Journal of Biophilic Design

From designing a detailed picture of the New York Skyline in moss to how we need to design with biophilia for helping mitigate climate change this great podcast with Lily Turner explores how we are just starting to realise the very real benefits that Living walls can bring to our cities, and our work and healing spaces.

Lily Turner is an environmentalist, biophilic designer and living wall specialist. She's also director of green walls at Urban Strong, the design build maintenance firm offering services for green building technology solutions. In 2013, she co-founded urban blooms a non-profit to bring large scale, publicly accessible living walls to dense urban environments. It was after Hurricane Katrina she was rebuilding homes, restoring landscapes, repairing drip irrigation systems and fields and got to do a lot of great community projects and inspired her to launch urban blooms, which aims to bring greenery back into the built environment to benefit people in the community.

We chat about sustainability, and how policy and regulation is needed to implement green spaces, an also how “new language and concepts need to be introduced. Sustainability has become rhetoric and clouded our view of the actual state of things in our products. So adding to our lexicon is also a major part of it.” Lily also advocates like we do, that it is vital to “break down silos when looking at the built environment. Adopting a more collaborative and holistic approach, is really the only way forward. If we look at Singapore's journey, I think it represents an actual a nice beacon of hope and their government's response should be seen as inspiring to the United States and other major offenders around the world.” Shifting our lexicon from just sustainability to regeneration will also shift people's behaviour and also create more awareness.

As well as the political, we speak how Living Walls and preserved moss walls can be seen as striking forms of art, especially when you add a frame or incorporate colourful foliage, and how they offer a myriad of environmental, psychological and physiological benefits as well.

Lily has been working with Biophilic Design for almost 10 years. It has to be the way forward, it has to happen. “I don't know how we're going to survive without it.”

We also discuss the practical benefits plants bring, from creating relative humidity, especially if they're of scale and how you just feel more relaxed.  When you bring that into a high stress environment, like an office or even a rehabilitation institution it is extremely important. “And I think we'll see this more and more as our healthcare system changes. And our education systems change as well.”

Even a sightline view to the outdoors, we know there's significant benefits, you have reduced stress levels. Direct connection to nature is one of the most powerful of the Biophilic Design Patterns, being surrounded by something natural and green can boost productivity, enhance creativity and cognitive function, and ultimately that leads to increased sales so there's also ROI associated with that. “If people aren't sold on environmental or the aesthetic benefits, let's look at the ROI and try to push that conversation forward And then also just having a statement Living Wall in your lobby or office you're communicating this message of progressiveness and sustainability to your investors, your clients, your partners, everyone involved in supporting your company.”

To find out more about Lily and her work visit: https://urbanstrong.com

Her work features in our “Cities” issue of the The Journal of Biophilic Design, it is a case study of multi-sensory living wall that UrbanStrong installed in a corporate office in New Jersey.  

https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/shop/journal-of-biophilic-design-issue-4-cities-ebook

To buy a copy of The Journal of Biophilic Design visit our website www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or from Amazon. If you like our podcast and would like to support us in some way, you can buy us a coffee if you’d like to,thank you x

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. 

Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds?

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/journalofbiophilicdesign/

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Tying in with Issue 6, our Blue Mind edition of The Journal of Biophilic Design we speak with Nick Hounsfield, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at The Wave in Bristol. The Wave is an inland Surfing destination.

After working in the healthcare sector and realizing that one of the key aspects for people was that they were lonely but also that they were missing a connection to nature, Nick wanted to help and create something at scale that would have a positive impact. Not only that, but also reach out to people who didn’t necessarily have access a private healthcare system. His mindset was “how can we democratise this? How can we make it more accessible for more people?” Nick explains the thought processes he went through to create The Wave. He had a very clear purpose and a very clear mandate. From wanting it to appeal to everyone and all seasons to understanding disability and ensuring he also addressed the barriers for access to green and blue space, and then meet them. “How do we break down those barriers, we have to break down those barriers through design, through great landscaping and then through a really good business model, and also make sure that we're not destroying the planet and the local ecology either. How can we put something back into that space? That may improve the planet and the people who are coming to visit us.”

