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What Are the Health Benefits of Biophilic Design?
Research has revealed that biophilic design leads to numerous positive health benefits. Catie Ryan, Director of Projects at Terrapin and biophilic design leader, observed a 37% improvement in mental health from audible stimuli such as sounds of nature versus common urban noise after stressor exposure. Another study found that adding plants in interior spaces reduced stress and increased pain tolerance. The sites and sound of water were restorative, and incorporating nature views is also mentally restorative for occupants.
Is Biophilic Design Sustainable?
Biophilic design has been found to manage stormwater runoff as there are fewer imperviable surfaces and better infiltration. Biophilic design increases biodiversity while decreases the heat island effect and carbon emissions. This can be accomplished by adding plants, trees, vegetable walls, green roofs, and rain gardens to the built environment, buildings, and cities. Greywater can be utilized to reduce the freshwater reliance that these natural elements require.
Three Tips for Biophilic Design
Biophilic design aims to be much more thorough and comprehensive than simply bringing in a few potted plants to adorn hallways. There are several different techniques to allow the natural world to permeate our living spaces. Below, we offer three ideas for biophilic designs that homeowners, designers, and architects can incorporate into any human-built space.
The Importance of Touch
Of course, we experience the natural world through much more than just sight. The materials and fabrics we use in our home can also connect us to the natural world. For example, instead of replacing your old carpet with new carpet, consider incorporating wood flooring or bamboo or cork flooring. Avoid synthetics and plastics and search for natural fibers for your textiles, curtains, and other interior design elements.
Allow for the Presence of Water
Water is one of the most fundamental aspects of the natural world and one of the elements most absent from buildings. Flowing water (such as streams, rivers, and waterfalls) creates negative ionization, a physiological stimulant to our human bodies. Incorporating moving water into the inside of our homes and building through fountains or sprays or other innovative features is another easy to implement but essential aspect of biophilic design.
How to Incorporate Biophilic Design Into Your Home
Many families do not have regular access to parks or other wild and natural areas due to poor urban planning and the increasing scope of technology over our lives. As a result, small urban grassed regions do not have the same benefit as the unspoiled wilderness that previous generations might have enjoyed as children.
Fortunately, the suggestions listed below for incorporating biophilic design can allow homeowners to bring nature into their homes in virtually any setting.
Create an Outdoor Living Space
One of the central tenets of biophilic architectural design is that we need to blur the boundary lines that usually separate our home's interior and exterior areas. Even in dense urban settings, an outdoor patio can encourage us to get outside, breathe unconditioned air, and feel the wind on our back. Even if there isn't a tree within a kilometer of your home, plants can be used in outdoor living spaces to create a natural oasis of biodiversity. Outdoor patios, decks, and exterior dining rooms encourage us to pull away from the screens that increasingly dominate our lives and to instead look into the sky to enjoy a sunset or to search for a shooting star. For homeowners who live in areas with long, cold winters, this Rise article gives some ideas for how to incorporate outdoor winter living spaces around your home.
Plants, Plants, and More Plants
Plants make up about 80 percent of Earth's total biomass, about 1,000 times more than animal biomass (including us humans). Bringing plants into your home, then, is one way to reconnect with the most abundant source of life on Earth. Plants don't only add color and life to stale and musty home interiors; they can also add tangible benefits such as improved air quality. Through evapotranspiration, plants can regulate humidity levels in homes. These air purifying plants can also pull allergens and even volatile organic compounds (VOCs) out of your home, thus drastically improving your interior air quality. For homes with small interiors, blooming tables offer practical ways to incorporate "plant furniture" for multiple purposes. For more ambitious homeowners, living walls for both home interiors and exteriors can give your home a "jungle-like" ambiance.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
