Journal of Biophilic Design Vanessa Champion, editor, Journal of Biophilic Design

How do you design to incite a feeling? We spend five days of our week in the workplace, and it impacts our psychology massively. When we walk into a space, how do we design to excite that sense of awe. For Becky Turner, workplace psychologist for Claremont Group Interiors, they have conducted research to examine how we replicate that feeling of “oooh” in the workplace.

For many it is the sense of sense of connection that drives people to the office, what else will encourage the workforce the consider the cost of the commute whether it’s financial or time? Claremont researched office-based workers to find out what types of things invite people back to the office. With an overall low occupancy at 30% businesses are feeling the pinch when it comes to workforce presence.

That feeling of connection to other living beings, comes back to Biophilia and Fromm’s expounding of being connected, that love of life, and sense of freedom. It’s a complex thing.
How do you design to incite a feeling? Becky talks about colour theory, employee journey, brand experience, and how you drive people into the space for those spontaneous connections. Create a variety of spaces and of course the benefit of Biophilic Design is so widely researched that if we create a variety of spaces, to help increase employees mood we are going to have healthier and happier and productive workforce.

Becky describes how important it is to create choice, and freedom to explore in a workplace, so people feel a sense of control, but it is vitally important to ALSO so important, to ensure that the organisation empowers that control. Micro choices are a way forward too.

Human centric design of course, also ensure that we take into consideration, job roles, personalities, neurodiversity and physical challenges mean that people are going to use the workplace differently.

Overall, Becky is optimistic, there is a progression towards consideration to the human experience in the workplace, and that people are not just commodities. There is so much data to show, that Biophilic Design has a great impact on bottom line performance. Space can impact wellbeing, happiness and healthiness, mentally physically and socially.

We also speak about activity based workspaces, and offering prospect and refuges areas, as we would also experience and seek out in nature itself, spaces where you can gain information and also have shelter and protection. Businesses are understanding that we need different workspaces for different tasks. Looking at the Five Factor Model – OCEAN (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism), it is important that we all design with everyone in mind. We need to put safe spaces in, defining these for refuge, so it’s important when we come back to the office, that we use those principles found within nature, to create a similar landscape to satisfy that need we have internally.

To connect with Becky visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-wilkins-claremontgi/ or download a recent report click here: https://www.claremontgi.com/balanced-workplaces/
To connect with Becky visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-wilkins-claremontgi/ or download a recent report click here: https://www.claremontgi.com/balanced-workplaces/
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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.

For Paula Rowntree, Head of Workplace Design for LLOYDS BANKING GROUP, the office very much plays an important role in the workplace. For her it is the human connection, the corridor moments, saying hello, being creative, having conversations, seeing when someone is not ok. So when it comes to designing spaces, the focus is very much on the wellbeing of the people using the space, as well as the sustainability aspect, which is why Biophilic Design is such a positive element in a designer’s bag.

“Biophilic Design is incredibly important. It is that Deep-rooted connection to nature that we all have. To breathe fresh air, that emotion you get from being connected to nature.” Paula goes on to explain how years ago, the historic design trend was to take nature out of buildings, and make them a little more sterile and austere. Fortunately, that trend is shifting. Bringing in more greenery and timber elements, we feel calm and relax very quickly in a space. “Planting, naturally makes you feel better”.

Paula will be speaking at the Workpace Design Show, taking place on 27 and 28 February 2023 in London. “Often, when we come to implement real planting, we might need to create a business case for it (we need watering systems, so there’s a cost to install and maintain). But there is a whole array of plant elements we can bring into a space, from pretend plants, to preserved planting which may be simpler to deploy and gives illusion of planting.”
Fortunately, Lloyds Banking Group have a strong sustainability agenda, so for Paula, nature-inspired design is a key to helping reach net-zero targets and encourage sustainable behaviour. With our planet in crises, temperatures are rising, it is a big overwhelming problem. “We are trying to get everyone in the bank thinking about sustainability. What can you do? That’s where I started from, what can I do?” In one of the flagship branches of Lloyds, notably the one on Oxford Street (near Bond Street), Paula pushed the boundaries, as well as changing heating systems, lighting, furniture and fabrics she looked at planting. She installed High-raft moss discs, Preserved planting up at ceiling level, Plant pots with ground-level plants all putting oxygen back into the air, plus a Living wall on the outside with the brand element on the fascia. As a result, the bank colleagues feel very proud to explain what it’s all about, especially the sustainability aspect.