Roll forward 10 years, and they’ve managed to build it and deliver exactly what they wanted to deliver blue and green spaces for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

So what is The Wave? If you could imagine a huge slice of the ocean or imagine a really amazing Cove down by the beach. It's like taking that cake slice of the ocean and lifting it up and dropping it right in the middle of the field. There are absolutely perfect surfing waves, and lighter ones just as you get at the beach, you've got sort of bigger waves that are breaking in, further out for people who are sort of more competent. And then you've got really nice whitewater waves on the inside for people who just want to splash and play around or bodyboard. And, the water is Caribbean colour so also does look perfect. People come along just to walk along the pier which stretches out across the waves to enjoy the sound of the waves.

Nick and his team have created a beautiful space where people can connect with water as observers or to enjoy an immersive and active connection. Being close to a city, Bristol, and also partnerships were important part of the vision. They also work with groups who are already struggling with not having access to green and blue space and mental and physical health issues and bring them to the wave, thereby also growing the adaptive surf community and have made sure that the whole space was designed so that that is accessible, and not just ticking boxes, but actually truly accessible. And with surfing now part of the Olympics we might see hopefully in the next couple of months announced that surfing will be part of the Paralympics. “So we've now got the most amazing training facility for these athletes. And we have got genuine medal contenders already in our midst so hopefully that whole sport will grow which is good.”

“That's the key thing, really, it's about that partnership because we will never profess to know everything about the challenges and issues that different sectors of society have. So, it's about partnering up with people who do really know what's going on, and we're just providing a facility and, and try to work out what those barriers can be and break them down together.”

Why is why is that nature connection important?

“It's everything.” Nick goes on to describe how we felt that nature was taken away from us during Lockdown, and even now “there are young families stuck in high rise apartments with no access to green or space blue space at all, they walk along a concrete road to get to school and it's a concrete playground, there's no green space there. And that is that is their life. And that just doesn't feel like it's a healthy existence.” It’s important to democratize that open space, green space, blue space, “just having some horizons around us to be able to lift your head, lift your mind, lift your spirits, whereas if the whole time you're surrounded by things that have been designed to encapsulate you the whole time, that just creates such a closed minded spirit as well as an attitude. And I think that's a real shame, particularly for the younger generation, that growing up in that space.”

We need to re-establish those connections that have been lost and look back historically when that connection was intrinsic. “We are not better than nature, we are nature. And actually, nature has got so many of the cures to our ills. And we have to, we have to be mindful of that and get back to promoting it, that being natural isn't some kind of woowoo. You know, that's, that's something, something for the people.” This is where biophilic design comes in, “we want something to be sustainable for the long term, to have real longevity, we need to go back to nature for that design brief.”

What is it about Blue Mind?

There is some really good research now that shows how Blue Mind, Blue Health really has a positive impact on physical and mental well being. From being around water to being in water and experiencing that feeling when gravity is taken away from your body, and being able to move in a space. That's why hydrotherapy is really good for people with arthritis, or got joint issues. There is also that penetration of blue, which reduces heart rate and cortisol levels it calms everything down.

What about Surfing?

“There is a sort of ebb and flow where you're doing something incredibly focused, particularly an activity where you have to be in the moment and you can't think about anything else apart from having to catch this wave, because you don't want to wipe out, you just want to ride the wave, because it’s the best feeling ever, just riding the wave. So, you've got this locked in focused moment. It’s quite Zen-like, all that other worries in your world, just melt away because you're so focused. Then I love the other side, that sort of ebb and flow where there is the peaceful calm when the waves passed, and maybe you're paddling back out, or when maybe you're down by the beach, and you're sat waiting for the next wave, you're just looking at the big horizon. There is that moment of calm, the sort of peacefulness with it. I love the juxtaposition of the two. And that's why surfing I think brings so much and, and I'd say more wave riding, you don't have to stand up on a wave. It could be bodyboarding it could be just splashing around in the water. But I think that's the lovely sort of ebb and flow of the emotions but also that sort of excitement then that calming back down again. “

“…this is a place and a space for me to find the best version of myself.”

Nick calls for similar concepts to spring up in other cities and other countries because he thinks “everybody should have an access to these kinds of facilities. So in terms of designing, master planning, master planning, huge developments, I think it's something that we should be mindful of going forwards, like building a future that is actually much more sustainable for our society, and actually learn from the mistakes that we've had previously, and incorporate really good design when master planning cities, towns and settlements in the future. And I think what's been great is the wave has demonstrated that actually, you can do that triple bottom line where you're doing right by the planet, you’re looking after the people along the way, and also having an economically viable model. I just would love that thinking to be replicated in other places, whether there's a Wave there or not, but that triple bottom line, philosophy really can work if it's if it's properly committed to.”

