plants

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Natural Dimensions - Transforming Schools with Biophilic Design

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Natural Dimensions - Transforming Schools with Biophilic Design

There is strong evidence that strong green environments can improve educational outcomes as well as improving focus and concentration restoration levels, and for Nicholas Artherton, a chartered Landscape Architect and qualified Urban designer, Biophilic Design is a core tenet to create connections with natural elements and outdoor spaces through diversity, movement and multi-sensory interactions. 

Nick is founder of Natural Dimensions, a multi-award-winning landscape architecture and urban design practice. For Nick, Biophilic Design is: “a way of incorporating into design a balance of ecological planning and planning for mental well-being and responding to systems which encourage human health.”

One of Nick’s most celebrated designs was for Merstham Park School where, Natural Dimensions were appointed to design extensive ground around a ground-breaking new pathfinder secondary school that is a template for low carbon technology and biophilic landscape principles.

From the entrance to the school and throughout the grounds, Natural Dimensions created a beautiful space with varied spaces incorporating many different habitats, spaces and an overall feeling of the school sitting within nature.

With a rich variety of planting, and so much thought gone into choosing a mix of species that change throughout the seasons, the school is nestled in a beautiful “hug” of colour, shapes and biodiversity. But not only is the landscape beautiful, with the deciduous trees, it maximises solar heating in winter and solar cooling in summer. Nick has also optimised the use and preservation of rainwater through some clever tech under the permeable pathways and planting areas which is then used for irrigation and recycling… READ ON and LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

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The Walls are Alive! The Beauty of Greening our Cities - inside and out.

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The Walls are Alive! The Beauty of Greening our Cities - inside and out.

From designing a detailed picture of the New York Skyline in moss to how we need to design with biophilia to help mitigate climate change this great podcast with Lily Turner explores how we are just starting to realise the very real benefits that Living walls can bring to our cities, and our work and healing spaces.

 Lily Turner is an environmentalist, biophilic designer and living wall specialist. She's also the director of green walls at Urban Strong, the design-build maintenance firm offering services for green building technology solutions. In 2013, she co-founded Urban Blooms a non-profit to bring large-scale, publicly accessible living walls to dense urban environments. It was after Hurricane Katrina she was rebuilding homes, restoring landscapes, repairing drip irrigation systems and fields and got to do a lot of great community projects which inspired her to launch Urban Blooms, which aims to bring greenery back into the built environment to benefit people in the community.

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Skogluft – Forest Air. Reconnecting people to nature

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Skogluft – Forest Air. Reconnecting people to nature

We speak with Morten Kvam, CEO of Skogluft. Not only does it sound beautiful and uplifting, in Norwegian it means “Forest Air”. We talk about how plants are essential to have in the built environment and how the main founder of Skogluft Bjorn Virumdal was a mechanical engineer and realised that biological models were needed to explain the effects of nature indoors. NASA had conducted some research on how astronauts would be affected by the lack of nature. After speaking with them to explore their findings Bjorn then conducted further scientific research to prove how different plants and different light affected people in different working environments.

His research looked at three main aspects: the feeling of being awake, headaches and respiratory problems and he took readings before and after the intervention.

The results showed the positive effects of having nature indoors. Tiredness reduced by 40%, headaches reduced by 35% and concentration problems reduced by 16%. Morten tells us that they have over 7.2kg worth of evidence that nature indoors is good for us!

We also talk about the importance of light. The positive effect of light reflecting on nature. “We are programmed to stay in nature, we have always been surrounded by plants and light together,” Morten says. “It makes people react more positively when we see light reflected on plants.”

In his magic brush of biophilia, he says we should be looking to install nature everywhere, and “just like toilets are compulsory in buildings so should nature be compulsory indoors everywhere.” I think I’ll be sharing that last thought many many times. It’s straightforward and simple to grasp - nature should indeed be compulsory in every building.

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Plants to the Rescue! #PlantsatWorkWeek2023 LIVE in Oxford!

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Plants to the Rescue! #PlantsatWorkWeek2023 LIVE in Oxford!

Live footage! We are really excited to join Plants@Work in Oxford to interview Ian Drummond the concept designer behind this year’s Plants @Work celebration! “Plants to the Rescue”.

An ambulance makes an appearance at the Oxford Business Park. Everyone is keen to know who’s in need of medical help without appearing too nosey. Watching from afar one person noted something wasn’t quite right – plants kept appearing, peeping out of the back of the ambulance and round the corners of the doors. Where was the patient? And what had happened?

Read on and watch!

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Research proves that Biophilic Design increases Workplace value

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Research proves that Biophilic Design increases Workplace value

A new pioneering research study proves that there is definitely a business case for introducing Biophilic Design into a Workplace. The findings of this study shows an incredible 200% increase in well-being and environmental value compared to a normal workspace! The research was carried out at PLP Offices over the course of 8 weeks. The researchers monitored the participants daily work during three distinct environment scenarios: a controlled space (with no plants), a second space with some planting, and a third space with lots of plants. They monitored participants through qualitative (questionnaires, interviews, journaling with diaries) and quantitative means (air quality, VOC, CO2, temperature, humidity, light, heart rate, steps, sleep quality, noise level, brainwaves). The results are further proof that introducing plants into an office space really makes a difference to employee wellbeing, healthy, productivity, and a business’ bottom line.

