Welcome to our podcast series from the Journal of Biophilic Design, where we interview workplace consultants, futurists, interior designers, architects, urban planners and those working in healthcare, wellbeing and other industries to find out the latest on Biophilic Design.
A familiar face to thousands of TV viewers, award-winning interior designer, George Bond first appeared on TV as co-presenter on ITV “better Homes”: with Carol Vorderman. In his own interior design practice he has transformed homes and spaces into amazing spaces. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, is a judge, served as director on various professional societies, but most of all he is a visionary creative interior designer…
Biophilic design principles allow us to bring elements of nature into the built environment, especially into those places where we experience a great deal of stress. Our connection to nature can unlock so many benefits, stress washes off us, we become different people, we can think more holistically about our life and where it’s going. The impact the buildings we inhabit and work in have an enormous effect on our lives, especially now with the restrictions placed on us as a result of the Covid epidemic. With an onset of almost cabin fever, we are recognising the fact that the building we surround ourselves with has a huge impact on our physical, mental and emotional states. Nature can play a valuable role, the benefits of plants and greenery, adding personalisation, direct influence over a space, improve air quality, sunlight, fresh air, easy to improve spaces. S..
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.
Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres have embraced and celebrated biophilic design not only in their interiors but also in the fabric of the architecture, the landscapes and views of nature, plants and trees within and without their buildings. And it is making a phenomenal difference. As the seasons change, so the views change. “Nature is Joyful, and it helps us feel joyful and when we feel joyful we can handle so much more of what life throws at us.” Maggie’s is visionary, it’s mould-breaking and is important evidence that biophilic design is ESSENTIAL in healthcare….
Acoustics, planting, colour ways, furniture design, textures, space all have an impact on us. Whether this is at home or in the workplace, how we decide to design these spaces can make a whole difference to our mind set, they can make us stressed and unproductive or they can make us focussed, calm and inspired. We have control on what we create. We have a duty of care to ourselves to make sure we respect each other enough to want to make our homes and offices, hospitals and so on nice places to be…
Many things have changed for humans since their early days as a species—how excited do you think early Homo sapiens would have been by heating, air conditioning and weather tight structures to install them in, for example?
Not everything is different, however. We still have fundamentally the same brains as the first creatures we would recognize as “one of us.” That means we process and respond to the basic sensory inputs we see, hear, feel, taste, and smell today as our earliest human ancestors did.
Neuroscience research suggests that those sensory consistencies may be why biophilic design gives us such a powerful mental boost today. Biophilic design applies the same sorts of design principles in today’s built-environments that were naturally present in the outdoor settings where we were at ease aeons ago, when our bodies took on their current form. We still feel comfortable in biophilic spaces today, and the sorts of experiences that we have in biophilicly designed spaces boost our cognitive performance, for example, and for some of us even enhance the performance of our immune systems.
Our brains continue to respond positively to the sorts of sensory stimulations that long ago signalled good times, or at least that bad times were unlikely.
So, what are the principles of biophilic design?
In a biophilic space, there is moderate visual complexity. This means that there is order in the world around us, and a carefully edited palette of colours and shapes in play. Moderate visual complexity makes it less stressful for us to continuously scan the world around us—something we still do without considering what we’re up to today, just as our forebears did aeons ago to determine if there was danger nearby. Clutter creates high visual complexity, which is why it makes us tense.
We speak with Environmental and Design Psychologist, Sally Augustin. Sally is also Principal at ‘Design with Science’. She is also Fellow of the ‘American Psychological Association’ and author of “Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture” (Wiley 2009) and with Cindy Coleman, “The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design” (Wiley, 2012).