“Biophilia and planting becomes a visible statement” something that says that this company is committed to sustainability. “Also by putting planting back into the environment in branches, we are helping make people feel a little bit better in the work environment.” The spaces feel good, there’s re-oxygenation, alongside brand messaging. “There is something so joyful, it makes you feel: wow this in an amazing space. We want to make them timeless, make them last, to be there for future generations, because planting does that right, it doesn’t just stop.”


Also note Paula will be speaking at #workspacedesignshow and I'll be chairing a panel discussion. Join me at the UK’s biggest workspace event bringing you networking, thought leadership, and the latest products to transform our country’s offices, taking place 27th & 28th February 2023 at Business Design Centre. Register FREE to attend here https://invt.io/1exbb5fmtdj #WDS23

With such a depletion of wildlife in the UK alone, with so many schools, cities, towns, and housing estates being built so far removed from our natural world how on earth does the next generation stand a chance to learn about the natural world and be sympathetic to it?

 

At the same time, we also are demanding literally the earth from our natural world, and the way we extract from the natural world is getting more intensive and damaging.  As we move further away from it how do we fill that nature gap in society? We speak with Environmentalist, Producer and Writer Mary Colwell who has campaigned and devised a NEW Natural History GCSE designed to help bridge this chasm, helping put nature and the wonderment and fascination of nature into education.

“Nature is for everyone, it is there for YOU to engage with, that’s why putting it into the school system is important, making it open access and free to all, for everyone to engage with. We know from the COPs recently that we are looking at a very difficult time ahead, and those young people will have to live in this difficult time, and if they are going to make the right decisions for themselves, people and the planet, they need to be more knowledgeable, more engaged and more connected to this planet we live on.”

 

Research by Miles Richardson of the University of Derby’s Nature Connectedness Research department has shown that by the time children reach secondary school, there is a marked drop off in connection to the natural world. It happens at around 13, it gets crowded out, school gets very academic, and nature is side-lined, squashed into Biology, and then it’s only picked up again when we are 30.

 

With 80% of us in the UK living in urban environments that means only 20% of us live in anything you can call countryside. We have shifted our cultural attitudes, our language, everything has shifted away from nature. All this is creating a perfect storm of disassociation and lack of emotional response and emotional intelligence when it comes to dealing with the natural world.

Up until now, through the current education system, we are handing over to the next generation a fractured view of nature. We live in this disassociation, we are just taking what we want, and it’s not even much to pay. This is what we are passing on to the next generation and it must stop.

 

One of the beautiful things about Biophilic Design is that it brings nature and nature-inspired design right under the noses of everyone, it reconnects us to nature. How wonderful would it be, if alongside, the next generation learns how to identify, study, record and monitor the natural world, understanding how habitats make the nature of Britain: how the animals, plants and birds that we live with thrive, that they learn what its job is, how for instance how an Oak Tree fixes the soil, provides habitats, how it interacts with us. We are all part of the same thing, the outside world, we are nature, we are one.

 

The Disgupta review emphasised the importance of learning about biodiversity and ecology at all levels of education. I interviewed Dom Higgins Health and Education director for the Wildlife Trusts, a few weeks back and I was really thrilled to learn that Mary has campaigned and designed this new Natural History GCSE. “We need a nature-literate, engaged, and eco-sensitive generation, we need to start helping fill that gap”.

 

It’s showing up in our culture as well. In literature We use a lot fewer nature words in use of nature fiction poetry song lyrics since the 50s, use of personal pronouns, me, my, mine, has increased by 50% in the language we use on a day-to-day basis, we have become more inward and individualistic and a lot less community and open to the natural world.

Nature is everything hopefully it will encourage a general greening in the curriculum.

 

Let’s change that, through design, through education, through inspiration.

 

In this podcast you’

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."