In this podcast, we speak with Adrian Byne, MD of Benholm Group who supported the research, providing plants and also who will be hosting an event in their Falkirk offices for designers to explore the results with the researchers and network and discuss what makes a good biophilically designed workplace.

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Making a Difference, One Roof at a Time

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Making a Difference, One Roof at a Time

Did you know that London is an average of 10 degrees warmer than other cities in the UK? Imagine if we had green roofs on every building in the city, the temperature of our city would reduce and lessen our impact on our fragile planet. Sedum absorbs the heat, it doesn’t bounce the heat back into the atmosphere. The plants are also air purifying, afford insulation, they help mitigate flood risk, encourage biodiversity, reduce air pollution and the urban heat island effect and also prolong the lifespan of the roof covering. One amazing fact I learnt today, was that they also increase the efficiency of solar panels, with a 5% gain as they stop the UV rays hitting and damaging the roof. Liv Eyres from Sedum Green Roof who will also be at Planted Country 9-11 June 2023 at Stourhead in Wiltshire, shares with us why they make for good habitats for biodiversity and so much more. Liv Eyres from Sedum Green Roof who will also be at Planted Country 9-11 June 2023 at Stourhead in Wiltshire, shares with us why they make for good habitats for biodiversity and so much more.  

A sedum roof is essentially an additional layer on top of a finished waterproof roof. Little plants nestle in a tray, sitting in healthy (peat-free!) soil, on top of filter fleece and a drainage layer.

Read on, listen to the podcast and watch the DEMONSTRATION video too…

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Designing the Way Nature Would

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Designing the Way Nature Would

Merging nature and design together, Outsidein, as their name suggests, does exactly that, they bring the outside in. They were Platinum winners in this year’s 2022 Biophilic Design Awards with a project they designed for a large litigation firm in New Zealand, where the CEO had given them the specification to bring the experience of the wilds of New Zealand into the office to help give their workforce respite and relief during what is often a pressurised workday. Not only does this give relief, but also it is an amazing space to be in, people want to be there, they are drawn to the area. With the recruitment of the best and most talented staff a challenge in many countries, we might be wise to take a leaf (excuse the intended pun) out of this book.

We sit down with Ryan McQuerry, Creative Director of Outsidein, who dialled in at 5am from New Zealand to speak with us to find out about his journey into greenscaping and discuss how Biophilic Design when incorporated into the built environment and cities transforms lives. From his first forays into his grandpa’s garden in America to starting his first landscaping business at the age of 17, to being inspired by Patrick Blanc and seeing someone hanging off a building installing plants. He and his family live and breathe the biophilic life, their home is in the countryside, where every window has a view of nature, and materials are organic and natural, it’s no wonder that his work, installations and vision for design is sensitive to the beauty and benefits our natural world brings to us. He shares with us how they designed the winning greenscape using a change of temperature, natural light, indigenous plants, local rocks, terrarium concepts and so much more. It is beautiful…

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Plants @ Work…and Home… and in every room

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Plants @ Work…and Home… and in every room

As National Plants at Work week comes to a close, we celebrate all things plants in this great interview with ambassador and passionate interior and exterior planting designer, Ian Drummond. Plants at Work week takes place once a year, and aims to promote the many benefits of having plants in the workplace and in the past the designers for Plants at Work week have decorated all kinds of things from a Thames Clipper to a London black cab.

In this really passionate interview, be inspired and learn which plants are good where, why we need plants at every stage of our lives. Ian has worked with so many really interesting people, including Elton John, Chelsea Flower Show, BAFTA, London Fashion Week, I left the interview feeling ‘what a cool job he’s got’. Seriously, if you are thinking of working with plants, have a listen to this podcast or share with someone who is considering a career in plants, you’ll definitely leave the podcast impassioned too.

Ian started his passion for plants at a young age. He grew up in a council estate surrounded by concrete. One of his family gave him a house plant and it grew from there. One of the most powerful things he said, was how wonderful it would be if there was an opportunity for everyone to have living nature around them, if all communal spaces had a green oasis for everyone to spend time in. You don’t need a big investment, we need to open up our minds as to what’s important, developers and architects need to consider “green”. Not everyone can get outside, so bring the outside in, let’s fill schools, classrooms with plants. It should be an automatic thing, we should grow up surrounded by plants.

He shares with us how we can create “shelfies”, why Vanda Orchids are terrific, why we need Monsteras and how Zamioculcas are hard to kill! So some tips there for newbies to planting! His new book “At Home with Plants” shares ideas for what to plant in every room in the house. As he says, and I agree (!), every room should have plants!

