The Power of Biophilia: Designing Buildings That Heal People and the Planet

METROPOLIS’s Winter issue explores how biophilic design continues to advance human well-being while evolving into a regenerative framework for buildings, ecosystems, and the planet.

By: Avinash Rajagopal

“UNFORTUNATELY, MODERN SOCIETY has insufficiently supported the human need to affiliate with nature,” Yale University Professor Stephen Kellert wrote for METROPOLIS in 2015. Distilling decades of research into a succinct article titled “What Is and Is Not Biophilic Design,” this pioneering thinker emphasized the value of biophilia to human well-being. “We are just beginning to find that these environmentally impoverished habitats foster fatigue, symptoms of disease, and impaired performance, and the simple introduction of natural lighting, outside views, and vegetation can result in enhanced health and productivity.”

In the decade since he wrote those words, biophilic design has expanded its ambitions. Its promise of reconciling buildings and nature has captured the attention of architects and designers worldwide. And a network of experts in science, sustainability, design, and architecture are urging the adoption of biophilic design not just as a way to make people healthier, but to help other life and planetary systems recuperate and regenerate. “We’re moving beyond buildings that mitigate harm toward architecture that performs like an ecosystem,” writes Erin Rovalo, vice president of community at Living Future and one of the seven leaders who helped us answer the question “What’s Next in Biophilic Design?”

As we begin to consider this larger scope for Kellert’s ideas, we’re also rediscovering that early attempts to make buildings more sustainable ended up looking a lot like biophilic design. When CannonDesign took on the task of renovating California’s first large-scale sustainable building it found that the innovative architect Sim Van der Ryn had relied heavily on nature-inspired systems and natural materials in 1981 to help the 330,000-square-foot Gregory Bateson Building perform: a night flush system for heat; operable louvers; and a plant-filled, un-air-conditioned atrium. “In short, more than 40 years ago, the Bateson Building was designed to foster biophilia,” our reporter Lydia Lee writes.