A Quarterly Journal from McLennan Design. Redesigning our relationship to the natural world. Volume 1 , Issue 2
ARCHITECTURE How can design respond to our innate connection to nature? Read.
INQUIRY Can we become indigenous to a place? Read.
A CLOSER LOOK What does a rapidly disappearing ecosystem have to teach us about resilience? Read.
“We thwart despair by doing what we can, when we can, wherever we can, to provide models for change.�
This issue marks the end of summer in my mind,
my kids are back in school, the US Open Tennis tournament is over (my favorite sport) and the light and weather are changing rapidly. In my garden, the last of the summer crops have come due and only pumpkins and a few straggling vegetables are left to harvest. In the PNW it is starting to rain occasionally alerting us to the long cloudy days ahead. The summer has been a tough one in many respects – we continue to try to stand tall against the backdrop of dismal news from the national political leadership demonstrating a lack of decorum, compassion and even basic decency and morality. Leadership has failed in a time where we desperately need to think and act differently. This summer those of us in the Seattle area lost two weeks of our scant precious sunshine when the region was overcome by the smoke of massive forest fires from every direction. Even though the forecast each day called for sunny and clear skies, our air quality was worse than Beijing’s, the smoke so thick at times you couldn’t see down the street. We all worry that this is the new normal thanks to climate change. We thwart despair by doing what we can, when we can, wherever we can, to provide models for change. Our work on leading edge ideas on multiple fronts and in many different markets continues, demonstrating better ways to design, build and live. In this issue we shine a light on the emerging field of biophilia through a sequence of pieces. We share the artwork of our amazingly talented Director of Creative Media Josh Fisher. Josh’s rendering work is then highlighted in a brief video piece on the pocket neighborhood we’ve designed for a small community in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Our news section is filled with the highlights from our summer, an important chronicle of the good happening in our industry. And we explore coral reefs, the idea of what it means to be or become indigenous to a place, and the life and work of E. O. Wilson. As we transition into fall, we give thanks to the start of the beautiful rainy season. My hope is that this publication invigorates the soul in much the same way that rain after a long, hot, dry summer invigorates the earth.
with warmth,
JASON F. McLENNAN CEO, McLennan Design
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
JASON F. MCLENNAN
EDITORIAL TEAM
research and editorial content - KRISTINA AVRAMOVIC OLDANI graphic design - KRISTINA AVRAMOVIC OLDANI + ALBERT TRESKIN videography - JOSHUA FISHER administrative support - BONNIE TABB
CONTRIBUTORS
JUAN ROVALO, JULIA DRACHMAN, PHAEDRA SVEC, JOSH FISHER, ROBIN WALL KIMMERER
SOCIAL MEDIA
October 2018, Issue 2 Love + Regeneration is a quarterly publication of McLennan Design, LLC. Copyright 2018 by McLennan Design, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Content may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission and is intended for informational 4
purposes only.
NAVIGATE
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ASPIRE
Whose examples have we aspired to in our work toward a regenerative world? An appreciation for E. O. Wilson
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DESIGN
How does our design work push perceived limits within the industry and provide models for change? An In-Depth Look at Biophilia Through Three Pieces
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CELEBRATE Whose personalities comprise the MD team? How do our team members bring their unique passions to their work? Artwork by our Director of Creative Media, Josh Fisher
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EDIFY
What impacts does McLennan Design’s work have in the world? What’s next for our firm? Exciting News from McLennan Design and Our Partners
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36 ELEVATE
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What role does language play in regeneration? How does the work of poets and writers point the way to a living future? An Essay by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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VISUALIZE
How can simple visuals enhance our understanding of conceptual designs and aid us in sharing our vision? Designing the Antioch Pocket Neighborhood
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EMULATE
Who are our non-human teachers and what can we learn from the way they exist in the world? An Investigation of Coral Reefs 5
E. O. Wilson: Nature Holds the Key
CC 2.5 Jim Harrison
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Though first described by Aristotle and (much) later named by psychologist Erich Fromm, E. O. Wilson’s 1984 book Biophilia served to fully describe, substantiate and disseminate the idea that humans have an innate biologically-based affinity for other living things. In 1993, E. O. Wilson coauthored The Biophilia Hypothesis with Stephen R. Kellert and Lynn Margulis, further developing a theory illuminating the role of biophilia in human evolutionary psychology. Wilson’s impassioned appeals for preserving biodiversity are woven through an illustrious career marked by a fortyyear tenure as Harvard faculty (where Wilson still holds the position of Professor Emeritus) and the publication
WRITTEN BY EDITORIAL STAFF IN CONSULTATION WITH JUAN ROVALO OF BIOHABITATS
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of over thirty books with his 1979 work On Human Nature garnering a Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. In his work, Wilson masterfully draws from a wide variety of scientific and cultural disciplines to paint a vibrant picture of life in all its beauty, genius, diversity and interconnectivity, weaving scientific understanding with a more existential, deep curiosity of what it means to be human. His work is colored by his infectious love of even the most minute life forms and provides a road map for the future that elegantly and compellingly appeals for the preservation of as much biodiversity as possible. In this issue, we take a close look at the subject of biophilia in a series of pieces, tracing the idea from concept to application. Our respects and gratitude to E. O. Wilson for his foundational and immense contributions and dedication to the field.