The Wave could be coming to a city near you, watch out for developments, sign up to their newsletter, go visit, enjoy the food, music, camping, and go catch a Wave at The Wave visit:

www.thewave.com

Building on an earlier conversation we had in 2020 with a co-founder of Skogluft, we speak today with Morten Kvam, CEO of Skogluft. Not only does it sound beautiful and uplifting, in Norwegian it means “Forest Air”. We talk about how plants are essential to have in the built environment and how the main founder of Skogluft Bjorn Virumdal was a mechanical engineer and realised that biological models were needed to explain the effects of nature indoors. NASA had conducted some research on how astronauts would be affected by the lack of nature. After speaking with them to explore their findings Bjorn then conducted further scientific research to prove how different plants and different light affected people in different working environments. His research looked at three main aspects: the feeling of being awake, headaches and respiratory problems and he took readings before and after the intervention.

The results showed the positive effects of having nature indoors. Tiredness reduced by 40%, headaches reduced by 35% and concentration problems reduced by 16%. Morten says they have over 7.2kg worth of printed evidence that nature is good for us!

There is evidence that plants in a room may reduce the dust level of the air, as found by Lohr and Pearson-Mims (1996). The dust content of the indoor air is often too high and might irritate mucous membranes in eyes and respiratory organs (throat, nose). When plants are healthy and are in your workplace, home, school or healthcare space, there is an increase in air humidity which may bind more of the dust, and as a result reduce some of the health complaints associated with dust (and maybe also pollen). The large leaf surface of plants probably promotes sedimentation of dust from the air, which will reduce the dust level. Just imagine if we place plants close to the computer – where both dust level and the level of static electricity is often high, we might see a reduction in irritations in respiratory organs.  This could be really useful in healthcare environments especially receptions and schools.

Feedback from users who have installed Skogluft say that one of the benefits is that acoustic levels really improve. They are also ideal in dentist waiting rooms, or anywhere you might feel stressed or anxious because the green walls create a feeling of calm. On the other side of the coin, there is a very large Skogluft wall in a library north of Oslo, who now want to implement it in all libraries in the city. We discuss how we could install green walls in university and study spaces. They have already installed many in the working spaces in Healthcare environments for the employees. If we think of all the halls, rest areas, outside treatment areas, receptions, and so on, there are many places we could implement green walls so many people receive the benefit.

Morten shared that the Skogluft Green wall is a best kept secret for one of the Norwegian football clubs who feel it gives them the advantage to compete and win games. It is important for that club to feel the vitality and life of nature, instead of the usual naked walls you get inside clubs.

The more plants you have the more positive effects you earn! For Skogluft, their plant of preference is the Golden Pothos, which research has shown that these are very positive and have a greater effect than other plants. One hypothesis is that they produce lots of chlorophyl per time unt per square inch. This is still a hypothesis, but it seems they are better than other green plants. Also they are very robust, look good, and are easy to maintain year after year. They survive even if you forget to water them for a week or two!

We also talk about the importance of light. The positive effect of light reflecting on nature. “We are programmed to stay in nature, we have always been surrounded by plants and light together,” Morten says. “It makes people react more positively when we see light reflected on plants.”

In his magic brush of biophilia, he says we should be looking to install nature everywhere, and “just like toilets are compulsory in buildings so should nature be compulsory nature indoors everywhere.” I think I’ll be sharing that last thought many many times. It’s straightforward and simple to grasp - nature should indeed be compulsory in every building.

Skogluft creates living walls which are super simple to install and even has an app do you don’t kill the plants! We all have a choice when it comes to who we work with and the companies we represent. Morten tells us that while his background was not nature-based, he chose Skogluft because as a company they are making a difference to people’s wellbeing.

To find out more about Skogluft:  https://www.skogluft.com

Have a listen to our the podcast we did with Stine Wettergreen way back in 2020 which this one today builds on that initial conversation! https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/podcast-journal-of-biophilic-design/skogluft-forest-air

To buy a copy of The Journal of Biophilic Design visit our website www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or from Amazon. If you like our podcast and would like to support us in some way, you can buy us a coffee if you would like to support us, thank you x

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. 

Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds?

