20 minute read
Biophilia and Nature Relationship
This is the second article in a series of three entitled The Foundations of Biophilia. To read the series overview and first article, Nature Immersion, see the Spring 2019 issue of Love + Regeneration.
Biophilia and Nature Relationship
When reviewing the literature on Biophilic Design, I have often found it interesting that having a relationship with other species is missing from the conversation. Nature is always described in the abstract as something to be exposed to, but no attention has been paid to a much deeper level of contact between ourselves and other forms of life in this emerging field. I believe this to be a huge oversight and one that discounts the most direct benefits that can occur from a focus on biophilia in design. It is my belief that one of the most important aspects of biophilic design is allowing for the cultivation of relationship with nature—a very critical type of interaction with the natural world, distinct from nature immersion explored previously in this series.
I believe we have an inherent need to live in relationship with life in order to be holistically—psychologically and physically—well. Exposure to nature and various life forms has its own positive effect as discussed in the last article, but here I’m delving deeper, exploring what it means to develop a deeply felt relationship, sense, and knowledge of a particular entity within a particular place. People undoubtedly have close relationships with animals; I believe they can also have relationships with specific plants, insects, and other life forms, ultimately forming familial or friendship bonds that elicit emotional responses that are positive and knowable. Over time, this kind of highly personal and individual connection can also extend to a specific place—one’s home or another location that holds special emotional and relational significance and personal meaning. This article explores two important areas of inquiry: relationship with specific life forms and relationships with specific places. It goes on to examine their benefits and ultimately looks at the richness of opportunities to meaningfully allow for and reference nature relationships in biophilic design.
Researchers have distilled what I’m talking about when I say “nature relationship” into two distinct categories; nature connectedness describes the extent to which individuals include nature as part of their identity 1 , and place attachment describes the personto-place bonds that evolve through emotional connection, meaning, and understanding of a specific place. 2 I believe deep nature connectedness can be attributed to a sum of specific personal relationships with life that form a concentration of experiences unique to the place we associate as being home.
Life Relationship: A Guide by Fox
Let’s begin to unpack this idea as we look at what it means to be in relationship to another form of life. To this we turn to my favorite author—Antione de Saint-Exupery. His classic work The Little Prince describes unique relationships between the Prince and a fox as well as between the Prince and a rose. In the parable, the wise fox explains what it means to have relationship with another species, which he describes as taming.
The Little Prince, who has no concept of what it means to tame a thing, is tutored by Fox, who desperately craves a sense of belonging. What develops is a deep bond. Without taming, Fox says, the Prince will be “nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys.” And Fox to the Prince will be “nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.” The taming of Fox by the Prince results in them becoming unique for each other. The Prince realizes that his love of Rose is similarly unique and special to him. He is initially dismayed at his discovery of a bed of thousands of roses, each one just like his rose that he thought so unique. But aided by Fox’s insight, he tells these roses, “To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you… But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered… because it is she that I have listened to when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.” Fox poetically sums up the effects of nature relationship to the Little Prince in three statements: “what is essential is invisible to the eye”; “it is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important”; and “you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
The Little Prince leaves this interaction with Fox changed— wiser and with a lived understanding of what relationship means. This is significant and defines the heart of this biophilic principle. We need to develop relationships with specific, individual life forms to get the most benefit from their presence—not merely trees, generically considered in their myriad forms and locations, but a specific tree that is special to us for a specific reason. Not just animals or birds en masse, but the ones we encounter over and over, whose personalities and habits we learn with time and exposure, the ones we find ourselves naming and tracking and with whom we might even interact. what is essential is invisible to the eye”; “it is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important”; and “you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
Human-Animal Relationships
Human-animal bonds are some of the strongest relationships we develop— including those with people. In fact, many go as far as to claim that the relationships of primary importance and greatest strength in their lives are those with their pets. The strength of these bonds is evidenced by the fact that over 50% of US households have pets. 3 Most pet owners cite companionship (i.e. relationship) as their reason for owning a pet, and 80+% of these pet owners credit their furry friends (yes, research shows this to be especially true of dogs and cats) as bringing significant, beneficial impacts to their lives. 4 Relationships with dogs specifically, while they’re not a replacement for social interaction with a human community, provide a demonstrable decrease in feelings of loneliness for people who have supportive human communities but live alone. 5 For the elderly, caring for pets provides a sense of purpose, and the mutual dependency provides benefits in terms of physical, mental, and emotional health. 6 Surely, given this importance it deserves focus in biophilic design!
