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 �������� 16, 2021

Biophilic design has a long

history and an even bigger
future
(https://workplaceinsight.net
/biophilic-design-has-
a-long-history-and-an-even-
(https://workplaceinsight.net/event/the-works-

bigger-future/) place/)

The Works Place is at the iconic five-storey

Bargehouse building in London from 20-23
by Mark Eltringham (https://workplaceinsight.net/author September. For details and registration,
/mark-eltringham/) • Features click on the image.

(https://workplaceinsight.net/category/features/),
Wellbeing (https://workplaceinsight.net/category
/wellness/), Workplace design
(https://workplaceinsight.net/category/design/)
(https://www.wellworking.co.uk/)

(https://www.hupso.com/share/)
(https://www.hupso.com/share/add.php?service=twitter&
title=Biophilic%2520design%2520has%2520a%2520long%2520history%2520and%2520an%2520even%2520bigger%2520future&
There are plenty of definitions of the
url=https%3A%2F%2Fworkplaceinsight.net%2Fbiophilic-design-has-a-long-history-and-an-even-bigger-future%2F&
modish concept of biophilic design
via=InsightOnWork) around right now. But perhaps nobody
(https://www.hupso.com/share/add.php?service=facebook&

can top that of Erich Fromm, the

title=Biophilic%2520design%2520has%2520a%2520long%2520history%2520and%2520an%2520even%2520bigger%2520future&

sociologist and psychoanalyst who

url=https%3A%2F%2Fworkplaceinsight.net%2Fbiophilic-design-has-a-long-history-and-an-even-bigger-future%2F)
first described it in his 1973 book The
(https://www.hupso.com/share/add.php?service=linkedin&
Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
title=Biophilic%2520design%2520has%2520a%2520long%2520history%2520and%2520an%2520even%2520bigger%2520future&
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40718056-the-
anatomy-of-human-destructiveness) as “The passionate love of
url=https%3A%2F%2Fworkplaceinsight.net%2Fbiophilic-design-has-a-long-history-and-an-even-bigger-future%2F)
life and all that is alive”.
(mailto:?Subject=Biophilic%20design%20has%20a%20long%20history%20and%20an%20even%20bigger%20future&

Body=https://workplaceinsight.net/biophilic-design-has-a-long-history-and-an-even-bigger-future/)
The term biophilia was later popularised more dryly in a 1984
book by the biologist Edward O. Wilson who argued that we
yearn for a connection with nature. It is this idea, of our
hardwired desire for the natural world, that continues to drive the
discussion.

The term may be new, but the idea isn’t. Nor is its application in (https://connection.uk.com/product/paulo/)

the built environment.

The first golden age of biophilia arrived in the Mid-Twentieth

Century, ushered in by the rise of multinational corporations. At
(https://www.kieurope.com/products/by-
first these firms established themselves in cities but as their
name/hatton-stacking-chair/)
focus shifted to research and development, they moved to rural
areas, where space was plentiful and cheap, establishing
campuses far from the eyes of potential industrial spies.

