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NEW proof that Biophilic Design increases the Value (£) of the Workplace!

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NEW proof that Biophilic Design increases the Value (£) of the Workplace!

Did you know for every £1 you spend on even simple Biophilic Design enhancements, you could get £2.70 back? So reveals the new research conducted by Joyce Chan Shoof Architect and Sustainability Lead at the UK Parliament.

Using a scientific approach with control environments, adding biophilic design elements to test the effect and then removing them to further test the effect of their absence, Joyce explains the rigorous approach she took over a seven-year period to arrive at her conclusion.

This is a phenomenal breakthrough for those of us working in Biophilic Design.

You can read the whole report here: https://plplabs.com/reap-what-you-sow-2/

And come and see Joyce present the research in person at Workplace Trends in London on the 18th April 2024 https://workplacetrends.co/events/wtrs24-prog/

We often have struggled trying to articulate the economic benefits of Biophilic Design, this research can be used to support arguments why businesses need it in the workplace.

Joyce has also developed a framework to help designers work out what we need and the impact it will have. Using existing frameworks, like the Flourish model (as advocated by Professor Derek Clements Croome) and others, she has woven a great new model we can all hang our designs on…. READ ON and LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

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Rebalance Earth - Enabling a world worth living in. Creating a Nature Positive Economy

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Rebalance Earth - Enabling a world worth living in. Creating a Nature Positive Economy

Robert Gardner is CEO and Co-Founder of Rebalance Earth. With over 20 years of experience in the financial industry, he has a unique expertise in sustainability, pensions, and wealth management and believes that money can be a force for good.

Rebalance Earth, is a fund manager that redirects the flow of private capital to protect and restore Nature.  Their mission is to drive the transition to a nature-based economy by enabling the flow of private capital to protect and restore nature. Rebalance Earth achieves this by creating opportunities for investors to achieve sustainable financial returns from projects to restore Nature.

Robert is passionate about the idea of “natural capital”.  He believes that investment in the environment shouldn’t simply be about climate change but should take a broader approach.  He sees a future in which biophilia is prominent and discussion of environment-conscious investment should include reduced biodiversity loss, rewilding, and all aspects of being in tune with nature.

Robert sees nature as the most valuable asset class on the planet. It provides everything from clean air to carbon capture and biodiversity; not forgetting that a balanced ecosystem is essential to create pollination and soil fertility for our food.

The investment community currently operates an extractive financial model that has been using all of nature's resources for free, not valuing them and, worse than that, destroying them.  Rebalance Earth is taking steps to build and propagate a more sustainable, biophilic approach.

In this podcast, Robert talks about how… READ ON and LISTEN to the PODCAST

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BIID Interior Design Award Winners - From Chapel Barn to Riverside

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BIID Interior Design Award Winners - From Chapel Barn to Riverside

The British Institute of Interior Design (BIID) is the only professional institute for interior designers in the UK. Our growing membership represents both the commercial and residential sectors, from heritage to cutting edge. In addition to rigorous entry requirements which assess training, experience and professionalism, they require our members to continue their professional development throughout their career to ensure their continued expertise in design process, practice and regulatory matters.

For those wishing to find an interior designer or to confirm the credibility of a potential interior designer they offer a directory of our Registered Interior Designers.

Each year BIID celebrates the very best of British interior design through its awards program.  The BIID Interior Design Awards showcase the best interior design projects completed across the UK.

Winners are awarded across 7 regional categories ranging from the largest commercial project to the smallest residential dwelling.  In addition, there are two landmark prices – the Interior of the Year Prize, which is awarded to the best interior design project in the UK and the Anna Whitehead Prize, which is awarded to the best achievement in sustainable interior design. 9 awards will be given out in total, along with acknowledgements of Highly Commended projects.

In this podcast, we are joined by two previous award winners and one of the judges of this year’s awards to discuss the value of the awards programme. Throughout the discussion it is clear that just adding sustainable materials to a design doesn’t make the overall design sustainable.  Consideration has to be given to materials being appropriate for the design; the design can’t simply include “box-ticking” elements.

The participants are all clear that a sustainable design doesn’t involve a compromise on aesthetics.  Indeed, taking a biophilic approach to design can enhance the look and feel of a space and contribute to a deeper, more meaningful aesthetic that resonates with the principles of balance with nature.

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A task force for nature – where sustainability matters

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A task force for nature – where sustainability matters

Morgan Taylor leads the biodiversity side of Greengage, a multidisciplinary environmental consultancy who cover everything from energy and carbon assessments, sustainability, health, wellbeing, socio-economic assessment, and EIA management as well as the whole gamut of biodiversity assessment through to planning.