Finalist in the Golden Trezzini Awards 2022 for Best Implemented Private House Interior Design Project, Nuria was Award Winner of Wintrade Global and won the Best Service Award in Houzz 2022. For Nuria, Biophilic Design is NECESSARY, to help mitigate climate change by implementing Biophilic Design, helping us reconnect with nature as well as helping the health of people, of families.

It is understanding we are nature, and that we can make something. Just like bees help the ecosystem, we too should be a positive cog in the environmental wheel, our biology needs to connect to nature and sustain life. Continuing the connectivity theme, Nuria explains how important this is for her.

If people could understand this language of Biophilia, get connected to nature, and go to nature, if they would feel it themselves, then Biophilia could be this common language. Yes, we can create beautiful cities but we also need to understand what we are doing.

To find out more about Nuria visit her site https://www.habitarmonia.com/ Why not also visit the link where you can download a free checklist to create a well-being interior (this brings you to the ebook - 144 pages of examples, pictures and worksheets to create your own well-being space): https://www.habitarmonia-academy.com/wellbeing-checklist

Did you know our NEW printed and eBook journal is out now https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/journal-of-biophilic-design-1

Please register for our newsletter https://mailchi.mp/4001fc945c4f/untitled-page and view previous podcasts with images here too: https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/podcasts-journal-of-biophilic-design.

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. 

Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds?

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/journalofbiophilicdesign/

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Biophilia is more than plants, light and air, it’s also about surrounding ourselves with living beings and our living natural world. If we think about it, E.O.Wilson’s seminal book, Biophilia celebrates all aspects of our living planet and is a call for that direct connection with nature. Wilson’s book examines our inherent connection to living species, the fascination of life, and how other living societal systems can inform our own. In fact, his lifelong interest in ant colonies emphasises this. Creating those moments of intimacy with nature has a really important place in our modern world where there is a disconnect with getting out there.

In this wonderful podcast, we speak with Michael Potts, who has spent more than 30 years as a wildlife cameraman, mostly for the BBC in more than 50 countries worldwide on major series including working alongside David Attenborough filming Life of Birds, The Life of Mammals and many programmes in the Natural World series. We discuss the importance of nature connection, why we need to introduce and educate the next generation, and also how audio-visual connection to nature through our TVs and devices is a positive thing and how we could take this one step further and introduce it into our built environment. “If you see something and understand it, then you care about it, then you might do something to protect it and encourage other people to do the same.” The messaging, inspiration and education you experience through wildlife films inspire people, and footage of birds in flight for instance has a calming effect as well.

Michael regales us with tales of animals, where he has filmed birds of paradise in New Guinea, Grizzly bears in Alaska, Termites in Namibia, Caribou migration, Polar Bears and more. He has spent many hours, up close and personal, feeling the heartbeat of a bird as it sits in his hand, feeling the strength of it, studying the intricacies of plumage which adapted to that way of life, their piercing eyes, incisive bills which continue to fascinate him: “every species is so special, they are all so different, so supremely adapted to where they live.”

He has also seen so many changes, reduced habitats for farming birds for instance where prairie-style farming is destroying land and habitats. We can do more to improve the habitats of birds and animals, and the built environment, cities, towns and communities can do much to change how we build and design our communities.

Biomimicry is one aspect of nature understanding that has a positive impact on our built environment, he mentions filming Termite mounds, huge, 12-15 feet high, made from mud, clay and sand. “They have incredible internal temperature control systems. It is +40 centigrade during the day, but to near freezing at night, but with a system of chambers and ducts, the termites maintain constant temperatures inside the mound to within 2 degrees.” This was for a study by Loughborough University which were using the knowledge garnered from the filming to use the design as an example for cooling systems in modern buildings. Nature provides us with so many answers, if we have eyes to see.

Michael has a fascinating book out “Untangling the Knot, Belugas and Bears: My Natural World on Film” which you can buy directly from all good booksellers, and also directly through Michael, contact him via his website:

http://michaelpottsphotography.com

He will also be at The Global Bird Fair in July 2023
https://globalbirdfair.org

Did you know our NEW printed and eBook journal is out now https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/journal-of-biophilic-design-1

Please register for our newsletter https://mailchi.mp/4001fc945c4f/untitled-page and view previous podcasts with images here too: https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/podcasts-journal-of-biophilic-design.

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts.

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