sound

Charlotte Church - The Dreaming

Charlotte Church - The Dreaming

Reconnecting with Nature: Charlotte' Church’s Biophilic Retreat offers Healing and Wonder. The Elan Valley, nestled in the heart of mid-Wales, is a hidden gem of serene beauty and wild grandeur. Here, the landscape unfurls in soft, rolling hills, dotted with ancient woodlands and heather-clad slopes, while the deep, verdant valleys are carved by the meandering course of crystal-clear rivers. The air is fresh, tinged with the earthy scent of moss and pine, and the sky, often painted in hues of blue or grey, seems endless above this tranquil expanse.

Here is where The Dreaming is.

The Dreaming, which is a haven and a place of retreat for everyone, is the creation of Charlotte Church. Charlotte. Is known to many as a singer, but maybe fewer know her as a visionary of this beautiful space in Wales. It’s a place where she is manifesting her vision to help people reconnect with nature, both inside and out, where biophilia threads through the hills, waterfalls, valleys and right into the house where you stay.

And it is this house which is the epitome of Biophilic Design. It is designed not only with heart and honesty, but has been a work of love by Charlotte and the designers who helped create this home. The former home of the designer, Laura Ashley has fallen into disrepair when Charlotte came across the land.

Turning her desire to make a difference in the world for people and planet, the land informed her decision to create a retreat centre, transforming the land and the house into a Biophilic haven.

In a secluded corner of the Welsh countryside, internationally renowned singer-songwriter Charlotte has created a sanctuary that blends the power of nature, music, and design. The Dreaming, her newly opened retreat centre, is a testament to her lifelong passion for the restorative qualities of the natural world.

The Spine - Liverpool: How Biophilic Design was used to create the highest WELL Certified Building in the World…

The Spine - Liverpool: How Biophilic Design was used to create the highest WELL Certified Building in the World…

How does a passion for biophilic design, which stems from a desire to improve an architect and designer’s own health, lead to the design of a major new healthcare building? For Steven Edge, founder of Salvage Sustainable Design, his personal interest in Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) expanded into advocacy of Biophilic Design in buildings. We catch up with and discuss his recent project, commissioned by Manchester based architects AHR in 2017, where he acted as biophilic design consultant for their client the Royal College of Physicians’ new £35, million HQ in Liverpool.  The Spine opened in the Spring of 2021 and with 109 out of a possible 110 WELL Credits, the highest of any (over 26,000) WELL certified buildings in the world, its set to become one of the healthiest buildings in the world.

Steven is a biophilic design consultant, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, with over 40 years’ experience in academia and the design and construction industry. He shares his background, starting with work in architecture and interior design, and his growing interest in sustainability and healthy materials.

Talking about biophilic design principles used in The Spine, Steve describes how The Royal College of Physicians wanted to create a building that would make people feel healthier when they left it than when they entered; a brief that was fully met. Because it's a college as well as Office Spaces, they have young surgeons who would also be diagnosing real patients’ problems in this new building.

The design, led by architect Rob Hopkins, drew inspiration from the human body, with elements like the "skin" of the building and the "spine" staircase.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST... and read on...

Psychoacoustics - an introduction; the importance of Biophilic Design for our ears and brains

Psychoacoustics - an introduction; the importance of Biophilic Design for our ears and brains

What is psychoacoustics and why should we care about it? Paige Hodsman, concept developer for Saint-Gobain Ecophon explains how the psychology of how we perceive sound is essential for our health and wellbeing. She explains how humans react to sound stimulus directly relates to our performance at work for instance. This helps us understand how people respond to their environment and how we can design better spaces. Did you know that biophilic improvements to a space has a positive impact on our brains through our hearing too? The vast experience of humans have been outside, in fact we are particularly suited to being in a natural environment, in fact neuronal activity is greater when we hear natural sounds.

The Power of Sound

The Power of Sound

Julian Treasure is a leading Ted Speaker and founder of The Sound Agency. We catch up with him to talk about how sound affects us on four different levels: physiologically, psychologically, cognitively and behaviourally. He discusses dynamic biophilic soundscapes and how we can use nature in improving acoustics and how we should be using good sonic design and aural architecture to make the places we work in, learn in and heal in, better.

Moodsonic - breaking the silence

Moodsonic - breaking the silence

We work so hard to make our working, home and leisure environments acoustically better that we may be overlooking an essential aspect, our need for “sound”, our need especially for the “sound of nature”. Back in the office many of us work in cacophony or we are discovering during this “lockdown” that we live in homes where the TV is too loud, our hospitals are often crazy busy noisy environments, everywhere designers are struggling to clean these spaces of aggressive and distracting audio disturbance, but once we do that, how do we know that these spaces provide us with the optimum environments for focus, creativity and wellbeing?