As designers, architects, or planners, we all need to be mindful of the impact our ideas, advice and decisions have on the world around us. We recorded this interview in the summer last year* Their work is focused outside of the legislative and planning policy sphere in the world of natural capital and ecosystem service value assessment. So rather than working with developers where they are only brought in because there is a potential impact on biodiversity in the first place, they're working with a lot of people with regards to asset management, land management, informing how financial capital is put towards recovery of natural capital across managed assets.

 We’ve got hundreds, maybe thousands of years of degradation and we need to take measures and understanding to address the impacts of our actions, and account for the significant loss of biodiversity particularly since the Industrial Revolution.

Morgan outlines all the different levels of legislation and planning policy that impact biodiversity in the built environment. He highlights three aspects of legislation and regulation that particularly drive positive change...

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“Bloom” - When Workspace Design meets Biophilia

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“Bloom” - When Workspace Design meets Biophilia

We speak with Marco Gastoldi, interior designer and Associate at Gensler, who in collaboration with some amazing partners have created the theme of the Workspace Design Show in London this year. The Theme is “Bloom”, and we speak in this podcast about the growing awareness of Biophilic Design, how it has environmental and psychological benefits, that it is based on science, neuroscience and also the many different ways of integrating nature in the built environment.

Marco celebrates the fact that Biophilic Design is important for us, that we have a primordial innate connection to nature, an instinct. This connection produces hormones that support feelings of belonging and collaboration which are crucial to performance and connection. Humans are biological organisms and Biophilic Design supports the mind body system in terms of health and wellbeing.

“Deep down we are aware that our connection to nature is vital. We forget that recreation is recreating and restoring ourselves. We spend 90% of our time indoors and there is so much data and evidence to prove that Biophilic Design is good in the workplace. For instance the Human Spaces report that proves Biophilic Design can improve productivity by 6% and creativity by 15%. We know that connection with nature, improves individual self-esteem and mood, the presence of water for example creates a relaxing and calming effect.”

Marco also talks about Ecological Balance Theory which refers to how we prefer nature resembling colours like green and blue, but not all natural environments are green, so it’s also important to tailor to local colour pallet and ecosystems – so it’s place based.

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Der Verwondering - Biophilic Primary School - Stephen Kellert Biophilic Design Award Winner

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Der Verwondering - Biophilic Primary School - Stephen Kellert Biophilic Design Award Winner

How do we design schools so not only children are inspired, teachers want to come to work, places are healthy, the building sustainable, the landscape regenerative, and supports biodiversity? The answer is Biophilic Design. De Verwondering is a primary school in the Netherlands, designed by architecture firm ORGA. The design won the 2023 Stephen R. Kellert Biophilic Design Award from Living Future Europe in 2023, and justifiably so and is featured in the Education issue of The Journal of Biophilic Design.

The name of school means ‘sense of wonder’ or 'amazement', referring to the sensation of curiosity in children that is triggered when they come into contact with the natural world. Any parallels with ‘The Sense of Wonder’, Rachel Carson’s timeless publication from 1960, are coincidental, but both very much speak to the same sentiment.

In this podcast we speak with Gijs Bruggink, Chef de bureau of ORGA and discuss the importance of using Natural building materials, and how we need to push boundaries for sustainable and regenerative buildings.

The difference the Biophilic Design of the school has made to the teachers, staff, and children is phenomenal, and it also shows when an organization wants to do something better with nature deeply embedded into it right from the start of the project. The difference it can make to the business, the reduction of staff and student absenteeism, the improved recruitment, overall wellbeing, air quality, acoustics and so much more.

 “It is an interesting time for designers. There are a lot of problems which need solutions nowadays with climate change and biophilic design just has a lot of answers. Not only is it beautiful but it's interesting from the health perspective and it's beneficial from a business perspective because if your users of the building are able to perform better to be more productive and they feel better, it's good for your business. There's a lot of research and science supporting these these ideas and these benefits,” says Gijs.

One of the wonderful things about the Der Verwondering design is that they have created a really healthy learning environment for children and the people working there to help them get a good education. There are also all sorts of connections to nature in the building which builds affinity with nature, and children can discover things on their own, they have a natural adventurous inquisitive nature.

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Can the NHS embrace Biophilic Design?

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Can the NHS embrace Biophilic Design?

Dr Leighton Phillips Director of Research, Innovation and University Partnerships for the NHS Wales, Honorary Professor Aberystwyth University, and director on the Hywel Dda University Health Board joins us to share how they are bringing in Biophilic Design into healthcare in South West Wales. Part of his role is about questioning what we want the future to look like.

