlate with faster recovery times and less reliance on pharmacological pain relief. It is incredible to think of the hospital as a whole—its form and the materials that comprise it—as a component of the therapeutic landscape.
What truly captivates me about biophilic facades is their extraordinary ability to create seemingly sentient spaces. Even when we are cloistered inside, few things are as profoundly human as being encircled by a semblance of nature. We don’t just covet green walls, smart windows, or even space-age moss. No, what we really want is to caress, to touch, and to feel the pulse of anything growing nearby. Plants might seem like an obvious consideration. However, in the world of biophilic design, even a wall made of living wood could work. Indeed, one could argue that the elemental experience of nature fostered by biophilic facades is often most needed in urban public spaces, workplaces, and even our own homes.
To conclude, I view biophilic facades as an architectural movement that is part of something larger—a change toward the just and sensible path of allowing humanity to inhabit both the built and natural environments in a more desirable and healthful way. In today’s world, which is rapidly filling with buildings and faces many challenges, the way we employ the facade, in both form and function, can no longer be taken for granted. The call for an opportunity to serve at an interface asks the facade to act in a dual manner—it must heal and must inspire, and it must do both just as natural areas (what biophilic manmade environments often call for) are supposed to do.
