WELL-BEING – Spaces & Wellbeing

Biophilic Design — Good for You, Good for Business

Spaces And Wellbeing — Thu, 21 May 2020 08:42:04 +0000

Nearly 90 percent of our lives are lived inside built environments. Perhaps not so shockingly, up to one third of that time can be spent inside our workplaces.

Feel daunting? We can find some more optimistic news within the growing body of research that links the design of our built environments to impacts on our wellbeing. In an expanding number of cases, environments that integrate biophilic design can even optimize worker productivity and provide a subsequent return on investment for organizations.

Why does biophilic design matter?

Imagine being in your favorite natural space. Maybe you envision sitting by the ocean hearing crashing waves, or maybe you, like me, remember a time when you climbed to the top of that towering pine tree in your childhood yard and read your favorite book for hours. Regardless of your unique memory, when you imagine being in your favorite natural spot, how do you feel?

Pause. Take a moment to really feel into that memory. The feelings you experience—and the resulting often positive emotions—can begin to describe the essence of what biophilic design strives to foster within the built walls of our day-to-day lives.

When we integrate biophilic design into our spaces (through natural elements, areas of refuge, curvilinear forms or fractals, etc.), we see a multitude of benefits supporting an increased quality of life. In his book Nature by Design: The Practice of Biophilic Design, the late Dr. Stephen Kellert provides an inspiring overview and deep understanding of potential strategies to create supportive, biophilic environments.

For architects, designers and building industry professionals, successful implementation of biophilic design lies in a thoughtful co-creative design process. It is through shared conversation with key stakeholders—often involving workshops and diverse-user engagement—that true understanding of the essence, sense of place, and unified goals of a project can be uncovered and successfully achieved within the framework of biophilic design.

Linking to the return on investment

The potential benefits of biophilic design go beyond enhancing wellbeing, extending to positive financial impacts for organizations. Terrapin Bright Green highlighted the potential vast economic benefits of biophilic design in their report, The Economics of Biophilia. In built environments with strong biophilic design attributes, Terrapin Bright Green documented impacts such as reduced illness and absenteeism, improvement in staff retention and even faster healing rates.

Furthermore, Terrapin Bright Green’s report outlines that often nearly 90% of a company’s operating costs can be linked to the people inside the organization when elements such as salaries, benefits and absenteeism are considered.

Let’s connect these key points of information.

We understand that people are often less stressed and perform better on memory and productivity tasks in spaces with biophilic design aspects. From Terrapin Bright Green’s research, we also understand that an organization can spend nearly 90% of its operating costs on its most valuable resource—people. When we connect these pieces of information, it highlights a potential profound impact on an organization’s financial outlook.

Understanding that there are many variables to consider when researching the impact our built environments have on quality of life, let’s quickly consider a thought-starter scenario. In this example, we can begin to connect the potential return on investment for a non-profit organization.*

Example Scenario

$4,583,232 = Total Annual Expenses
$3,190,225 = Annual Staff Costs

Employee salaries, benefits, and absenteeism (as measured in sick leave) add up to 60% of the organization’s annual expenses. In this scenario, if biophilic interventions in the built environment enhance just 3%*** of people costs for the organization, it could result in $95,706.75 in annual savings. From this process, we can understand the potential impacts biophilic design can have on us as individuals and within organizations.

Integrating biophilic design into projects

As industry professionals, understanding potential return on investment is an inspiring opportunity to integrate the deeper essence of biophilic design into our projects. Strategies such as facilitated biophilic design workshops, asking clients expansive questions around what their essence of place entails and utilizing common approaches can help us start that conversation. If you’re looking for a place to start, consider frameworks such as those listed within ILFI’s Biophilic Design Initiative, The Practice of Biophilic Design by Stephen Kellert and Elizabeth Calabrese, or Terrapin Bright Green’s 14 Patterns of Biophilia. Each can help you on your journey to integrate biophilic design into everyday spaces.

When achieved most successfully, biophilic design does not have a prescriptive look. It can successfully create or integrate into a variety of built environments from modern to traditional—and goes far beyond the application of greenery. Ultimately, biophilic design seeks to understand and integrate the deeper essence of a project’s sense of place while enhancing organizational purpose and, at its core, holistic wellbeing for all of life.

Footnotes

* It is essential to note that there are many factors impacting our wellbeing and productivity that are sometimes difficult to fully capture despite the most stringent processes being followed within research efforts. As such, it is recommended to be conservative when communicating potential benefits and possible connection of impact. The numbers in this exercise are merely an example to begin tying research information together in a scenario to understand potential impact for conversation advancement.

** A non-profit is used in this scenario, as its operating costs are lower than the researched average for companies. We have done so to reinforce a conservative approach with the numbers, further validating the potential impact.

***Some studies have linked impact of built environment designed with biophilic approach to have anywhere between a 6–16% people costs. Using 3% allows us to continue the approach of being conservative with our calculations of impact.

Can Biophilic Design Improve Emotional Wellbeing?

Spaces And Wellbeing — Thu, 21 May 2020 08:38:36 +0000

In a post-COVID-19 world, emotional wellbeing will become more important than ever.

Regardless of what our built spaces look like in the future, it makes sense that we need to give more thought to how they make us feel. Within the fields of biophilic design and environmental psychology, there’s a growing body of research identifying how the design of our environments can impact our overall quality of life .

Considering we spend the majority of our lives indoors, can we use this research to support emotional wellbeing?

What is emotional wellbeing and how do we design for it?