Dr Phillips shares with us how fundamentally important the natural environment is, how it profoundly influences our health and wellbeing. What he finds captivating about biophiilc design, is that there is an opportunity. “With over 1200 hospitals, and a million staff and nearly everyone in the UK having some interaction with the NHS services just imagine the health and planetary impact of the NHS embracing biophilic design.” ….

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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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The Wave - Connecting us to our Blue Mind

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The Wave - Connecting us to our Blue Mind

Tying in with Issue 6, our Blue Mind edition of The Journal of Biophilic Design we speak with Nick Hounsfield, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at The Wave in Bristol. The Wave is an inland Surfing destination.

After working in the healthcare sector and realizing that not only one of the key aspects for people was that they were lonely but that they also were missing a connection to nature, Nick wanted to create something at scale that would have a positive impact. He also wanted to reach out to people who didn’t have access to a private healthcare system.

“How can we democratise this? How can we make it more accessible for more people?” Nick explains how he went on to create The Wave. He had a very clear purpose and mandate, wanting to appeal to everyone, be accessible in all seasons and ensuring he addressed barriers to accessing to green and blue space. “We have to break down those barriers through design, through great landscaping, a good business model, and also make sure that we're not destroying the planet and local ecology either.”

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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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Town Planners as Doctors for Mother Earth – Garden Cities for the 21st Century

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Town Planners as Doctors for Mother Earth – Garden Cities for the 21st Century

It seems that in the 21st century we have even more challenges, from tackling climate change and biodiversity decline to an ageing population. Dr Wei Yang, influential thought-leader and a powerful advocate for climate action and nature-based solutions, advocates a people centric approach to community and environment. It is fundamental to create a balanced system for people, nature and society to exist in harmony. When we are dealing with so many different complex issues, we need to take a simple approach, with the main focus being that without nature we cannot survive. We need a mindset change when it comes to civic planning especially.

 

As human beings we have taken from nature and not given back to nature, and Dr Yang argues, as the Garden City Principle celebrates, we are missing a trick. There is a misunderstanding of garden cities. When we say “garden cities” people think, lots of trees. But it is a sophisticated, yet simple, social economic model. Using a land value capture model. Through development the land value increases and that can be captured providing social economic support to the community.

 

Dr Yang discusses how state run Social welfare can be a very top down approach and not necessarily what the community needs and there is a frustration in general with the Town Planning profession. Dr Yang opens our eyes to the fact that planning is in fact multi-disciplinary, not only is it an applied science discipline but it is also an art discipline. This highly sophisticated profession cuts across so many different disciplines, but, she argues, we need to ensure we maintain compassion and selflessness when we are planning our towns and cities. In fact, town Planners should be Doctors for Mother Earth

Read on and listen…

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Reconnecting with nature will save our society

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Reconnecting with nature will save our society

Sustainability matters, it is a matter of survival. For Carlo Battisti, President at Living Future Europe this is essential. We cannot design or build without considering this.

We already know the solutions, we need to implement them.

Carlo co-founded the Biophilic Society and coordinates LFE biophilic design strategy. “There are so many global issues to solve, our responsibility must start from the built environment, we know that 40% of emissions come from built environment and these have an impact on global issues.”

Each time we build, we start from scratch which means it’s difficult to standardise the processes, also the sector is so slow to change, but the built environment shapes the way we are living.

Carlo tells us about his experience and also about the Living Building challenge framework which was developed in 2006. We are now at the 4th version of the standard which was published in 2019. Biophilic Design has always been a core part of this framework. If we design and build with a better connection to nature, using natural light, better airflow, etc, there will be better energy consumption, greater energy efficiency. Also of course, there are lots of studies which show that bringing sufficient daylight into enclosed spaces, for instance in schools or hospitals, patients recover quicker, students learn faster in classrooms. There is such interesting and robust data.

The Biophilic Summit is taking place on 7th June 2023. The details of the summit programme and how to register can be found here: https://lfeurope.regfox.com/biophilia-summit-2023

Read on…

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Greening the Streets of Nairobi

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Greening the Streets of Nairobi

Nature is home. Nature is where you can think, rejuvenate, it constantly gives to you. There is nothing man made that can replace the benefits of nature. Edna Odhiambo, is a Climate Change Lawyer based in Nairobi Kenya. Edna was speaking at the brilliant 8th Annual Sustainability Week conference, run by The Economist. As an undergraduate law student, she witnessed one of worst droughts in the Horn of East Africa, and she asked herself “what can the law do about this?” She realised then that one of the main keys to unlocking the solution is through a focus on policy and regulatory frameworks across different sectors.