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction. 7
biophilic design: a new scale emerges
BY JASO N F. MCLE NNA N + JULI A DRAC HMA N
- of this we are sure. We are all familiar with the innately restorative effects of a deep breath of fresh air. We bring fragrant bouquets into our homes, hoping to waft the scents of nature into our sterile spaces. We walk out into the world, jump into lakes and streams, and plant herbs in our backyards. And until recently, we had little but our intuition to back this up, confirming how good it feels to interact with the natural world as part of our natural heritage.
Our bodies crave nature
The last few years have shown a rise in scientific and architectural interest in our relationship with nature, a topic known as biophilia. Edward O. Wilson coined the term “biophilia” in his 1984 book of the same name. He described it as, “the innate tendency to focus on life and life-like processes.”1 The bottom line is clear: we are meant to engage with the natural world, for the health and benefit of our bodies, our minds, and our communities. We’ve known for some time that a lack of access to natural ecosystems is an impoverishment for humankind, and we are finally beginning to produce hard data to prove it. Access to nature – along with clean air and water – must be recognized as a basic human right. Stephen Kellert, a friend and colleague, was a pioneer of biophilia and wrote the 1993 book The Biophilia Hypothesis. In this critical text, he names a “human dependence on nature that extends far beyond the simple issues of material and physical sustenance to encompass as well the human craving for aesthetic,
biophilia: the innate tendency to focus on life and life-like processes.
At left and right: We’ve known for some time that lack of access to natural ecosystems is an impoverishment for humankind, and we are finally beginning to produce hard data to prove it.
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intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual meaning and satisfaction.”2 Kellert wrote, “This daring assertion reaches beyond the poetic and philosophical articulation of nature’s capacity to inspire and morally inform to a scientific claim of a human need, fired in the crucible of evolutionary development, for deep and intimate association with the natural environment, particularly its living biota.” With his recent passing, we revisit his work and add some new thinking to the emergent field of biophilic design. The Initial Rubric for Biophilic Design – A Good Starting Point
Our society needs to radically improve and deepen our daily interactions with the world outside of our walls precisely because we are now so separated from it.
When I wrote and published the Living Building Challenge in 2006, it was the first green building program in the world to include Biophilia as a dedicated topic. The field was still quite young and barely defined beyond a general thesis. We included biophilia for two reasons: to elevate the level of discussion among practitioners, and to use the standard as a way to help advance the topic. We knew that getting designers to think intentionally about our relationship with nature was a critical first step and that we could use LBC to shine a light on critical issues underappreciated within the green building world. We did this also with the introduction of Equity and Beauty as required topics for the first time into the green building certification world – elevating those critical subjects along with the more readily measurable topics like energy and water. Our initial biophilia requirements put forth Kellert’s original design principles and encouraged an
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awareness of our own connections to life and “life-like processes” through design. The parameters were simple and loosely defined – the topic was so new and we wanted to get people thinking and learning collaboratively with our project teams. The industry’s understanding of biophilia has evolved significantly since: our decision to include biophilia as a topic was timely. However, there has always been a degree of confusion surrounding the implementation of biophilic design into architecture. Though more and more project teams began to discuss the topic of Biophilia and some project teams did begin to break new ground on nature integration into the built environment, all too often conversations rarely broke through a surface-level understanding. People worked to meet the letter of the standard and no further. Or jumped to immature conclusions, believing that they could simply decorate their way into Biophilia, shrubbing up their buildings by practicing business as usual and then throwing in a small living wall in their lobby and some patterns on their walls and believing it to be sufficient. These short cut ideas – though well intentioned and perhaps better than no focus on the subject – skipped over the underlying philosophy: that our society needs to radically improve and deepen our daily interactions with the world outside of our walls precisely because we are now so separated from it. A veneer of nature alone is wholly inadequate. The more recent versions of the LBC standard (3.0 and 3.1) changed the approach and emphasized the need for the teams to engage more deeply with Biophilia. The hope was that a greater interdisciplinary focus on the subject would help mature the biophlic designs and elevate the nature/human connection more authentically. The jury is still out. Biophilic Design Versus Biophilia – Why do they Exist? Let’s revisit for a minute why the subject of
Biophilic design is one natural response to Nature Deficit Disorder.