Emotional wellbeing can be defined as experiencing frequent positive emotions, moods and ability to pursue self-defined goals. Having a healthy state of emotional wellbeing has been linked to an overall increased quality of life, improved happiness and even improved learning performance. Given we spend nearly 90% of our lives inside buildings, it’s important to explore the emotional benefits we can foster with the design of our everyday spaces.

There are many factors to consider such as personal, organizational and cultural preferences. Frameworks such as WELL, FitWEL and the Living Building Challenge are doing an inspiring job with actionable approaches that support diverse overall wellbeing. Additionally, research in wellbeing frequently points to encouraging mindfulness, being present in the current moment, and experiencing gratitude as key elements fostering emotional wellbeing.

The incorporation of biophilic design and connection with nature is frequently identified within these approaches as a key emotional wellbeing support strategies. To better understand how biophilic design can impact our emotional wellbeing, let’s look at what happens when we’re not living in the present moment.

Autopilot can be detrimental to our health

I remember the moment Dr. Meldrena Chapin, one of my graduate school professors, shared the idea we make nearly 50,000 decisions every time we walk through a door!

Our class was shocked, but once we thought critically about it, the statement resonated well. The simple act of going through a door could include numerous questions and decisions: Is this safe? Am I safe? Is this a door? Where is the handle? What do I need to do to open the door? Do I put my left foot first or my right foot? What do I think is on the other side of the door? Etcetera, etcetera.

All of this occurs in an instant.

If we had to consciously make these types of decisions all day, we’d likely get extremely overwhelmed. In our highly-stimulating world, our bodies go into survival mode, putting us into an automatic or autopilot state when performing actions we know and do often. According to recent studies, we spend nearly half of our lives in autopilot. Add to this the additional stress of decision-making brought on by the global pandemic, and we’re potentially putting our mental and physical health at risk without even realizing it.

In contrast, being mindfully present has been linked with positive effects such as increased neurological activity, reduced stress and increased happiness. So, how can we get out of autopilot and into a state of presence more often?

Designing for emotional wellbeing with biophilia

When we incorporate biophilic design into our buildings, we engage our senses. Engaging our senses brings us out of autopilot and into the present moment.

Biophilic design has profound benefits to engaging our senses and supporting emotional wellbeing: reduced cortisol levels (a marker of our body’s stress response), increased kindness, improved learning engagement and increased social connectivity. Beyond supporting emotional wellbeing, it has even been shown to positively impact an organization’s financial wellbeing through increasing focus and productivity, for example.

Shane Totten, architect and Director of Research + Education at Southface, an Atlanta based non-profit leader promoting sustainable homes, workplaces and communities, shares,

“When you utilize biophilic design principals in the built environment, you’re fostering a strong sense of connection, sense of order and sense of safety. Thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, if you don’t feel safe, you’re not able to aspire to higher levels of wellbeing. Biophilia allows us to feel safe, supported and present. With these needs met, we can therefore more easily aspire to the higher levels of wellbeing, happiness and achievement.”

While biophilic design is most successfully integrated through a collaborative approach, consider the below research-driven opportunities to help you start utilizing biophilic design to support emotional wellbeing.

Integrate diverse space types

1. Design a range of solutions to support people’s evolving needs. In the workplace, for example, we go through four essential modes of work throughout the day: focus, collaboration, learning and socialization. Incorporating an ecosystem of settings throughout the space provides people with a sense of choice and control. This autonomy supports increased happiness.

A variety of spaces that ensure appropriate distancing can include: small focus rooms, central spacious community areas (allowing safe co-habitation), or semi-private meeting spaces adjacent to workstations. This variation fosters wellbeing by supporting our diverse work styles and aligning more closely with the ecosystem of settings found in nature.

2. Design for Prospect and Refuge by integrating a range of open and closed spaces that allow for clear sight lines throughout the space, which provides prospect and a sense of safety. Smaller enclosed spaces such as booth seating and one-person study rooms with semi-transparent doors are examples of areas of refuge which provide security and comfort.

Foster an engaging and sensory experience

1. Introduce regional physical elements that encourage us to pause, shift out of autopilot, and visually appreciate the material in that present moment. Examples include local wood grains; carpet of varying pile heights which reflects local natural patterns; exposed brick textures; wall-mounted acoustical tiles; and natural fibers reflecting regional textures.

2. Integrate intriguing patterns such as fractals evoke a state of curiosity, mystery and exploration. This can help engage us in the present moment, fostering an improved state of emotional wellbeing.

Celebrate movement, the passage of time and a sense of place

1. Incorporate strategies that provide people access to sunlight throughout the day. Daylight supports emotional wellbeing by aligning our circadian rhythms—our body’s internal clock.

2. Incorporate non-rhythmic moving elements such as water features, mobiles, and sculptural focal points that receive direct daylight throughout the day. Since shadows move throughout the day, this can prompt an awareness of the passage of time—supporting a sense of place and wellbeing.

Ultimately, as Shane Totten shares, “biophilic design provides a palette that engages the very senses and essences of human beings in the world. When successfully integrated, biophilic design can help us capture the true essence of place within our projects and ourselves, which provides us security and belonging.” As we now know, these foundational needs are essential pillars to supporting our overall emotional wellbeing.

Undoubtedly, our spaces impact us. We feel it. We know it. The practice of biophilic design for emotional wellbeing is growing, and research findings thus far show energizing possibilities. Most inspiring, is we have the ability to use these research-driven insights to positively impact those who learn, work, live and ultimately thrive in the spaces we have the honor of creating for them every day.