In terms of sustainability, Kenya leads in Africa. For example, more than 85% of their electricity comes from clean energy sources like solar, wind, hydro and geo thermal. But there are many challenges. For example, there are millions of Kenyans who lack access to clean energy sources, some are still using firewood and charcoal, dirty cooking fuels, which also increase respiratory illnesses and people are cutting down forests. 87% of Kenya is arid and semi-arid. If you consider then there is very little arable land and then couple this with climate change impacts, water scarcity we should be looking at opportunities to find solutions locally while we wait for access to innovative and affordable technology. Edna explains there are many basic low-cost solutions which can be done by local communities. We need to make a difference as fast as we can.

One of the main themes of this podcast is how we need to bring in an integrated approach to transport, we need a multi-modal approach which seamlessly connects walking, bus and public transport, dock-less bikes, cycling lanes and walking pathways. Globally transport is the cause of 15% of emissions. The time has come to stop putting highways before people, building cities around transport, we should be putting people first. Traffic is a major cause of outdoor air pollution, which causes asthma in children, and there are even studies looking at there being an increased risk of dementia event early studies.

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Nature-Inspired Workplace Design

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Nature-Inspired Workplace Design

Here’s a big question, how do we inspire more people to come back into the workplace? For Steve Brewer, founding partner of the design agency, Burtt-Jones and Brewer, we need to create a workplace EXPERIENCE which works for you as an individual. Having worked with HM Treasury and so many other businesses transforming their workplaces, for Steve the most important part of the conversation is with the individual. Rather than go through a company and blitz a design with a hammer and chisel, for Steve, the keys are workshops. “We benchmark where that company is and where that company wants to go in the future. It’s a very tailored response, and very much we see ourselves as Co-designing workspaces.” The better experience at work, the better the end-result. “The more you can run through that process, the better the foundations you can build.” Steve sees that his role is to pull all the “Jigsaw pieces together and try and make it the best-looking picture that everybody agrees to”.

What about Biophilic Design? For Steve, he has always tried to bring outside experience inside the office. Sometimes, businesses might see biophilic design and plants as a sticky plaster solution. If you think about it the buildings are often already there “glass sealed boxes with air conditioning. Maybe you’ve been on tube, rushed to work, grabbed a coffee, no breakfast, kids were screaming, then you are in the work environment. If we can bring more biophilic design into those spaces, then that experience is going to lift your wellbeing, calm you down by not seeing white walls, glaring light, bad acoustics…”

 

Steve goes on to explore how to introduce Biophilic Design early as you can into the design consultation process, but most importantly being sensitive and understanding how and when to convince stake-holders who might have a thousand other things on their mind when they are sitting around the table.

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Designing Climate Change Resilience

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Designing Climate Change Resilience

Nature is our key to solving the climate crisis, if we reconnect people with nature, bring nature and natural elements closer to people then everything is more joined up. Better decisions will be made. Dom Higgins, head of Health and Education for the Wildlife Trusts. We speak about Nature connectedness, biodiversity, purpose, people, place, Cone Snails and the new Natural History GCSE… among other things. We need to give nature a chance, we might be too late to prevent climate change, but we can mitigate against the challenges such as cooling cities, carbon sinks, cleaning our air, and ecosystems that can mitigate the issues. We need people to take action, so we need to hear it on the Stock Exchange, Factories, taxis, it should be the business of everybody.

We talk about how we need active environments, and how it goes back to when we were hunter-gatherers. If you remove people inside and then we remain stationary, then we stress. We should be outside, away from artificial lights and all the accoutrements of the modern-day office (unless it has biophilic design woven into its very fabric). Take anyone away from connecting with nature and we get chronic stress. The disconnection detrimentally affects us physically and mentally.

We discuss this nature-connectedness, that feeling of understanding what is going on in the world, that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We need that daily thought, that sense of knowing that everything has a place, and is connected back to everything else. This is our life-support system essentially. If we don’t design with that sense at our core, then our planet and our health are doomed. If you don’t have that feeling, that sense of connectedness with nature innate within you, then the decisions being made around the world are skewed, everything from creating fair and sustainable employment to the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. It has consequences. And not good ones.

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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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A Woodland Habitat in the City?

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A Woodland Habitat in the City?

How can we encourage more local greening? Where does Biophilic Design fit in the climate change picture? What can we learn from Paris and its free and equitable access to fountains and water? These and other questions are discussed in this great interview with Ross O’Ceallaigh, founder of the Green Urbanist podcast.

With much of the world experiencing unprecedented heat waves this summer, we need to accelerate how we bring Climate Adaptation into our behaviours and city infrastructures. Ross is an urban designer and planner and calls for architects and fellow designers to refocus our aims to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Local greening could be a key solution, but, he says, we need to reduce the bureaucratic barriers that stop communities from planting trees and greening their spaces, the whole process needs to be streamlined to make it really easy.

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