The power of human-animal interaction (HAI) in therapeutic settings lies in the clear feedback animals provide.
The power of human-animal interaction (HAI) in therapeutic settings lies in the clear feedback animals provide. Horses in particular provide unconditioned responses to humans to powerful results; since they are not apex species and rely on their keen ability to assess their safety in every situation and interaction, horses clearly mirror the emotional states with which they are approached. That feedback can concretize concepts that are difficult to identify in talk therapy alone. 7 However, like dogs, they have been domesticated, and require the care of humans for their survival. Gaining the trust of a horse requires one to bodily communicate trustworthiness, and from there the relationship grows, to great effect. While simple activities like grooming and feeding horses reduce quantifiable measures of stress, including blood pressure and heart rate, the implications of a sustained relationship with a horse are more far-reaching, and, depending on the aims of the therapy, might include improved social behavior, reduced fear and anxiety (both selfreported and measured), improved physical health (both self-reported and measured), improved pain management, reduced aggression, and improved learning. 8 A person might get some benefit from horses on an abstract level—through pictures or seeing random horses on farms—but another level of connection with deeper benefits is possible with the introduction of relationship with a specific horse. And of course, this can be extrapolated to many (if not all) animals.
The perhaps surprising statistics that annual attendance at zoos surpasses all professional sporting event attendance and that more than 90% of the characters in children’s counting and language acquisition books are animals, are further testament to the deeply felt connection humans have with animals. 9 In many cases people return again and again to visit specific animals in zoos that have been named (a key component of relationship) and who can provide a reoccurring and reassuring presence.
Relationships with Other Life Forms
As a child growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, I spent a great deal of time outdoors and loved that time in nature. And while I loved all of the natural world on a general level, I soon developed specific relationships with organisms that I’d visit and learn from again and again. For example, in my yard was one particular tree that I loved to climb and hang out in. It was my tree. The time I spent climbing it and sitting in it through multiple seasons, year in and year out made me aware of everything about it: the touch of the bark in specific places, its wounds, and the unique features it possessed. Even though the entire block had the same species of tree, it made me happy to climb my tree, and, like the Little Prince, I had tamed it. Even small species close to my home became part of my relationship circle; there was a colony of ants that had numerous ant hills on my patio. For whatever reason, I began to study them—drawing maps of their colony locations and watching them harvest food and adapt to the various seasons. For a period of several years I watched them and witnessed their changes. I sometimes provided them with food that they seemed to like. When an adjacent colony attacked them one summer, I swiftly came to their defense and saved them from destruction! Who had tamed who? Though I didn’t pursue a career as an entomologist as a result, thanks to this specific relationship, I appreciate even the smallest of life forms more. I can also now recognize that the attention I paid this ant colony as a child likely had profound effects on my mental health, ability to focus, calm myself, and exercise empathy. 10
Nature relationship isn’t restricted to life forms with heartbeats, either. Relationships built with trees and plants have an impact all their own. Closely watching a tree as I did, one outside your office or kitchen window for example—noting how it changes through the seasons, pushes out new leaves or needles or blooms in the spring, fruits in the summer, produces cones, sap, and pollen, attracts birds or pollinators, drops its leaves in the fall, and withstands environmental traumas throughout the year—begins to bond you to that specific tree, you begin to care for it and are drawn into its subtle cycles of life. It becomes your tree. You might even assign a name to it. And undoubtedly, with the accumulation of time, you begin to find meaning in the ways the cycles of the tree in observation correlate to your life.
In the introduction of Nalini Nadkarni’s Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connection to Trees, she writes, “We have a clear affinity—the word comes from the Latin affinis, indicating relation by marriage—for trees. Although we are not of the same family, trees and humans are in a sense married into each other’s families, with all the challenges, responsibilities, and benefits that come from being so linked.” 11 The reciprocal nature of human-tree relationships is foundational to the existence of each: trees create the oxygen we breathe; we create the carbon dioxide trees “breathe.” Nadkarni’s book chronicles the ways in which human needs are met by trees, using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a loose framework, comprehensively illustrating the intimately intertwined nature of our two life forms.
