Why is it important that we care about how we design our workplaces, our hospitals, our schools or our cities? Why should we care about what materials we source, and how we position them in the buildings we create? If you are involved in construction, designing or measuring anything in the built environment every decision you make will have a lasting legacy on the people left to use the space and the planet and wildlife who live around the site. How do you want to be remembered?

The Problem

We are at a turning point, we are living in a mental and physical health crisis and our planet is imploding all around us.
And we have two ways we can go.

Downwards and continue negatively impacting society, the air we breathe the water we drink. or we can uplift our communities, the air which keeps us alive or the water supply that is essential to all life? It really is that simple.

Sometimes the argument, well maybe not sometimes, maybe all the time, the counter argument to doing the right thing is money. It is too expensive, it will slow us down, time is money, we can’t afford it. But I think we can no longer assume this is correct. Many of us might freak out and our brains have a melt down if we examine a spreadsheet and all the numbers look like mini atom bombs waiting to go off and help us lose our jobs. But the reality is that paints, materials, methods and designs which will enrich the spaces we build, the workforce actually constructing and installing them and the planet that sustains us, are NOT more expensive. The problem is the supply chain.

Supply chain

I recently spoke with one of the largest suppliers of office furniture. They had never heard of Biophilic Design (more of this in a minute). They normally supply the same old same old. You know, the white tables, the black swivel chairs, the plastic bins… When I explained that applying a Biophilic Design Framework across their own product range would increase the value of the offices they supply, help their clients staff come back to the office, and ultimately generate a massive uplift in their revenue they were naturally all ears.

The Biophilic Design Framework

So, what is this Biophilic Design Framework? It is based on the “biophilia” concept first shared by leading sociobiologist E.O.Wilson way back in the 1980s and developed by him and Stephen Kellert. “Bio” meaning “life, living systems, and patterns” and “Philia” meaning a “tendency towards”. It refers to our innate tendency and preference to living things. It’s not really rocket science, it’s the scientifically proven principle, that as humans, (you know those things we are building and designing for and by!) when we cut ourselves off from living systems we get sick.
We spend 90% of our time in our built environment and we are not so slowly killing ourselves.

What is a “living system”? It is essentially, life and patterns of things that are alive. So that’s plants yes, but also wood, natural materials, circadian lighting (that mimics the changing daylight in real life), colours from nature (greens, blues, autumn leaves, etc), curves not straight lines, views of and from nature (windows onto nature if you can design them, or bring in photographs of nature, murals, prints), also reduce reflective surfaces and open plan offices (our brains and our cortisol, stress levels rise in noisy environments, I can’t stress enough how important a sound environment improves our wellbeing, focus and productivity).

I am simplifying what are 15 patterns of Biophilic Design, but it really is quite simple. I used to be an academic but then moved swiftly into media working with the BBC, ITV and running a specialist London newspaper, and I know how easy it can be to make things more complicated than they are just to prove a point. The thing is I set up the Journal of Biophilic Design to actually bridge that gap between the academic and scientific research on Biophilic Design (and there are literally thousands of papers proving the benefits of this natural way of building and designing) and best practice so we can all understand it!

Join a networked meeting of minds

On the 12th of November, this week, we held the inaugural conference on Biophilic Design at the Barbican in London. Joining us were representatives from the Department of Education, the NHS, London Wildlife Trusts, architectural and design practices, landscape firms, facility managers, leading construction and manufacturing groups, academics and many others. The response since Tuesday has been overwhelming with thanks, and I’ve been humbled. People are desperate to learn about doing things better and differently, and deliberately it has to be interdisciplinary, across every sector.

 
Next steps – Do four, well five, things.
1. Look at how you can make the most of natural light in your building design.
2. Secondly, bring in plants or virtual views of nature into the spaces.
3. Take five minutes and consider the place you are designing. Is it sensory deprived? Is it an artificial setting? If you answer yes, then change it so there are more natural references.
4. Bring in wood where you can, natural materials and paint colours that echo nature.
Once you do this, you’ll see the massive difference that it will make. Talk to your suppliers, ask them if they know about Biophilic Design, if they have
5. Finally, join us www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com where we will be running a further series of webinars, round tables, learning walks in the UK and abroad, as well as our annual major conference in the UK. 

I wanted to say a big thank you to Futurebuild, who we will be working with in 2025 too, as well as hosting a panel on Biophilic Design, do come and join us. It’s going to be awesome! Together we are making our world better for people and planet. Thank you.