01. The Public Health Landscape

Today, when we venture to the park for a break from shelter-in-place, we are reaping the benefits of a historic response to the cholera, tuberculosis, and flu pandemics of the 19th century.

The legacy of the move to invest in clean streets, broad boulevards, and designed public parks is easiest to spot in cities like Paris and New York. Frederick Law Olmsted famously conceived of Central Park as the "lungs of the city." Such spectacular places of prospect and refuge, designed for the "sanitary advantage of breathing," continue to bring people out for health and inspiration.

No doubt, the pandemic of our time will leave its own mark on the built environment. Our hunch is it will take the form of outdoor WorkScapes that integrate our networked way of life with the benefits of biophilia.

"We can look to the parklet trend to think about how we transform … permanently after the pandemic has passed."

—Dr. Sara Jensen Carr, author of The Topography of Wellness2

Origins of the WorkScape

As the Information Age changed our relationship to where and how we work, science was rethinking our relationship to nature.

1984

Biologist E.O. Wilson publishes Biophilia, arguing that humans have an innate affinity for living species.

Stone and Luchetti's Harvard Business Review article anticipates wireless work spaces and the gig economy.

1985

Psychologist Philip J. Stone and architect Robert Luchetti argue that the computerage workplace should organize around "activity settings" in "Your Office

Is Where You Are."

Organizational strategy takes hold with Becker and Steele's concept of the "total

Dedicated "third places" become a defining feature of team-oriented start-up offices.

Organizational strategy takes hold with Becker and Steele's concept of the "total workplace."

1989

In The Experience of Nature, psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan present evidence that time spent in nature restores the mind's capacity for focused attention. Ray Oldenburg writes in The Great Good Place that loosely structured social settings, or "third places," are anchors of strong communities.

1993

Social ecology essays in The Biophilia Hypothesis interpret the built environment as an extension of humans' affinity for nature, laying the groundwork for

"biophilic design."

1995

Franklin Becker and Fritz Steele map the "high-performance workscape" in Workplace by Design, linking space planning to productive collaboration and business profitability.

Pivot because you have to. Look ahead because it makes good sense.

The WorkScape is a necessary response to pandemics like COVID-19. It also happens to be the ideal union of workplace strategy, learning, and biophilic design.

93%

Proportion of the day most people spend indoors. 3

Proportion of organization operating costs invested in design, construction, and maintenance.4

"Outdoors is what will save us."

—Dr. Julia Marcus, Infectious Disease Epidemiologist, Harvard Medical School5

10

65%

Proportion of people who say their job is the biggest barrier to spending time outdoors.6

10%

"The 'nature' that makes such a strong difference need not be extensive or awesome."

—Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, authors of The Experience of Nature7