A Look at Biophilic Design: Creating Space to Nurture Our Human Nature in the Built World

In 1925, Henry Beston wrote The Outermost House, in which he chronicled a year spent alone on a Cape Cod beach. His solitary time revealed truths relevant to nature, including human nature. Beston said, “Nature is a part of our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery, man ceases to be man.” All our evolution toward a more civilized society has crippled our connection to an elemental part of the human experience. Without experiencing nature as something more than a novelty, future generations will find it hard to protect and sustain nature.

With all our focus on sustainable buildings, nature itself is the missing link to bridge the gap between humans and the outside world. Kellert said, “We now regard keeping higher vertebrates in old-fashioned, barren cages as inhumane. We outlawed the old zoos and replaced them with exquisite reproductions of natural animal environments, but we keep humans in inhumane environments. We give them a computer with a nice screen saver and maybe a poster of a potted plant, and if (the building) is energy efficient, we call it ‘Gold’.”

A recent survey in the UK proved this disconnect to be true, showing that 69% (or 7 out of 10) Brits feel they are losing touch with nature. Some disturbing results from the survey include:

• 13% of Brits admitted that it’s been two years or more since they left urban areas and visited the countryside
• 33% of parents felt that they don’t know enough about British wildlife to pass any knowledge onto their children
• Brits surveyed couldn’t identify certain wildlife, such as owls, toads, and hedgehogs, or trees that had been known by previous generations

In America, studies show a link between employee absences and a work environment with no link to nature. Also, 20-26% of children function faster at school when learning in natural light environments, while a view of nature has proven to reduce the length of a hospital stay by over 8%.

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