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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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Biophilic Design Awards

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Biophilic Design Awards

For Elliott Bennett, editor of i-Plants Magazine and founder of The Biophilic Design Awards, Biophilic Design gives us an holistic approach to bringing positivity and energy into the built environment on multiple levels, and if we can make it affordable and sustainable, then even better.

Plants can be a luxury item, but, Elliott, argues, they really boost the overall environment. Coming from a B2B background, actually selling and installing plants into buildings, he descirbes just how "alive' people become when you install living plants into a building. It's simple, plants are alive, when you bring plants into a space, you bring life.

It's the same with the wider principles of Biophilic Design, bringing patterns of nature and our living planet into a space, you bring life and energy of the outdoors.

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Creating Positive Spaces with Biophilic Design

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Creating Positive Spaces with Biophilic Design

How do we reduce distraction at work? How do we entice our staff back into the office? Why do they need to come in? How can zoning help? What are non-rhythmic sensory stimuli? How can biomorphic shapes help us do our best work? What is the business case for Biophilic Design? These and many other questions are answered in this podcast with Oliver Heath and Tanja Künstler. Oliver is founder of Oliver Heath design, and co-author of a new seminal guide from Interface “Creating Positive Spaces”. Tanja is concept designer for Interface. Between them they share some essential insights from the guide and how, by employing a Biophilic Design and human-centred approach to refreshing our office, we can create a workplace where we we will do our best work.

We have an opportunity right now to rethink how we design the workplace as we bring people back to the office. How we cater for different sensory thresholds of our workforce is a key element in designing better.

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Vertical Gardens with Daniel Bell

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Vertical Gardens with Daniel Bell

Daniel Bell is an award winning landscape garden design guru, he is also a pioneer of successful eco sustainable vertical gardens. We catch up with him to find out what he plants, why he uses the system he does and how it works. He gives us a demo in the video as well, which is really well worth watching. He was inspired by French botanist, Patrick Blanc, and went on to champion this incredibly low-tech vertical garden solution…

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Indoor Garden Design

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Indoor Garden Design

Ever struggled with over watering your plants? Or going the other end of the spectrum and leaving them like they've had a month in the Sahara? There are tips on different plant species which are great ideal starter plants, plus also advice on which plants are best for helping get rid of air pollutants. At the end of the podcast, you too will be excited about creating green spaces in your workplaces and homes…

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Biophilic Design in the New Workplace

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Biophilic Design in the New Workplace

Creating New Environments with Plants and Biophilic Design - Personalisation of space is a key message in this podcast with Kenneth Freeman, Biophilic Design and horticultural consultant. He shares with us, tips on how Biophilic Design supports and benefits the whole person, how it enhances a whole sensory environment. Some designers might separate off those elements from Biophilic Design, but they are all an integral part, including views, improved acoustics, lighting, ergonomics and when used together provides us with an holistic solution. It's all about comfort…

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Botanic Shed 10 minute tip - 1 Soil

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Botanic Shed 10 minute tip - 1 Soil

In the first of a series of short 10 minute podcasts with our partner Lara Cowan at The Botanic Shed, School of Nature, where she shares tips and science on why and how nature is good for us. Today we talk about Soil. You will learn some surprising facts about soil, from he smell, the bacteria, the negative ions therein and more. She also suggests a few things you can plant out at the weekend, from Broad beans to leeks… to get you out of the house and engaging in the gorgeousness of soil..

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The New Workplace - how to use Biophilic Design

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The New Workplace - how to use Biophilic Design

The New Workplace - The office is going to be very different in the future, less about ‘The’ place where you go to do work, it may be more the place where you go to be creative and collaborative. Offices may be used for the more social aspects of work, or those times where you genuinely need to cooperate or collaborate face-to-face. No longer will they be the battery farms of the past. As we emerge from Lockdown things are changing already in the way people work, where they work and the office environments themselves. We speak to Kenneth Freeman, former Head of Innovation at Ambius who has now set up his own consultancy focusing on workplace wellbeing through biophilic design, to ask him how he thinks biophilic design should be used going forward to make workers lives better, not just in the office itself but also at home.

Re-humanising and inspiring the Workplace - For Kenneth, with his background in horticulture, evaluating the effects of biophilic design is essential, helping understand scientifically how and why nature and plants at work really makes a difference to us. Through surveys, pre- and post-occupancy, as well as encouraging companies to engage their staff in the consultation process, Kenneth says this always helps shape the design of a space to make a positive impact on staff morale, communication and also helps acceptance of change. Essential in times like these.

How to use Biophilic Design - How should we decorate our offices and enrich our workspaces? What does a healthy workplace really mean? Why put plants into buildings? What about Home Offices? Should companies be supporting their staff working from home with Biophilic Design enhancement to help wellbeing and productivity? Kenneth answers these questions and more with examples of where biophilic design AND staff engagement has really made a difference.

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