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/journalofbiophilicdesign/

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To register your interest in attending our Biophilic Design Conference visit www.biophilicdesignconference.com

Change is about people and when it comes to people, there is no formula and there is no one way, this is challenging and hard. For designers, architects, planners who are trying to convince people to do something different, to do something maybe that business has never done before, what tools do we need to help take our clients on that “change” journey with us?

I was lucky to catch up with the Change Master, Jennifer Bryan, who will also be speaking at Workplace Trends in London on 18th October 2023. Jennifer shares with us some tips to help you lead that change, for her there is “no change without learning and no learning without change,” and it has to come from a “people centric perspective.”

Jennifer, gives us some sound advice. She describes what she calls the “end person in mind approach.” If you think about the person who is the furthest away from the decision making room, when they first hear about the change (whether that the watercooler gossip or a town hall) if you can make that initial moment for that positive then you will have a positive initial moment for everyone else in between.

There are 8 different reasons why people resist change. Jennifer outlines some with us here. Sometimes it’s because they don’t understand the change, or it could be how they perceive it, it could be fear or emotional, or historical. If you want to fine tune your potential to lead change, get your hands on her book: “Leading People in Change”. Understand where that “resistance” might be coming from. Ask the questions so you might understand why they might be resisting. Take them on a bit of a journey. Help people understand the “so what”.

We forget that other people aren’t in that same space, and we need to be able to articulate that “so what” but it has to be that “so what” for them.

 Think of this podcast as the essential spanners in your “Toolbox of Persuasion.” There’s a lot of good advice in this podcast for those involved in bringing Biophilic Design into the mainstream. We can help leaders and managers understand that Biophilia is not just fluff, help them to visualise a positive outcome and from a different angle.  

 Jennifer says there are three key questions you need to consider, and when you know the answers you have to articulate the solutions from the heart.  Firstly, what is it you’re trying to do, secondly why now, and finally how are people going to think and feel about it?

Remember we all have the passion within us to bring about change, learning how to lead that change is a skill, which is why advice from consultants like Jennifer are helpful in encouraging your clients build that change muscle internally.

Why not come and meet Jennifer in person on 18th October 2023 in London, where she will be speaking about “Adopting Foresight” at Workplace Trends event, and presenting results from a research project with Henley Business School. To register your place at the event visit:

https://workplacetrends.co/events/wt23-programme/

USE CODE JBD20 for 20% off the published delegate rate at https://workplacetrends.co/events/wt23/

To find out more about Jennifer, visit

linkedin.com/in/jennifer-l-bryan abchangeconsultancy.com 

JenniferLBryan.com (Portfolio)

inspirationalspeakers.co.uk/speaker/jennifer-bryan/ (Portfolio)

And don’t forget to buy her book  “Leading People in Change”

To buy a copy of The Journal of Biophilic Design visit our website www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or from Amazon. If you like our podcast and would like to support us in some way, you can buy us a coffee if you would like to support us, thank you x

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. 

Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds?

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/journalofbiophilicdesign/

Twitter https://twitter.com/JofBiophilicDsn

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Are you an agent for change? What is the barrier to designing better? Sometimes it is the apparent complexity of legislation governing ecology, planning and design that prevents people from discovering the best way of doing something. Fortunately, there is a simple award scheme that helps developers, builders, planners and designers navigate the myriad of paperwork and advisory bodies.

We speak with Dr Gemma Jerome, Director of Building with Nature, which helps define what good looks like in terms of green infrastructure (the way planners talk about nature). What I particularly love about Building with Nature is that it also helps give nature a seat around the table, especially at the beginning of the planning process and helps nature become a specification driver in planning and development. Building with Nature has an open-source Standards Framework, a one-stop-shop for all sectorial knowledge and expertise including Nature recovery, Sustainable water management through nature-based solutions, wellbeing, access and inclusivity to open and green spaces.

Gemma is also an environmental planner with a specialism in the design, delivery, and stewardship of green infrastructure. She is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute and co-chaired the British Standards Institute panel for the BS8683:2021 Process for designing and implementing Biodiversity Net Gain, and recently supported the RTPI/RSPB design code. In addition, Gemma has sat on various government roundtables and advisory panels offering expertise on design quality and is currently supporting the development of the Natural England Green Infrastructure Standards Framework.

