Stephen R. Kellert - Nature by Design: The Practice of Biophilic Design

B iophiliarefers to the inherent affinity people have for the natural world. This inborn tendency developed during the long course of human evolution when people largely adapted to natural, not artificial or human-made, forces. Assuming this biological inclination continues to be vital to human health and wellbeing, one of the great challenges of our time is to foster beneficial contact with nature in our built environments, where we now on average spend 90 percent of our time. The challenge of biophilic design biophilia in the human-built environmentis the focus of this book.

People have, in fact, practiced forms of biophilic design over the ages, although largely in an intuitive and iterative manner, influenced by factors related to history, geography, ecology, and culture. Today we are compelled to take a more systematic and deliberate approach to the application of biophilic design, for two reasons. First, our society has largely assumed an adversarial relationship to nature, mainly seeing it as an obstacle to dominate and overcomea mere natural resource to be transformed through technology to some higher use, or a nice, but not necessary, recreational and aesthetic amenity. Stressing the importance of nature in our largely constructed and created world is often viewed as a low priority and romantic perspective. To advance the objectives of biophilic design, we must demonstrate that nature substantially enhances human physical and mental health, performance, and wellbeing. Second, the rapid pace and large-scale approach of much modern development has magnified the adverse effects of ignoring the need for biophilic design and made these effects difficult to correct. We can no longer rely on good intentions and architectural insight to effectively incorporate nature into the built environment. Biophilic design provides instead a more deliberate, systematic, and informed approach to bringing beneficial contact with nature into the modern built environment.

This book offers a rationale, framework, and methodology for accomplishing this objective. Yet it is far from the final word on the subject. The understanding of biophilic design has been rapidly evolving in recent years and is still a relatively new approach. Additional improvements will undoubtedly occur as a result of new knowledge and refinements in the years ahead.