What Is and Is Not Biophilic Design?

The renowned social ecologist Stephen Kellert (1943-2016) pioneered the theory of Biophilia and developed the idea of Biophilic Design in the 1980s. He wrote this article for METROPOLIS in 2015 to clarify the core tenets of biophilic design. This page has been updated to mark the 10th anniversary of its original publication, and now includes links to project case studies, product solutions, and inputs from experts on What’s Next in Biophilic Design. (Illustrations by Nolan Pelletier)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction

Five Conditions for Effective Biophilic Design
01 Human Adaptation
02 Sustained Engagement
03 Integrated Interventions
04 Emotional Attachments
05 Positive Interactions

Three Impactful Applications of Biophilic Design
01 Direct Experience of Nature
02 Indirect Experience of Nature
03 Experience of Space and Place

What’s Next for Biophilic Design? (Coming Soon)

Biophilic Design Exchange
More Resources on Biophilic Design

INTRODUCTION

Biophilic design seeks to connect our inherent need to affiliate with nature in the modern built environment. An extension of the theory of biophilia, biophilic design recognizes that our species has evolved for more than 99% of its history in adaptive response to the natural world and not to human created or artificial forces. We became biologically encoded to associate with natural features and processes. Rather than being vestigial – or relevant to a world that no longer exists – this need is thought to remain instrumental to people’s physical and mental health, fitness, and wellbeing.

Since today’s “natural habitat” is largely the built environment, where we now spend 90% of our time, biophilic design seeks to satisfy our innate need to affiliate with nature in modern buildings and cities. Thus, the fundamental goal of biophilic design is to create good habitat for people as biological organisms inhabiting modern structures, landscapes, and communities. Accomplishing this objective depends on meeting certain conditions. First, because biophilia is essentially about evolved human tendencies, biophilic design focuses on those aspects of nature that, over evolutionary time, have contributed to our health and wellbeing. Let us be clear on this point: Any occurrence of nature in the built environment cannot be called biophilic design if it has no bearing on our species’ inborn tendencies that have advanced our fitness and survival.

Simply put, biophilic design focuses on those aspects of the natural world that have contributed to human health and productivity in the age-old struggle to be fit and survive. Thus, desert or deep-sea habitats or microorganisms or alien or extinct species or other obscure aspects of nature are largely irrelevant as aspects of biophilic design because they offer little if anything in the way of sustained benefits to people.

The effectiveness of biophilic design depends on interventions that are connected, complementary, and integrated within the overall environment rather than being isolated or transient. A third distinctive feature of biophilic design is its emphasis on engaging with and repeated contact with nature. Biophilia can be described as a “weak” rather than “hard-wired” biological tendency that, like much of what makes us human, must be learned and experienced to become fully functional. Although we may be biologically inclined to affiliate with nature, for this contact to be useful, it must be nurtured through repeated and reinforcing experience. The benefits of biophilic design depend on engaging contact with nature rather than occasional, exceptional, or ephemeral experiences.

These distinctive characteristics yield a set of five conditions for the effective practice of biophilic design (below). Each underscores what is and IS NOT biophilic design.

01 Human Adaptations to the Natural World

Biophilic design emphasizes human adaptations to the natural world that over evolutionary time have proven instrumental in advancing people’s health, fitness, and wellbeing. Exposures to nature irrelevant to human productivity and survival exert little impact on human wellbeing and are not effective instances of biophilic design.

02 Repeated and Sustained Engagement with Nature

Biophilic design depends on repeated and sustained engagement with nature. An occasional, transient, or isolated experience of nature exerts only superficial and fleeting effects on people, and can even, at times, be at variance with fostering beneficial outcomes.

03 Reinforcing and Integrating Design Interventions

Biophilic design requires reinforcing and integrating design interventions that connect with the overall setting or space. The optimal functioning of all organisms depends on immersion within habitats where the various elements comprise a complementary, reinforcing, and interconnected whole. Exposures to nature within a disconnected space – such as an isolated plant or an out of context picture or a natural material at variance with other dominant spatial features – is NOT effective biophilic design.

04 Emotional Attachments to Settings and Places

Biophilic design fosters emotional attachments to settings and places. By satisfying our inherent inclination to affiliate with nature, biophilic design engenders an emotional attachment to particular spaces and places. These emotional attachments motivate people’s performance and productivity, and prompt us to identify with and sustain the places we inhabit.

05 Positive and sustained interactions and relationships 

Biophilic design fosters positive and sustained interactions and relationships among people and the natural environment. Humans are a deeply social species whose security and productivity depends on positive interactions within a spatial context. Effective biophilic design fosters connections between people and their environment, enhancing feelings of relationship, and a sense of membership in a meaningful community.

The fundamental challenge of biophilic design is to address these deficiencies in the modern built environment by initiating a new framework for the beneficial occurrence of nature. The effective application of biophilia begins with adhering to the previously described basic principles. From there, particular practices of biophilic design can be employed to help implement positive and beneficial outcomes. These applications of biophilia are listed below, although more detailed descriptions can be found in Kellert and Calabrese, The Practice of Biophilic Design:

01 Direct Experience of Nature

Spaces that allow direct experience of Light, Air, Water, Plants, Animals, Weather, and Natural Landscapes and Ecosystems

02 Indirect Experience of Nature

Nature represented by these elements: Images of Nature, Natural Materials, Natural Colors, Mobility and Wayfinding, Cultural and, Ecological Attachment to Place, Simulating Natural Light and Air, Naturalistic Shapes and Forms, Evoking Nature, Information Richness, Natural Geometries, Biomimicry, and Age, Change, and the Patina of Time

03 Experience of Space and Place

Biophilia can also be achieved through these approaches: Prospect and Refuge, Organized Complexity, Integration of Parts to Wholes, and Transitional Spaces