We talk about how planners and designers can use the Building with Nature Award Scheme as an external verification to tell the story of what they’ve done, to share learning, and to reassure key stakeholders who want better outcomes for people and wildlife. For instance, if you need to reassure communities that the developer has thought about all these things, or the local authority needs external verification, or investors need assurance. The Award Scheme is measurable and so offers this metric-based assurance to help you demonstrate to stakeholders you are planning and designing with the goal of reaching net zero, supporting nature recovery, as well as supporting people’s health and wellbeing.

In an ideal world, before we build, we would watch a space for a year. This would be best practice to understand constraints. But we rarely do that with development, there is always a real rush to approve the master plan, to construct and implement. But then when it’s all done, most of the stakeholders leave, and other people (mainly the residents) have to develop a relationship with it and steward it over time. Gemma encourages us to focus on the front end, let’s start with nature rather than trying to consider it at the end of the process, where it can often cost more money to rectify should issues arise.   

In the podcast we also look at retrofitting and how it can be done incredibly well. Gemma shares with us as a case study, the Queensland Court in Glasgow https://www.buildingwithnature.org.uk/project-list-blog/2022/9/29/queensland-court-amp-gardens-cardonald  

There are many more more case studies on their website which showcase best practice and the successs of the Building with Nature Award scheme; visit “projects” and you can filter them by region www.Buildingwithnature.org.uk   

To buy a copy of The Journal of Biophilic Design visit our website www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or from Amazon. If you like our podcast and would like to support us in some way, you can buy us a coffee if you would like to support us, thank you x

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. 

Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds?

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/journalofbiophilicdesign/

Twitter https://twitter.com/JofBiophilicDsn

LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/company/journalofbiophilicdesign/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/journalofbiophilicdesign

When we design spaces, we need to consider how beautiful a place looks, how useful it is, is it fit for function and so on. We should also consider how the sensory elements of the space also stack up. In other podcasts and also in the Journal itself, we look at how our senses are impacted by sound, light, smell, even the haptic elements (those things we touch), smell (is the air fresh and clear) and many other things. All of us are affected by the impact our environment has on our senses, some of us more than others.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Keren MacLennan, Assistant Professor in Neurodiversity in the Department of Psychology, Durham University. Her research focusses on understanding how autistic people’s sensory processing differences relate to their mental health and experiences of different environments. She is co-producing research to support mental wellbeing to make environments more enabling for autistic individuals. 

We walk about how we all process sensory experience slightly differently, and how those of us who are neurodiverse might find certain sensory environments really challenging.

So what is Sensory Reactivity?  Where ‘Sensory Processing’ looks at what’s happening actually inside the brain, ‘Sensory Reactivity’ looks at people’s reactions to the space, and therefore we can then make inferences about what’s going on in the brain itself.

Keren talks about ‘Sensory hyper-reactivity’ where people might react more strongly to sounds, taste, touch, who might find some as overwhelming or painful. From this negative response we can infer that something is processing differently in the brain than others might process it.

In her research autistic people shared that a lot of environments are disabling because of the sensory input. If you think about public transport, healthcare, restaurants, supermarkets, these can be heavy sensory burdensome environments. The Sensory landscapes in those places are challenging, lots of sounds, people, smells, lights, colours. It is important to design with the people who are using it in mind. In cities we can reduce sound and cacophony, creating zones and spaces for people to take a moment, to take a break and recover. If we look at the spatial design avoiding having just enclosed spaces, include also open spaces so people aren’t going to get funnelled through.

There is a high prevalence of sensory sensitivity among autistic people, but it also prevalent among people with ADHD as well as PTSD, OCD or who are experiencing anxiety. For instance someone who is anxious is in a state of fight or flight all the time, and therefore might over process their environment, and so might react to the various stimuli in a similar way.

How can we bring in Biophilic Design to support neurodiversity and autistic people? 22 mins

From her research we know that the top enabling spaces, are outdoors places like parks, beach, woodlands. The effects of nature on autistic people are positive, and especially for children they help support sensory, motor and social developments.

If we also bring in natural elements in design, we are making the spaces more enjoyable. Biophilic colour schemes and patterns tend to be more aligned to our innate processing, for instance, we process nature and natural patterns easier.

There is a new BSI Design guide for neurodiversity, which outlines advice on how to make spaces sensory inclusive, and it mentions biophilic design on a number of occasions, suggesting more greenery in spaces, which of course absorbs sound, and our brain enjoys processing nature information. Also in a pilot study she did, videos and sounds from nature were rated as being very enjoyable for autistic people.