The spaces they created resembled university campuses in both

form and function, set in landscaped grounds and openly
flaunting a connection to nature and the firm’s apparent social
awareness. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s firms such as
London Design Festival(https://www.londondesignfestival.com/),
General Electric, AT&T Bell and John Deere created campuses in
London idyllic setting across the US.
Translate >>
16 September 2023
16 September 2023
More information
(https://www.londondesignfestiv and 350 acres of surrounding parkland at Alderley Park in
al.com/)
CRETech New York(https://events.cretech.com
/event/fb8db0e5-e023-4d2e-
820f-5dcb9d561379
/websitePage:d3a13de4-
e383-4020-98a9-
e88ec3728526),
New York
19 September 2023
More information
(https://events.cretech.com
/event/fb8db0e5-e023-4d2e-
820f-5dcb9d561379
/websitePage:d3a13de4-
e383-4020-98a9-
e88ec3728526)
Wellbeing at Work Summit -
UK
(https://wellbeingatwork.worl
d/summit/wellbeing-work-
summit-uk-2023/),
London, Manchester and Online
19 September 2023
More information
(https://wellbeingatwork.world
/summit/wellbeing-work-summit-
uk-2023/)
elearning Work: How to
optimise your workplace to
increase productivity and
staff well-being.
(https://habitaction.com
/news-news-event-workplace-
productivity),
Online
20 September 2023
More information
(https://habitaction.com/news-
news-event-workplace-
productivity)
Material Matters - The Works
Place
(https://materialmatters.desig
n/The-Fair),
London
20 September 2023
More information
(https://materialmatters.design
/The-Fair)
Are you an IDEA (Inclusivity,
Diversity, Equity &
Accessibility) advocate?
(https://www.eventbrite.com
/e/are-you-an-idea-inclusivity-
diversity-equity-accessibility-
In the UK, pharmaceutical firm ICI bought the dilapidated hall
Cheshire in 1950 to create its own bucolic campus, which
included farmland and ponds alongside the research buildings.
This approach is described in the book Pastoral Capitalism: A
History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes
(https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262015439
/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0) by Professor Louise
Mozingo, which claims that the apogee of this phenomenon was
the Deere & Company Administrative Center in Moline, Illinois. (https://www.formseating.co.uk/)
She argues that the main building, brilliantly designed as it was
by Eero Saarinen, derives its value primarily from its setting. It
allowed people a sight of wooded hillsides, pools and a lush
valley created by the landscape architect Hideo Sasaki.
John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois
An enduring model
This model of biophilic design remains, as the best-known (https://www.magentaassociates.co/internal-
campuses of the world’s tech giants prove. Apple’s campus in communications
Cupertino consists of a monolithic circular building set in /?utm_source=workplaceinsight&
utm_medium=gif&
landscaped grounds and a garden at its centre. However, the
utm_campaign=internalcomms)
design owes less to the aesthetic of the university campus than
that of some of its predecessors. It is manifestly a corporate
space.
Subscribe for weekly
So too is the recently announced HQ2 of Amazon which has
eschewed a rural setting in favour of a city centre location in updates straight to
Arlington, Virginia. The plans for the $2.5 billion campus your inbox.
announced in February include a 350 ft glass tower, three 22-
storey towers offering 2.8 million sq. ft of office space, a 250-
Join thousands of other
seat outdoor amphitheatre, public green space, and other
workplace professionals to
buildings. The centre piece is a plant covered tower which the
receive regular updates and
firm says emphasises its commitment to the environment and
access premium content
biophilic design.
EMAIL *
Unlike many of the campuses of the
past, this is a very controlled Just
environment. More greenhouse than
looking
landscape. It also confirms something
at Subscribe
we have learned about biophilic design;
that natural forms can improve our images
wellbeing almost as much as actual
of nature Translate >>
nature.
diversity-equity-accessibility- nature.
can be
advocate-tickets-
Jeff Bezos made this intention explicit enough
617680919257),
when describing the double helix
Online
structure of the main tower at HQ2. “The
to lower
20 September 2023
natural beauty of a double helix can be your
More information
seen throughout our world, from the work
(https://www.eventbrite.com
geometry of our own DNA to the
/e/are-you-an-idea-inclusivity- stress
elemental form of galaxies, weather
diversity-equity-accessibility-
patterns, pinecones, and seashells”, he levels
advocate-tickets-
claimed.
617680919257)
Researchers led by Vrije University Medical Centre in the
Worktech Stockholm -
Netherlands recently explored how looking at images of natural
EXPLORE THE FUTURE OF
scenes and forms could improve feelings of wellbeing.
WORK AND THE
Participants outfitted with sensors to monitor heart rates and
WORKPLACE
stress levels had to solve mathematical problems.
(https://worktechevents.com
/events/worktech23- After this, they would view one of two series of pictures. Both
stockholm/), depicted urban environments, but one included greenery
Stockholm amongst buildings, while the other showed only buildings. The
21 September 2023 findings (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles
More information /PMC4690962/), reported in the International Journal of
(https://worktechevents.com Environmental Research and Public Health, were that
/events/worktech23-stockholm/) participants who viewed natural images had lower stress levels
and felt more rested afterwards.
Design Fair Asia 2023(https://www.designfairasia.com/),
Singapore
21 September 2023
More information
(https://www.designfairasia.com/
)

The real thing

Still, nothing beats the real thing. One peer-reviewed academic

study (https://workplaceinsight.net/mental-health-benefits-of-
time-in-nature-valued-at-4-5-trillion-globally/) of 20,000 people
published recently in the journal Nature Communications found
that time spent in natural surroundings is worth about £4.5
trillion a year in terms of improved mental health alone.

