Biophilic Design

Biophilic design is an approach to architecture and planning that seeks to strengthen human connection to the natural world by embedding natural light, vegetation, water and natural materials into the built environment, on the premise that such contact improves health, cognitive function and wellbeing. The word biophilia, love of life, was coined in 1973 by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, but it was the biologist Edward O. Wilson who gave the idea scientific and architectural traction, proposing in his 1984 book Biophilia that humans possess an innate, evolutionarily rooted affinity for life and lifelike processes. This biophilia hypothesis was later developed into a practical design framework, most influentially by Stephen Kellert, who organised biophilic design into the direct experience of nature such as light, air and water, the indirect experience of natural materials and forms, and the broader experience of space and place. Contemporary biophilic design informs hospital, workplace and residential architecture, and has expanded to the scale of the city through concepts such as Timothy Beatley's biophilic cities. The theory also names a negative counterpart, biophobia, where certain built conditions provoke restorative failure rather than restorative response.