ADRIAN
CHU
SIN
CHUNG
332874
Biophilic Design
Biophilic design is a new design philosophy aimed at integra ng ‘natural’ elements in the design. I don’t really like the term natural, because I think that the defini on and categorisa on of what is natural and what is not is a li le bit loose. Does incorpora ng plenty of green in your house necessarily makes it natural? The image shows the courtyard of the Boyd House in South Yarra. This shot shows the main wing of the house as viewed from the children’s living area on the eastern end of the building. What I find very inspira onal about this image is how everything outside the house is seemingly dragged inside. Let me explain: by virtue of its internal courtyard, this house is very introspec ve, with a very strong sense of privacy. Yet, it also appears to be extremely open and permeable - but not for people, rather for the environment. The camera used in taking this picture is behind a glass pane, shoots through the courtyard, through the parents’ bedroom, over the powder room and s ll manages to get to the pine tree growing on the side of Walsh Street. To me this is a very important aspect of biophilic design - an engagement with ‘nature’ beyond the simple prac ce of layering plants along walls, allowing natural light and air in or using natural materials - it has more to do with the emo onal and experien al engagement with the natural elements of the space. Of course, the 3 abovemen oned aspects (plants, light and air, materials) are important, but the importance behind biophilia has more to do with the ins nc ve rather than conscious bond with nature. In some ways it is similar to the Living Building Challenge, where the unquan fiable quintessen al values that give a space its iden ty are considered. S ll not too clear? Let me try to approach this differently. The reason why I don’t really like the term ‘nature’ is because I think it is too loose a term. To me, nature is a civilised concept. We would not have had to create something called nature if we did not need to compare it to something different. So if the dis nc on between what is natural and what is not never existed, biophilia would have been not living with nature, but living! So biophilic design is not about physically and visually incorpora ng natural elements Doesn’t the prospect of placing a house (a civilised artefact) in a natural se ng ruin the into a contemporary space, but moving back to these elements being an integral en re no on of this place being natural? and essen al part of the space.
For all intents and purposes, the term nature shall from now on in this card be used to refer to the natural environment, i.e. what has been around before human interven on. So how to apply the idea of biophilia in a design prac ce? One important thing we must understand is that nature is violent - not the happy Walt Disney sceneries where rabbits run behind bu erflies and crabs and fish sing together under the sea. No, nature is unforgiving and only the strongest can survive. This is natural selec on. But we as ‘intelligent’ animals have managed to build shelters to shield ourselves from the natural dangers. But by doing so, we also protected us from the good aspects of it. The perfect way to live in a ‘biophilic’ way would be to use nature itself as our shelter, but since we lost much of our ins ncts, most of us would never survive. So how do we design to welcome the good part of nature in, while keeping its badass part out?
It’s s ll important to keep the baddies out!!!
Some of the widely used strategies that have been around over the past decade or so was to greenify architecture by using lots of natural light, fresh air, natural materials and the intensive use of plants. While these have been perfectly laudable a empts at being more sustainable, it is not what biophilic design is about like I said, it is about the experience, not only the performance.
Modern society has certain expecta ons about comforts in buildings - light levels, temperature, humidity. I understand that a certain level of comfort is indeed required, but these highly managed environments have disconnected us from our natural environment. Current environmental strategies are striving to make the maximum use of natural assets and passive systems, but the aim is s ll to create these managed environments - PERFORMANCE! My opinion of what biophilic design is is a designed space that for example (reasonably for all of the following) dims when it gets darker outside, gets cooler when it is cooler outside and warmer when warmer outside - EXPERIENCE! But I repeat, this mimicry would have to be restricted within the boundaries of acceptable levels of comfort. And what about plants? Besides providing oxygen, they provide a very strong visual effect - for us humans, the sight is probably the sense we rely the most on, and plants do provide a very strong visual connec on that helps us engage with this ‘living’ space.
So why do I think that the Boyd House is a good example of biophilic design? For starters it incorporates lots of plants. Then, its configura on is such that it is very enclosed from the outside (protec on) and yet from the inside, the space looks very permeable to the environment. The house was designed in 1958, so green design was probably not one of Boyd’s main concern, yet the feel is very ‘natural’.
However, if we emphasise too much on the experien al side of biophilia, we might tend to look at only one side of the coin. Environmental performance is an equally important aspect, but I just stressed the importance of experience as well because I think that people tend to think too much of green design as just being performance-oriented. Biophilic design would therefore be the result of a combina on of technical knowledge and experien al considera ons that would contribute to crea ng a place that would spur this ins nc ve human-nature bond. Victoria Market has the poten al to be a pla orm of biophilic design since: • It is a place of memory and this iden ty can increase public engagement. • It deals with fresh produce, so the green culture is already very strong there. • The space is very reac ve to its immediate environment (especially the climate) - it gets really hot in the summer, and the sheds are not properly protected from rain and winds. VicMarket is basically surrounded by concrete, bricks and bitumen, meaning that trying to bring inside the outside environment might not be a terribly good idea. However, biophilic design there could be the crea on of a space that would allow people to engage not with the external space, but with the ac vity there, while at the same me being a sustainable place that does not conflict with its surroundings. ‘Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperaƟve.’ H. G. Wells 1. 2.
The Robin Boyd Founda on, Walsh Street. [Online] Available: h p://www.robinboyd.org.au/index.php?op on=com_content&view=ar cle&id=83&Itemid=59 Kellert S. 2008. Biophilic Design. Dimensions, ‘Elements and AƩributes of Biophilic Design’ in The Theory, Science and Prac ce of Bringing Buildings to Life. John Wiley and Sons