Gardening provides a more hands-on approach to relationship building with nature than careful observation alone. Tending and stewarding plants throughout a growing season not only ultimately provides you with food or flowers, but also with a close tie to cycles of life, and a pride in the mutually beneficial relationship you can build with a life form so superficially unlike your own. A meta-analysis of 22 studies researching the effects of gardening on human health found positive outcomes ranging from reductions in depression, anxiety, and body mass index to increases in life satisfaction, quality of life, and sense of community in research subjects who gardened recreationally or as part of a therapeutic course of treatment. 12 Gardening qualifies as a means of nature connectedness— finding its way to the identities of its subscribers—and requires the same formulaic components as strong place attachment. There is little surprise then that gardening’s benefits also span the human wellness spectrum.
Place Relationships
When we zoom out on our relationships with specific plant or animal species and begin to put these relationships in the context of the ecosystems in which they and we are held, we see the emergence of place as a factor of our identities. This is perhaps due to the quantity of specific species relationships we have in that place as well as overall familiarity and an accumulation of time spent there. As nature-connectedness describes an individual’s expanded definition of self to include nature, place attachment is an expansion of one’s identity to include the place they love and in which they live. Nature connectedness says, “I am part of this specific nature, like the trees, rocks, and water of this place.” Place attachment says, “I—along with the trees, rocks, and water—am of and defined by this specific place.” “I am a northern Canadian,” “I am a Midwesterner,” or “I am from Bayou Country,” are all different ways of saying that the place you are from is inextricably linked with who you are. That the unique set of circumstances in which you live—the climatological conditions, array of flora and fauna, and the physical features of the land—have shaped you as a person.
Like nature connectedness, a strong sense of place attachment requires time spent with the place in question, ideally through many seasons and completed cycles. Place attachment is an intimate familiarity that grows over time, especially from our formative years and as contextual backdrop for all our relationships and experiences. In a qualitative study conducted by the Forest Service in partnership with the University of Colorado in Rocky Mountain National Park, researchers found a strong correlation between place attachment as observed in life-long visitors to the national park and the reported habit of self-reflection and introspection. 13 The researchers report a blurring of the lines between self-identity and place-identity in their research subjects. They write, “Interpersonal relationships, place relationships, and the benefits to society realized from wildland recreation and leisure can become intertwined. For some visitors, these relations and benefits became increasingly difficult to isolate as bonds with the place developed and strengthened into unified and committed relationships.” 14
While the upside of place attachment and nature connectedness for humans is in all the demonstrated positive wellness implications of achieving this aspirational level of self-actualization, as in any good relationship, there is reciprocity. In the concluding chapter of Between Earth and Sky, Nadkarni writes, “Perhaps it is a professional mistake to admit to such intense feeling for my subject of study… By studying the ecology of trees, and perhaps even more by exploring their myriad links to the cultural, aesthetic, and social aspects of humans, I have become more mindful of my responsibilities to them, whether in my family, in my community, or on my planet.” Her sentiments succinctly sum up the findings of research—that the resulting good for society of its members nurturing relationships with nature is that these same members are then compelled to provide protection and care to the places and life forms with which they are in relationship. 15 In light of these findings, the role of nature relationships becomes critical to larger concepts of regeneration and a living future.
And the result is love. The responsibility of care for the non-human life with which we are in relationship is not only required as reciprocity for all the benefits the relationships bring, but is in fact the mechanism by which we receive those benefits. The loss of global biodiversity saddens us so deeply because of our longing for and love of relationship with nature. The depth to which we care about all of life is in proportion to the depth we’ve cared about the life we are exposed to on a daily basis. Watching news segments and documentaries on species and ecosystem decline elicits visceral responses because we understand at some level how closely connected we are to these life forms and how diminished future generations’ potential for nature relationships become with each passing year. This longing to interact with and benefit from the presence of other life forms goes on to explain why people keep fish (even though they typically don’t do all that much), fill their homes and offices with plants, and visit the same botanical gardens and parks again and again throughout the year. A sophisticated understanding of this human inclination should inform biophilic design, with a specific and important focus on how we can create conditions conducive for relationship.
Nature Relationship in Design
As research on these subjects continues, attention should be paid to understanding who most needs and benefits from nature relationships. My hypothesis is that for the general population, the need for nature relationships is at its highest in early, formative years, then decreases in middle life and begins to climb again in old age. This general rule changes quite a bit as we focus on specific individuals of course, but probably holds true as an average.
For instance, I believe an unstable early childhood would increase one’s lifelong need for nature relationships; the arc of that need would mimic the arc needed in the general population just at a higher general level.
In periods of acute aloneness, no matter where they might occur in life, the need for nature relationship would spike. But if that same person develops strong familial and friendship bonds with others, the need would decrease proportionately, and at some point, for someone particularly rich in human connection, the need for nature relationships may be less than that of the general population.
