Design In Search of Quiet. David M. Sykes

In Search of Quiet

The Salk Institute, founded by the creator of the polio vaccine, is designed to encourage the fusion of art and science.

The COVID-19 pandemic inspires a fresh look at “biophilic design” that supports quiet contemplation and communing with nature to inspire as well as heal. By David M. Sykes

Jonas Salk, M.D., famously discovered the vaccine that ended the polio pandemic. Born in New York, one of the world’s noisiest cities, he experienced a creative awakening during a visit to Assisi, the ancient town in the central Italian region of Umbria that has drawn pilgrims for a thousand years, and the home of St. Francis.

Assisi’s quietness, solitude, and beauty captivated Salk and prompted a breakthrough in his thinking, leading to his successful polio vaccine. To emulate his Assisi experience, he founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 1966, near San Diego. There, he and architect Louis I. Kahn designed a quiet, timeless, Socratic-style academy facing the Pacific Ocean to encourage scientists and humanists to mingle, escape disciplinary silos, and ponder what Salk called “bio-philosophy” or “biophilia”— the fusion of art and science.

Salk died in 1995. In 2002, his foundation convened a meeting of neuroscientists and architects at the National Academy of Sciences’ peaceful retreat in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on the edge of the Atlantic. Leading neuroscientists and architects met for the first of a series of transdisciplinary meetings to explore how buildings can be designed to be “quiet, healthy, healing spaces” that can stimulate, inspire, and even heal residents—an aspiration pursued by the ancient Greeks. After this year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s more timely than ever.

The 2002 meeting led to the founding of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, a division of the American Institute of Architects. ANFA’s international conferences take place annually—at the Salk Institute.

Biophilic Design

Salk’s ability to clear his mind thanks to being in a pretty, peaceful setting helped spark the “biophilic design” movement, according to Esther Sternberg, M.D., a neuroscientist, in her book “Healing Spaces.” In this elegant 2009 book, now a classic, Sternberg describes how “healing” and “inspiration” work, the role of the brain, and how quiet surroundings can stimulate recovery from illness and spark creative insight. In addition to citing research on the physical and physiological effects of sound/noise and color/shape, she shares science that underscores the benefits of meditation spaces and why meditation is valued in many societies.

The Woods Hole meeting is celebrated as a moment of extraordinary awakening. Sternberg writes: “The remarkable thing is that the fields of neuroscience, immunology, psychology, architecture, and engineering have reached the point where scholars and practitioners are ready to talk to one another and learn from one another. In so doing, they will come closer to answering questions about the effects of place on healing.”

Shared Spaces

Who owns most of the “built environment” where we live and work? Government agencies and corporations. Together, they own and manage huge real estate portfolios: office buildings, condominium towers, hospitals, places of worship, malls, research and development labs, even whole residential neighborhoods. Managers and corporate leaders who are interested can now dive into the book “Healthy Buildings,” by Joseph Allen, D.Sc., and John Macomber, both at Harvard.

In this April 2020 book, the authors address a very real concern: How do work environments—whether offices,

Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Four Biophilic Buildings

» The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, by architect Louis I. Kahn, at salk.edu. » Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore, at ktph.com.sg. » Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, designed as a private home by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, at fallingwater.org. » Thorncrown Chapel in Georgia, designed and built by architect E. Faye

Jones, at thorncrown.com. Jones, who apprenticed with Wright, codified and taught a set of nature-centered design principles nearly identical to the ones spelled out by “Healthy Buildings” authors Allen and Macomber.

hospitals, places of worship, or homes—affect the health and productivity of the occupants? If you find yourself feeling tired during a meeting, their answer is blunt: “That’s because most conference rooms are not bringing in enough fresh air. When that door opens, it literally breathes life back into the room.

“But there is a lot more acting on your body that you can’t feel or see,” they continue. “From our offices and homes to schools, hospitals, and restaurants, the indoor spaces where we work, learn, play, eat, and heal have an outsized impact on our performance and well-being.”

They list the “9 Foundations of a Healthy Building”: ventilation, air quality, thermal health, moisture, dust and pests, safety and security, water quality, noise, and lighting and views. The book is especially topical—as the authors say, “The forced lockdowns and retreat into home isolation have given us a heightened awareness of the role our surroundings play in our health and wellbeing”—and the prescriptions for better ventilation dovetail with pandemicrelated research into the benefits of frequent air changes (through open windows, fans, air filters, etc.).

Also especially timely is “The Topography of Wellness,” due out in 2022 from Sara Jensen Carr, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Boston’s Northeastern University. Stemming from her doctoral thesis, the book traces several historical urban epidemics and how the effort to contain or eliminate them has altered the built environment—sometimes inadvertently feeding a future epidemic.

Building WELL

The biophilic design movement has popped up at various times since being touted by ancient Greek medical philosophers in their Platonic academies. A century ago during the modernist movement, access to and views of nature were big, “new” ideas.

Then in the 1990s, the U.S. Green Building Council was founded to develop the LEED rating criteria for healthier buildings. (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a globally recognized, green building certification program.) I led a team that worked with LEED to develop acoustical criteria that are now the reference standard, but note that this system is primarily focused on building efficiencies, not occupant health.

Now the biophilic design movement is reaching beyond LEED and has spawned a newer institution called the International WELL Building Institute. The IWBI publishes a building rating system that goes far beyond green buildings by, as they put it, “using biophilic design in their WELL Standard as a qualitative and quantitative metric.”

The goal for all these efforts, from the Greeks onward, is to build environments that improve mental and physical health and stimulate creativity and inspiration. There’s never been a better time.

David M. Sykes leads several professional organizations in acoustical science, including the Quiet Healthcare Council and the Quiet Coalition, both programs operated by Quiet Communities Inc., and the Facility Guidelines Institute Acoustic Advisory Committee, which helped define LEED criteria. For references, see hhf.org/spring2021-references.

Share your story: Tell us your biophilic design ideas at editor@hhf.org.