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The Spine - Liverpool: How Biophilic Design was used to create the highest WELL Certified Building in the World…

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The Spine - Liverpool: How Biophilic Design was used to create the highest WELL Certified Building in the World…

How does a passion for biophilic design, which stems from a desire to improve an architect and designer’s own health, lead to the design of a major new healthcare building? For Steven Edge, founder of Salvage Sustainable Design, his personal interest in Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) expanded into advocacy of Biophilic Design in buildings. We catch up with and discuss his recent project, commissioned by Manchester based architects AHR in 2017, where he acted as biophilic design consultant for their client the Royal College of Physicians’ new £35, million HQ in Liverpool.  The Spine opened in the Spring of 2021 and with 109 out of a possible 110 WELL Credits, the highest of any (over 26,000) WELL certified buildings in the world, its set to become one of the healthiest buildings in the world.

Steven is a biophilic design consultant, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, with over 40 years’ experience in academia and the design and construction industry. He shares his background, starting with work in architecture and interior design, and his growing interest in sustainability and healthy materials.

Talking about biophilic design principles used in The Spine, Steve describes how The Royal College of Physicians wanted to create a building that would make people feel healthier when they left it than when they entered; a brief that was fully met. Because it's a college as well as Office Spaces, they have young surgeons who would also be diagnosing real patients’ problems in this new building.

The design, led by architect Rob Hopkins, drew inspiration from the human body, with elements like the "skin" of the building and the "spine" staircase.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST... and read on...

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Biophilic Design healing our earth - interview with Jojo Mehta co-founder of Stop Ecocide International

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Biophilic Design healing our earth - interview with Jojo Mehta co-founder of Stop Ecocide International

"I love this term biophilia, because it's this, in a sense, it's a love of nature in a word, isn't it? And I had this beautiful description recently of what it actually means to love something or to love someone. In very plain terms, it means to include that person or that thing's interests as one's own." Jojo Mehta, Co-founder, Stop Ecocide International.

 

For me Biophilic Design has the potential to heal more than just physical and mental health of people, it has the potential to help heal our earth too. If we implemented Biophilic Design in cities for instance, we can help mitigate climate change, even just by planting more trees which is a Biophilic Design solution, we increase tree canopy cover, increase biodiversity, mitigate flooding. There are many more, from creating Blue cities with cleaner rivers and waterways to planting on roofs and sides of buildings helping reduce the need to switch on air conditioning units in the summer and heating in the winter, which in turn reduces energy consumption. Also, as interior designers we specify more natural materials, reducing plastic, are more considerate of what textiles are made of and originate from.

With our global temperature reaching a danger point, we need to do all we can as designers, architects, fit out managers and anyone who works in the built environment at any point.

Today we have got the amazing Jojo Mehta with us on the podcast. Jojo is CEO and co-founder of Stop Ecocide International (SEI), the hub of the global movement to create a new international crime of ecocide to protect the Earth from the worst acts of environmental damage, a movement that is gaining significant political traction.  She co-founded SEI with the visionary lawyer, Polly Higgins, who died in 2019, having devoted the final decade of her life to the cause.

 

We explore and put into context just WHY we need to do more as designers, seize every opportunity we can to create better environments, not just for people, but for planet too and also how Biophilic Design is an essential part of the solution.....

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Creating Eden

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Creating Eden

The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries and this fact is yet another reason we need more Biophilic Design included into urban planning, architecture, design, and every environmental facet of city and town life.

Robert Delius, Associate Director, Architect and Head of Sustainability at Stride Treglown is doing just that. Aiming to maximise biodiversity through design, Robert has a passion to create an Eden, where buildings and landscapes come together and there's a feeling of abundance, where there's nature and birdsong and insect life and a powerful sense of well-being.

 

Robert’s background in housing design and master planning has set him up in good stead to create good design and great places.  Distinctiveness and place making are a thread through his career.  He also has a particular interest in regenerative design and how great design can have a measurably positive impact on climate, ecology and people.  In short, he is a brilliantly creative proactive advocate for Biophilic Design.

 

He believes that forging a closer connection to the natural world, is extremely good for our well-being as well as being good for the planet and good for nature, and his passion for Biophilic Design is life-long. One of the projects he discusses is his Great Bow Yard project in Somerset from 2008. This had gained media attention because it had been flagged as the most energy efficient scheme in the UK.  Having recently revisited the project, Robert notes that residents, are not only pleased with the low energy costs, but were actually most enthused by the shared garden and the feelings of well-being that stem from it being a beautiful spot.

 

In this podcast, Robert talks of his background and upbringing and how that has led him to his passion for living in harmony with nature.  He discusses how on his projects, and those of his colleagues, he always looks to introduce as many opportunities as possible for planting in designs, both internally and externally to reduce hard space and introduce a softer more natural element…. READ ON and LISTEN to the PODCAST

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Pioneer Nature Method in Architecture

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Pioneer Nature Method in Architecture

How can we work with the landscape more as architects and designers to not only create beautiful spaces but ones that also have a positive impact on our and nature’s wellbeing? We speak with Stephen Melvin, of Atelier Architects who desribes himself as a “landscape facilitator”. How he looks at how the landscape itself is structured and presents itself and then see how to weave the design into the natural space. He has developed the “Pioneer Nature Method” which he tells us about in this podcast.

Steve highlights the need to respect that underlying process of nature that will outlive us, how we need to build in and with the landscape and really consider how our buildings can live with nature. By talking through images shown in the video accompanying this podcast (viewable on YouTube and also on the Journal of Biophilic Design website here), he shows us a project as a case study, so we can follow his thought processes from concept through to render, looking at different aspects from materials, light, air to how people will use the space and also how it represents the client’s aims too.

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Rooted in Nature - how Biophilic Design helps us flourish

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Rooted in Nature - how Biophilic Design helps us flourish

Can we make the world a better place by design? Nicole Craanen definitely thinks so (and so do we). Nicole is founder of Rooted in Nature and believes that connection to nature, especially through Biophilic Design supports human wellbeing. Quoting E.O.Wilson “the crucial first step to survival in all our organisms is habitat selection. If you get the right place, everything else is likely to be easier”, she explores in this podcast, just how we are rediscovering how we can design close to nature to help create better spaces for us to live and work in, and this is especially true in healthcare.

We have many studies proving just how beneficial Biophilic Design is, which underlines that deep innate connection that we have to the space around us. All this research is helping us determine habitats that support us in the built environment. It is also helping advocate the environmental stewardship aspect of Biophilic Design as a sustainable design practice.

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Architecture as a Catalyst for Life

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Architecture as a Catalyst for Life

David Kirkland is an architect, designer and co-founder of Kirkland Fraser Moor. He is also a photographer and co-founder of d-lab, a creative design lab which pushes boundaries and is inspiring a new generation of architects and designers. We discuss biomimicry, primitive design, architectural education, the Eden Project, Para Homes and much more. This is also a call for a “flourishing”, over and above just “sustainability”.

Our built environment creates about 40% of our carbon emissions, and architects are at the forefront of helping solve this. His belief is that architects have a huge opportunity here, with head in the clouds but feet firmly on the ground, to think laterally to minimise this. For him, it is all about Life, with a capital L.

This is also a call for more beauty, and awe in our world. A respect for our planet.

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