As always, when designing, don’t just go in with theory, which of course is a good starting point, make sure you also consult the people who are going to engage in that space. Is this going to be a beneficial space for them? Make sure engage with the stakeholders to make sure it is going to work for everyone. There are always different skill sets in a business, and of course these also can be quite varied in personality types, and everybody has expertise. Co-design, collaborate, everyone who shares that spaces, everyone should have that input.

To connect with Dr MacLennan,

https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/keren-maclennan/

To read her research:

“It Is a Big Spider Web of Things”: Sensory Experiences of Autistic Adults in Public Spaces

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/aut.2022.0024?journalCode=aut

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 To buy a copy of The Journal of Biophilic Design visit our website www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or from Amazon. If you like our podcast and would like to support us in some way, you can buy us a coffee if you’d like to, thank you x

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. 

Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds?

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/journalofbiophilicdesign/

Twitter https://twitter.com/JofBiophilicDsn

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Plants to the Rescue #PlantsatWorkWeek2023 An ambulance makes an appearance at the Oxford Business Park. Everyone is keen to know who’s in need of medical help without appearing too nosey. Watching from afar one person noted something wasn’t quite right – plants kept appearing, peeping out of the back of the ambulance and round the corners of the doors. Where was the patient? And what had happened? Searching for the bed and the patient in the ambulance was difficult as the back was full of plants not patients! Proving that visible signage #plantstotherescue is very apt. NPWW Ambulance LR An ambulance brings #plantstotherescue for National Plants at Work Week 2023 This is how National Plants at Work Week opened in 2023. The brainchild of plants@work ambassador Ian Drummond confirmed, “The ambulance felt like the perfect tool to confirm the importance of plants to our health and wellbeing. Ian at the ambulance lr Ian Drummond of Ian Drummond Botancia Designs who dressed the Ambulance “Research over many years has shown that plants improve our moods and reduce stress levels and generally help our work flow. They can stimulate and improve our performance and concentration plus they lessen noise around us by deflecting and diffracting sound.” Shirley Smith of Botanica Nurseries who has several clients in the business park and looks after their plant installations with the same care as doctors and their patients, commented, “Plants make us more productive and help our creativity as well as reduce our stress levels.” James and Shirley 2 LR James and Shirley Smith of Botanica Nurseries who supplied the plants and helped dress the ambulance Ian added, “The ambulance is a great symbol to show how we should respect the work that plants do for us in the same way as we respect the National Health Service including ambulance crews.” Inside the ambulance LR From 10 – 14 July we will be celebrating the positive benefits of having plants in the workplace. Plants@work members will support this event with stories on the web using the hashtags #plantsatworkweek and #plantstotherescue. Find more information on our website and our social media sites. We hope you’ll join us to celebrate this special week. ends Editor's notes Ian Drummond is a renowned award-winning botanical designer and author of At Home With Plants. A regular contributor to many publications, such as Living Etc magazine, Ian has won multiple awards at Chelsea Flower Show and trade awards. With a client list that includes The Elton John Aids Foundation, London Fashion Week, Bafta, Harrods and Warner Bros., Ian Drummond Botanical Design is in hot demand for design work, planting schemes and events. Botanica Nurseries has been installing and maintaining interior and exterior plant displays for over 35 years. They have worked on the last two National Plants at Work Week installations, supplying space, plants and containers as well as helping with the set up. This year their contact with the Oxford Business Park enabled us to use their space for our Ambulance display. So it’s literally Botanica Nurseries to the rescue!If you like this, please subscribe! Please register for our newsletter on our website https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/podcasts-journal-of-biophilic-design Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds? Facebook https://www.facebook.com/journalofbiophilicdesign/ Twitter https://twitter.com/JofBiophilicDsn LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/company/journalofbiophilicdesign/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/journalofbiophilicdesign

A new pioneering research study proves that there is definitely a business case for introducing Biophilic Design into a Workplace. The findings of this study shows an incredible 200% increase in well-being and environmental value compared to a normal workspace! The research was carried out at PLP Offices over the course of 8 weeks. The researchers monitored the participants daily work during three distinct environment scenarios: a controlled space (with no plants), a second space with some planting, and a third space with lots of plants. They monitored participants through qualitative (questionnaires, interviews, journaling with diaries) and quantitative means (air quality, VOC, CO2, temperature, humidity, light, heart rate, steps, sleep quality, noise level, brainwaves). The results are further proof that introducing plants into an office space really makes a difference to employee wellbeing, healthy, productivity, and a business’ bottom line.