Finally, I believe those suffering from extreme trauma (such as a veteran returning from war or someone who lived through an intense personal tragedy), are most in need of nature relationships. These are the people for whom therapy-facilitated nature relationships are most necessary and impactful. I believe trauma elevates one’s need for nature relationships throughout life.
How do we bring this understanding of the nature relationship component of biophilia into our designs? How can our buildings support and remind us of these relationships so significant in their implications to our wellbeing as individuals and collectively as a society? As discussed in “Opportunities for Nature Immersion,” increasing the amount of time people spend in nature via designs that connect the occupant with the outdoors at every opportunity is a first step. As we’ve seen, time is one of the ingredients for nature relationship, and each minute spent immersed in nature is a factor in the equation that results in the kinds of connections I’m writing about, with all their associated benefits.
The biophilic designer should also remember that the responsibility of care is not a burden, but a means of connection. This ethos can inform natural design elements that require the engaged participation of the occupant. By way of example, a green wall that needs watering, and in return provides a means of air purification, beautification, and connection makes clear the value of relationship. Plants that don’t belong to anyone are less impactful than plants that require individual attention and perceived ownership. Nature relationship requires a recurring and repeated relationship of interaction and transaction.
Integrating the needs of pets in the design of spaces demonstrates an understanding of this concept. Relationships with pets are some of the first and most formative nature relationships children experience, teaching them responsibility, empathy, and kindness. Fish tanks provide a calming, biophilic effect in spaces, even to the casual visitor. And for whomever cares for the life it contains, it provides a means of nature relationship, gifting the caregiver with a tangible connection both to specific living creatures and the places from which they come. It follows that designs that accommodate and integrate the needs of our pets support a critical opportunity for nature relationship.
Even building systems can serve as touchpoints to a relationship with place, drawing building occupants into a quality of attention to the natural rhythms of the place that affect a given system, like HVAC or rain catchment systems that both directly respond to the conditions of place and, depending on those conditions require the occupants’ involvement and thereby their own connection to the conditions of place.
The Beauty + Spirit imperative of the Living Building Challenge’s Beauty Petal— though “beauty” is intentionally loosely defined in the petal overview—requires “the project must meaningfully integrate public art and contain design features intended solely for human delight and the celebration of culture, spirit, and place appropriate to the project’s function.” 16 The requirement’s vagueness is purposeful and works to engage the creativity of the client and the design team in the way they choose to meet it—in a way that can be personalized in other words. Perhaps this is accomplished with materials that come from the site, and therefore provide a tangible and delightful connection to place while providing some other practical use to the design.
At Heron Hall, the trunk of a Western Red Cedar works as a column supporting a green roof.
Photo/Dan Banko
The biophilic designer’s attention is needed outside as well as in. At my personal home, Heron Hall, we chose to use the trunk of a local tree as a supporting pillar of a porch that opens onto a private garden off the master bedroom. The tree provides a practical service: it holds up a roof. But an architectural pillar would have done the job as well. The choice to use this tree trunk was biophilically driven; the local Western Red cedar that supports the ceiling of this small porch reminds me of the ecological place in which I live and of which I am part. The roof is planted, and in the growing season the effect is of a green canopy—a whimsical touch that further references our relationship to the cyclical nature of life. This tree is just one component of a design that took many opportunities to subtly remind my family and me of our relationship to our place in its embellishments and materials.
On the other side of the house, there is a small ash tree where I planned my porch that I didn’t have the heart to tear down even though it was technically “in the way.” At the last minute I changed the porch design, incorporating a notch in order to keep the tree, carefully bridging over its roots so they weren’t damaged. The ash is now right up against the porch where I let my dogs out, so every time that task falls to me, I can touch the tree and the moss on it and I imagine this tree guarding the west side of the house. Our design planned for a literal relationship with this specific tree and we all now have that sense—that this tree is an intrinsic part of our family and home, along with the dogs, chickens, bird, and lizard.
Designing opportunities for caring for outdoor or rooftop garden spaces provides strong nature relationship opportunities, as seen. If specific species of plants and trees hold importance for the people for whom a space is being designed, incorporating and highlighting those species in landscape design becomes especially impactful. Providing for these relationships in urban environments is especially critical to biophilic design. In particular, children in dense urban environments often miss the opportunity to spend time around trees and certainly lack time enough to develop the kind of relationship with one that my childhood afforded me. A courtyard or pocket garden space in which a tree is prominently featured— the same species that the building’s occupant was surrounded by in their youth, or is surrounded by when they make it to a nearby forest—will serve as a strong nature-connection and reference. To the extent that it is applicable, designing opportunities for relationship with animals likewise supports nature relationship. This might vary in application from a koi pond in a carefully curated garden scape to landscaping with native vegetation for the fauna it attracts.
