biophilia

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Right Light, Right Place, Right Time

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Right Light, Right Place, Right Time

Steve Tonkin is the Dark Sky Advisor to Cranborne Chase National Landscape, in Wiltshire. Cranborne Chase is a designate Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that, since 2019, has been recognised as an International Dark Sky Reserve.

Steve can pinpoint 4 October 1957 as the first became aware of dark skies. His family were, at the time, living 8 miles outside Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and his father took him outside to see if they could see Sputnik which had been launched the previous day. It was his first time looking up at a pristine dark sky and it triggered a life-long passion for astronomy which has made him aware of the effects of light pollution, and he has been raising the issue with anyone who will listen for the last 30 years.

After a first career as a telecommunications engineer, he did a BSc in Human Environmental Studies, then postgraduate work in technology policy, before training as a teacher. He taught physics, maths and astronomy in a variety of settings for 35 years, before retiring from teaching to concentrate on astronomy outreach activities. He has written several books on practical astronomy, has a monthly column in BBC Sky at Night Magazine, and is a regular speaker on astronomical topics.

Starting with a programme he made for BBC Radio Bristol in the 1980s, Steve has long been an advocate of reducing light pollution. He supported the Cranborne Chase’s International Dark Sky Reserve bid as a volunteer, taking sky quality readings and supporting the stargazing evenings by giving talks and showing people the night sky. His primary task as Dark Skies Advisor is to continue and consolidate the good work that has already been done and strengthen the Cranborne Chase’s standing as an International Dark Sky Reserve.

Light pollution is a global issue. The pollution itself is known to affect human health and wildlife behaviour and that is before considering the wasted energy involved in sending light upwards instead of downwards to where it is required. To take a Biophilic approach to the design of lighting is to reduce light pollution with direct and indirect benefits to nature… READ ON and LISTEN to the PODCAST…

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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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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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Healing yourself at Home with Biophilic Design

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Healing yourself at Home with Biophilic Design

Tying in with the second issue of our magazine, our theme for this podcast is HOME. We speak with Award-winning Interior Designer Nuria Muñoz who tells us about her journey into Biophilic Design and why she decided to follow her dream path start her own company and do something good for the planet.

Nuria is a Wellbeing Interior Designer, Consultant, Speaker and Educator based in Valencia Spain and works all over the world. She founded Habitarmonia, a consulting and design studio that offers both B2B and B2C services, has won awards and is passionate about our beautiful planet, and designs interiors that respect our world and brings harmony and happiness to the families who live in them.

"We heal people by using Biophilic Design." Giving us an example where she transformed a home of a couple who had stressful jobs and children who were struggling on different levels, she explains the importance of co-creation, working with the family, asking them lifestyle questions, finding out their challenges, listening and also, and this is important, explaining HOW the design changes will help them.

"It's important to make people aware of the benefits of biophilic design. We create room and space, but our challenge as interior designers, it's not just about looking saying and showing it looks nice, it is important also to communicate that the Biophilic Design solution helps you with well-being and happiness."

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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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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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From Veterinary Science to a Wellbeing Biophilic Economy

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From Veterinary Science to a Wellbeing Biophilic Economy

Fascinating and positive conversation with Glen Cousquer, covering biology, philosophy and the concept of the self, we talk conservation medicine, experiential education including getting outdoors, and exploring the concept of listening not only for human relationships but also listening to the living world around us. He is a qualified Vet, but after realising how there were underlying issues affecting different eco systems he moved away from the traditional veterinary model into developing a more holistic approach to health and welfare concerns…

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How a NASA Study led to "Forest Air"

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How a NASA Study led to "Forest Air"

In 1986 NASA was researching the ability of plants to absorb harmful gases. Their research had a huge impact on author and precision mechanic Jørn Viumdal who went on to set up Greentime AS. He contacted NASA and they began to develop the space stations of the future and researched how they could use nature to improve the air quality on board the space stations…

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Rewilding our interiors

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Rewilding our interiors

A fascinating conversation with consultant futurist Mark T Jones on what he hopes the future might hold for biophilic design, and what we, as individuals on this planet, could do ourselves to make our environments a whole lot better. He talks about symbolism in Africa and the connection to nature he’s witnessed on that continent. We also touch on vernacular imagery, the Knepp Wildland project, the rural paintings of Constable, prisons and how we might interpret ‘Mother Earth’.

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Is Biophilic Design always relevant?

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Is Biophilic Design always relevant?

Biophilia is now one of the most influential elements in today’s design trends. And it’s having an increasing influence on interior design and architecture decisions across almost every sector. Biophilic Design integrates nature and natural elements, materials and forms into the architecture and interiors of the buildings we occupy day in and day out. How it benefits retail, leisure industry, homes, corporate spaces and most importantly us…

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