The burgeoning interest in biophilia is a

sign of how organisations are looking at The
sophisticated ways of meeting a number
burgeoni
of interrelated business challenges, not
least engaging with employees and ng
looking after their wellbeing while interest
improving productivity. Biophilic design
in
has shown itself to have a number of
demonstrably beneficial outcomes in
biophilia
this regard. is a sign
It is also a very contemporary way of
of how
Translate >>
addressing issues of productivity and organisa
addressing issues of productivity and organisa
wellbeing. The approach adopted by tions are
enlightened employers is about creating
looking
cultures and environments that foster
engagement, improve wellbeing, address at
stresses and pressures and help people sophistic
be more productive. Biophilia plays an
ated
essential role in this.
ways of
Mother Nature believes that form
meeting
follows function just as much any
human designer. The things that exist in a
the natural world look the way they do number
solely on the basis of what they are for
of
and so for very good reasons indeed.
interrela
Mankind is usually playing catch up with
ted
these things, and so we are increasingly
able to understand the principles of how
business
and why nature does the things it does. challeng
Those same principles can now be es
applied to the forms we create when we
design an office. Technology allows us
not only to mimic nature in the form of imagery, textures and
colours but also adopt some of its practicality and functionality.

This field of study is known as biomimetics. It is closely related

to the idea of biomimicry which is more widely recognised as a
term but has been subverted somewhat unfairly to describe the
design of materials and objects that look like natural objects.

Biomimetics, on the other hand, more accurately describes the

design of things that ape the function of natural forms. It’s easy
to see why this process would appeal to designers. These forms
have been developed and refined by natural forces over
hundreds of millions of years to create perfect solutions to
specific challenges. Nature is rarely wasteful and invariably
creates forms perfectly aligned to functions. We can only benefit
from understanding how these forms came about and what they
achieve.

Amazon HQ2

A sense of harmony

It was the architect Frank Lloyd Wright who once said: “harmony
between human habitation and the natural world through design
approaches so sympathetic and well integrated with its site that
buildings, furnishings, and surroundings become part of a
unified, interrelated composition.” He practiced what he
preached, especially with what is perhaps his most famous Translate >>
design, the Fallingwater house.

The design of Fallingwater reminds us

that the best examples of biophilia are The
not just about livening our surroundings
importa
up with plants but the creation of
something that harmonises with nature. nce of
And when it comes to the design of these
offices, that also means harmonising
physiolo
with human nature.
gical
As the psychologist Oliver Sacks once states on
wrote in an essay called Why We Need
Gardens (https://voxpopulisphere.com
individu
/2020/05/10/oliver-sacks-why-we- al and
need-gardens/): “As a writer, I find communi
gardens essential to the creative
ty health
process; as a physician, I take my
patients to gardens whenever possible. is
All of us have had the experience of fundame
wandering through a lush garden or a
ntal and
timeless desert, walking by a river or an
ocean, or climbing a mountain and wide-
finding ourselves simultaneously calmed ranging
and reinvigorated, engaged in mind,
refreshed in body and spirit. The
importance of these physiological states on individual and
community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In forty
years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-
pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with
chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.”

So, with all of these examples and all of this research why is it
we still fail to create environments that tap into the full potential
of biophilic design and offer people the basic natural resources
they crave, not least natural light, fresh air and a connection to
the outside world?

Perhaps part of the problem is that we tend to look for simple

answers to complex problems. So, we pay lip service to biophilic
design by specifying some plants in the office or hanging a
picture of some trees on the wall.

Or maybe this is too cynical. After all, not every organisation has
the kind of workplace setting that can accommodate the sorts of
views enjoyed by workers at John Deere in the 20th Century.
Perhaps that is why organisations rely on glimpses of nature
rather than immersion.

Translate >>
Fallingwater. Carol M. Highsmith. Public domain. (https://en.wikipedia.org
 Fallingwater. Carol M. Highsmith. Public domain. (https://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Fallingwater#/media
/File:Fallingwater,_also_known_as_the_Edgar_J._Kaufmann,_Sr.,_residence,
_Pennsylvania,_by_Carol_M._Highsmith.jpg)

People matter

In “The Practice of Biophilic Design” the authors Stephen R.