In this podcast, we speak with Adrian Byne, MD of Benholm Group who supported the research, providing plants and also who will be hosting an event on 28th September 2023 in their Falkirk offices for designers to explore the results with the researchers and network and discuss what makes a good biophilically designed workplace. The link to the research here: https://www.benholm.com/research-study-the-value-of-biophilic-design-follow-up-interview/

EVENT - Reap what you Sow 28th September 023

At the in person event in Scotland later in the year, we will be sitting down with PLP, Benholm and the researchers Professor Derek Clements-Croome and Joyce Chan-Schoof with a live audience drilling down into the process and the further application of the research. If you are a designer or specifier and would like to come along let us know, register your interest here: https://www.benholm.com/reap-what-you-sow-live-event-form/ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘪𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯. 𝘐𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴.

Adrian in this podcast makes an impassioned plea: “Plants in an office should be for everybody. They shouldn’t be seen as a luxury or optional extra.”

Adrian also gives us some advice on retrofitting plants and Biophilic Design into a workplace. For instance, natural light is really important, look at what is already in the space, can you expose the timber, can you bring in natural wood furniture? He also says that it is important to call on an expert, especially when bringing in planting, for example you need to make sure containers are big enough for the root-space, that they need to be water-tight, where to position plants in terms of lighting etc.

If you are a designer listening to this, try and introduce your client to the benefits of bringing Biophilic Design right at the beginning of a new building design, right from the ground up as it were. If you can build planting into the fabric of the building, it makes everything easier, from the water supply to aligning natural light and so on. If you are retrofitting Biophilic Design, of course, there is so much you can do too. Just looking at this research project, they created a fully immersive experience in that space as a retro-fit.

We also talk about Dr Wolverton’s report from NASA https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2019/cg_7.html , and how air cleaning takes place in the root space of the plants, toxins in the air are cleaned in the root-space of plant.

Adrian encourages designers not to go down the artificial route, but to use real plants where they can. “Live plants are the best for us. Use them if you possibly can, they have all these added benefits, if you have to use artificial, make sure they look really real, people should be wanting to water artificial plants.”

 Live planting really does something for you which this research shows.

A few notes on the research: Collaborators in the study are Sustainability Lead at House of Commons and PhD Researcher, Joyce Chan-Schoof, PLP Architecture and their in-house research and development team PLP Labs, Biophilic Design Consultant Alexander Bond, and lecturer, author and expert in multisensory design, Professor Derek Clements-Croome. Together we will measure indoor environmental quality objective data throughout the testing period, and participants will complete questionnaires after each scenario change.

For more information on Benholm visit https://www.benholm.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE EVENT:

This open discussion will provide a golden opportunity put your questions to the authors and gain valuable insights on how biophilic design can enhance your projects from a wellbeing, sustainability and financial perspective.

In addition to the invaluable insights you’ll gain from our experts, you’ll also have the opportunity to:

🤝Expand Your Network: Connect with like-minded professionals and industry leaders who share a curiosity for biophilic design, fostering collaboration and opening doors to new opportunities.

🌱Delve into BENHOLM’S lush greenhouse: See where our remarkable biophilic creations come to life and witness the craftsmanship and artistry behind our awe-inspiring designs.

🍾Enjoy some TLC: To keep your creative energy flowing, they’ll be providing a complimentary lunch, nibbles, and drinks throughout the event, followed by a champagne reception at the end of the day.

Reap What You Sow LIVE will take place at Benholm’s picturesque headquarters on the 𝟮𝟴𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝟬𝟵:𝟯𝟬𝗮𝗺 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝟱:𝟯𝟬𝗽𝗺. To ensure easy and convenient access for all attendees, they will be running a shuttle service to and from Polmont train station.

Would you like to attend? This exclusive event is free, but spaces are extremely limited. If you or a member of your team would like the chance to secure a spot on the guest list, register your interest here: https://lnkd.in/dFdgxH7s

For the research visit: https://www.benholm.com/research-study-the-value-of-biophilic-design-follow-up-interview/

Plus there is an article on the research in the 5th Issue of the Journal of Biophilic Design, Creativity.