The possibilities for meaningfully referencing and making space for nature relationships in design will differ from person to person, company to company, and family to family, so a checklist approach on the part of the designer will be ineffectual. How then does the biophilic designer proceed? As we saw in the last article, design deepens in its biophilic impact the more opportunities it seizes to immerse its occupant in nature. Though the distinction is subtle, the same is true of nature relationship and design; the more a design seizes opportunities to connect its occupants to their place and remind them of their varied and unique relationships with nature, the bigger its impact. The more opportunities provided to have occupants relate to and develop a specific relationship with a specific organism even better.
This requires a dialogue between designer and client, carefully curated on the part of the former to draw out the richest possibilities. “Tell me about a place you love,” is one avenue into this conversation. Drawing clients out on their nature relationships, particularly with pets or other animals, will illuminate ample opportunities for a design that supports those relationships. The keen designer will draw upon these inspirations in their design, repeating, underlining, and highlighting, in as many ways as possible, these elements in the creation of spaces that allow nature relationship to flourish.
END NOTES
1 Nature Connectedness.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_connectedness. 2 Shumaker, S.A., and R.B. Taylor. “Toward a Clarification of People-Place Relationships: A Model of Attachment to Place,” Environmental Psychology: Directions and Perspectives. New York, 1983: Praeger. 3 Institute of Medicine (US). “Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment: A New Vision of Environmental Health for the 21st Century.” Human Health and the Natural Environment, 2001, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK99584/ 4 Osten, Caren. “How Dogs Drive Emotional Well-being.” Psychology Today, April 18, 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-right-balance/201804/how-dogs-drive-emotional-well-being 5 Osten, Caren. “How Dogs Drive Emotional Well-being.” Psychology Today, April 18, 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-right-balance/201804/how-dogs-drive-emotional-well-being 6 Pychyl, Timothy A, Ph.D. “Living Alone? Can Canine Companionship Help Beat Loneliness?” Psychology Today, February 5, 2010, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dont-delay/201002/living-alone-can-canine-companionship-help-beat-loneliness 7 Scharff, Constance, Ph.D. “The Therapeutic Value of Horses.” Psychology Today, August 23, 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ending-addiction-good/201708/the-therapeutic-value-horses 8 Beetz, Andrea et al. “Psychosocial and psychophysiological effects of human-animal interactions: the possible role of oxytocin.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 3 234. 9 Jul. 2012, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00234 9 Institute of Medicine (US). Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment: A New Vision of Environmental Health for the 21st Century. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001. 3, Human Health and the Natural Environment. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/ NBK99584/ 10 Beetz, Andrea et al. “Psychosocial and psychophysiological effects of human-animal interactions: the possible role of oxytocin.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 3 234. 9 Jul. 2012, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00234 11 Nadkarni, Nalini, “Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connection to Trees. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2008. 12 Masashi Soga, Kevin J. Gaston, Yuichi Yamaura. “Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis.” NCBI, available online 14 November 2016, https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5153451/. 13 Brooks, Jeffry, G. Wallace, D. Williams. “Place as Relationship Partner: An Alternative Metaphor for Understanding the Quality of Visitor Experience in Backcountry Setting.” US Forest Service, February 2006, https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2006_brooks_j003.pdf. 14 Brooks, Jeffry, G. Wallace, D. Williams. “Place as Relationship Partner: An Alternative Metaphor for Understanding the Quality of Visitor Experience in Backcountry Setting.” US Forest Service, February 2006, https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2006_brooks_j003.pdf. 15 “Green Cities: Good Health.” Urban Forestry Department, University of Washington, August 16, 2018, https://depts.washington.edu/hhwb/Thm_Place. html. 16 “The Beauty Petal.” International Living Future Institute, 2019, https://living-future.org/lbc/beauty-petal/.
JASON F. McLENNAN is a highly sought out designer, consultant and thought leader. Prior to founding McLennan Design, Jason authored the Living Building Challenge – the most stringent and progressive green building program in existence, and founded the International Living Future Institute. He is the author of six books on Sustainability and Design including the Philosophy of Sustainable Design, “the bible for green building.”