Kellert & Elizabeth F. Calabrese identify one of three experiences
that biophilic design creates in order to build a more beneficial
environment for its inhabitants as “experiences of space and
place.” A major aspect of this is creating unique attachment to a
specific place – culturally, ecologically, geographically,
historically or some combination thereof.

The issue may also be entering a new

phase. We may be hearing a lot more The
about salutogenic design in the near
tradition
future.
al
Salutogenesis is a term coined by the
dichotom
medical sociologist Anton Antonovsky
and describes his research in the 1970s y people
and 1980s into the links between stress have
and physical and mental health. He applied
found that the traditional dichotomy
people had applied between health and
between
illness was not sufficient to describe the health
constantly changing continuum of and
outcomes people experience in their
illness is
daily lives. He derived the term as an
antonym to pathogenesis which not
describes how ill health is treated after a sufficient
condition has become evident.
to
He was particularly focused on how describe
different people respond to the
the
ubiquitous presence of stress. He noted
how certain people not only did not constantl
suffer the ill effects of stress that others y
found disabling. He explained this by
changing
suggesting that the issue was one of an
individual’s sense of coherence, a term continuu
that links to the idea to what we m of
understand about how biophilic design outcomes
is a way of connecting us to the world.
people
Coherence here is defined as “a global experien
orientation that expresses the extent to
which one has a pervasive, enduring
ce
though dynamic feeling of confidence
that the stimuli deriving from one’s internal and external
environments in the course of living are structured, predictable
and explicable; the resources are available to one to meet the
demands posed by these stimuli; and these demands are
challenges, worthy of investment and engagement.” Antonovsky
went on to conclude that “beyond the specific stress factors that
one might encounter in life, and beyond your perception and
response to those events, what determines whether stress will
cause you harm is whether or not the stress violates your sense
of coherence”.
Translate >>
 Sedus Smart Office (https://www.sedus.com/en/company/about-us/working-
environments)

Coherent thinking

It’s interesting to note that within the definition of sense of

coherence there is a role to play for the external environment. In
other words, it is possible to help people develop a sense of
coherence in their surroundings, which we can take to mean
both their physical and cultural environment. This subject has
already been explored by designers and researchers but the
current focus on wellbeing and design may mean that its real
time is yet to come.

Alan Dilani, the Founder of the International Academy for Design

and Health (IADH) and Co-founder of the journal World Health
Design published a 2008 study into the link in the journal Design
and Health Scientific Review, called Psychosocially supportive
design: A salutogenic approach to the design of the physical
environment (https://www.researchgate.net/publication
/265349464_Psychosocially_Supportive_Design_A_Salutogenic_
Approach_to_the_Design_of_the_Physical_Environment),
concluding that ‘while clinical practice focuses on treating
illness, there’s also a raft of research to suggest that the quality
of our everyday surroundings has a highly important role to play
in sustaining wellness.’

When they make the workplace more manageable in terms of

activity-based working, control over ambient conditions, the
ability to relax, the provision of ergonomic products and access
to natural light and fresh air, they are adding to an individual’s
sense of coherence.

When they make work meaningful with a sense of community,

an understanding of how an individual’s role affects the
organisation and wider world and how the firm cares for the
environment, they are adding to an individual’s sense of
coherence.

When they make the workplace and work comprehensible with

wayfinding clues, colour, branding, landscaping, acoustics and
sightlines, they are adding to an individual’s sense of coherence.

Biophilic design has already achieved mainstream

understanding and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see salutogenic
design as the next idea to cross over into mainstream business
thinking.
Translate >>
This feature is taken from issue 7 of IN Magazine(https://workplaceinsight.net
 his feature is taken from issue 7 of IN Magazine(https://workplaceinsight.net
/in-magazine/)

Powell Software launches Institute Of Neurodiversity ION

Together to allow SMEs to launches simultaneously in UK,

connect and collaborate with Europe and Australia

ease (https://workplaceinsight.net
(https://workplaceinsight.net /institute-of-neurodiversity-

/powell-software-launches- ion-launches-simultaneously-
together-to-allow-smes-to- in-uk-europe-and-australia/)
connect-and-collaborate-with-
ease/)

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