Also before you go, do check out this case study - https://www.benholm.com/rose-street-garden-edinburgh/ which shows how you could use flowers and planting to support your business branding too.

Have you got a copy of our Cities issue of The Journal of Biophilic Design  (you can purchase a copy directly from us at the journalofbiophilicdesign.com or Amazon. To buy a copy of The Journal of Biophilic Design visit our website

www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or from Amazon. If you like our podcast and would like to support us in some way, you can buy us a coffee if you’d like to, thank you x

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. 

Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds?

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It seems that in the 21st century we have even more challenges, from tackling climate change and biodiversity decline to an ageing population. Dr Wei Yang, influential thought-leader and a powerful advocate for climate action and nature-based solutions, advocates a people centric approach to community and environment. It is fundamental to create a balanced system for people, nature and society to exist in harmony. When we are dealing with so many different complex issues, we need to take a simple approach, with the main focus being that without nature we cannot survive. We need a mindset change when it comes to civic planning especially.

As human beings we have taken from nature and not given back to nature, and Dr Yang argues, as the Garden City Principle celebrates, we are missing a trick. There is a misunderstanding of garden cities. When we say “garden cities” people think, lots of trees. But it is a sophisticated, yet simple, social economic model. Using a land value capture model. Through development the land value increases and that can be captured providing social economic support to the community.

Dr Yang discusses how state run Social welfare can be a very top down approach and not necessarily what the community needs and there is a frustration in general with the Town Planning profession. Dr Yang opens our eyes to the fact that planning is in fact multi-disciplinary, not only is it an applied science discipline but it is also an art discipline. This highly sophisticated profession cuts across so many different disciplines, but, she argues, we need to ensure we maintain compassion and selflessness when we are planning our towns and cities. In fact, town Planners should be Doctors for Mother Earth

“As planners we can ensure we bring the beauty of nature and wildlife corridors into cities. At the moment, our approach to Cities, is almost like they are cancers, solid concrete blocks. That’s why we have so many troubles, mental and physical health issues, if we do bring nature in, we can treat the whole environment in a totally different way.”

She tells us about the first garden city Letchworth which used that approach, and we can see that the city is thriving.  There is connectivity to local agricultural land. It is called a “Garden city” not referring to the “gardens” as in our households, but the agricultural belt, and of course this relates to local food production.

Dr Yang also discusses the 15-minute walkable neighbourhood, and says in the 21st Century garden city you have that walkability from your house to work on a daily basis bedded into the very fabric of the city design. The Garden City is a social network, they are Social Cities.

Milton Keynes example uses garden principle on a larger scale with flood attenuation and wildlife corridors. The parks Trust, manage the land using the land value capture model to look after the green space. About ¼ of the land is green. The city generates income from the premises on the land and they use this income to look after the green space professionally. Self-sustaining. We need this long-term integrated approach when it comes to town planning.

Accessibility to green space affects our behaviour and physical and mental wellbeing. Generally expensive areas are leafy, but Green space is important to everyone. If we remember the pioneer Octavia Hill who helped protect green spaces for those from disadvantaged backgrounds to enjoy green space. It should be accessible to everyone and we should continue this in town planning. 74% of children only play outside. When you compare this to Prisoners who by law have to have at least 1 hour a day outside, children have less freedom than prisoners! If we want the next generation to protect nature we need them to understand it, otherwise they won’t. Let’s bring garden cities right to someone’s doorstep, improve biodiversity, and also improve the porosity of the earth. Let’s have a Place-based approach, work with different professions and maintain a multidisciplinary approach

Nothing is more powerful than nature. There are no age or gender differences in planning, if we believe something we can just work on it and we can all achieve something collectively…

Dr Yang is an influential thought leader and a powerful advocate for climate action, nature-based solutions, health and well-being, and social equality. Wei was named as a Net Zero Hero by Digital Leaders in 2022.

https://www.weiyangandpartners.co.uk/about/team/dr-wei-yang

To buy a copy of The Journal of Biophilic Design visit our website

www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com or from Amazon. If you like our podcast and would like to support us in some way, you can buy us a coffee if you’d like to, thank you x

Credits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all our podcasts. 

Did you know our podcast is also on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, vurbl, podbay, podtail, and most if not all the RSS feeds?

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