biophilia and the sub-category of biophilic design even exist. Like so many movements, the field of Biophilia is a reaction to a great loss of some kind. The environmental movement was born from a response to the destruction of the environment witnessed by individuals and communities (think Rachel Carson, City Beautiful movement, Earth Day). The social justice movement exists because of rampant inequalities in our societies and a democratic society that still allows for them to be heard. Without injustice no social justice movement would emerge. Biophilic design is the natural response to a rapidly growing lack of connection to the natural world experienced by so many urban dwellers. When we spend most of our time inside sterile and life-impoverished spaces, we find ourselves lacking the enriching, inspirational, and restorative effects of nature in ways we are only just now beginning to understand. The impacts are developmental, cognitive and physical with implications ranging from our ability to heal properly, to proper vitamin D production, to mental health. Biophilia is described as our innate desire to connect with living things. We must distinguish biophilia from biophilic design, which we are
critiquing and engaging with here. Biophilic design is the response from the Architectural and Design communities to the topic of biophilia and the need for more purposeful interventions. One can’t imagine farmers, ranchers and certainly not indigenous people in traditional lifestyles needing to invent a field like biophilic design a couple centuries ago, since they lived with an abundance of nature already. The topic would have seemed laughable to anyone before the industrial revolution. It’s important to recognize that the field only exists now to limit the damage done with our current community and building designs and the degree to which we’ve separated from most life in the last few decades. What most urban citizens are currently experiencing to varying degrees is a phenomenon described by Richard Louv as “Nature Deficit Disorder.” The variation in the magnitude of such a deficit depends on the character and intensity of the urban context. Most people are now so under-stimulated by nature in their urban lives, that we can no longer derive our necessary exposure to the diversity of life required for basic health from our daily routines. As a result, we must
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deliberately and surgically add it back into the rhythm of our lives to restore in some measure a balance that has been lost – or so goes the theory behind the movement. And on top of the understimulation from natural processes and life forms, we are further assaulted with a constant overstimulation from our built, mechanical world that taxes our senses in completely different ways than we are evolutionarily accustomed to. We are growing deaf to our own biological input as we overwhelm our senses with the sights, smells, and sounds of modern life. Humanity is simultaneously understimulated in critical ways and overstimulated in destructive ways. Living in our well-lit, air-conditioned spaces and enjoying the fruits of our comfort, we can delude ourselves into thinking that our move toward sterility and artificiality has been our inevitable trajectory – that we are programmed to fear nature – when actually the opposite is true. We are a species that is drawn to life and flourishes in its presence. We experience this on an individual, anecdotal level every day when we take a deep breath upon stepping outside. I sometimes joke that in one regard smokers are healthier than nonsmokers in that that they take more frequent breaks and step outside more than others. All of us should practice this…while skipping the tobacco. As more and more scientific evidence emerges to back up the hypothesis of Biophilia, we recognize how intuitive the outcomes truly are. None of this is surprising to us when we think back to our ancestors and the fact that we spent most of the last two hundred thousand years immersed in a daily struggle in nature – and only the last couple hundred years now in a form of nature deprivation. We are a species that evolved out in the world for almost all of our lives, and just recently walked inside, washed our hands, and shut the door. We evolved under the stars, out in the rain, under the trees and in the fields. We evolved surrounded by life. Our bodies are wired to connect with other living things to the extent 12
that without them we are truly diminished. Of course, a lot of these things killed us, ate us, and made us sick – such was the cycle of life. But the good and the bad came as a package, something we should have been more sophisticated to realize. As the rate of technological innovation accelerates, so grows our separation from the natural world. Technology has given us greater security, comfort, hygiene, and longevity, but has left us also an intense sensory deprivation whose consequences we are only beginning to appreciate. It stands to reason that we can’t simply apply token nature elements and expect it to overcome the huge shift away from the natural world our lives have taken. And we need to recognize that design alone is not enough – certainly not interior design alone at least. Healthy living requires intense interactions for prolonged periods in actual nature on a regular basis. Or it means bringing nature authentically back into our cities so that we are once again connected to life continuously in the background. What we can do inside buildings with surface application will always be secondary to simply going outside, walking in parks or hiking in the woods surrounded by as much biodiversity as possible. Scientific Evidence is Catching Up with Intuition Writers, planners, and philosophers alike have long posited that there are health and wellness benefits associated with exposure to nature. Frederick Law Olmstead, William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Muir are just some of those early thinkers who espoused their beliefs on the benefits of nature to the human experience. Through conservation efforts, the creation of urban parks, and spiritual and emotional writing, these luminaries set the stage for science to follow. On the topic of mental health, much has been written to support the hypothesis that nature is essential to our wellbeing. Greg
We are a species that evolved out in the world for almost all of our lives, and just recently walked inside, washed our hands, and shut the door. We evolved under the stars, out in the rain, under the trees and in the fields. we evolved surrounded by life.
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Central Park is living proof of the greater power of well-designed, usable, public green space. By providing a huge, natural environment in the middle of New York City, Central Park is a nature hub for all citizens and serves as a pressure relief valve for the intensity of the urban landscape.
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Bratman, a Stanford researcher, showed changes in the brain activity of people before and after walking for 90 minutes in either a large park or on a busy street in downtown Palo Alto. He found decreased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex (where we process depressive thoughts) in those who walked in nature. He concluded that nature “may influence how you allocate your attention and whether or not you focus on negative emotions.”3 Similarly, several psychologists from the Universities of Utah and Kansas studied the effects of nature on our attention spans and problem-solving abilities. In a study of immersion in nature, they found that a 4-day backpacking trip led to a 50% increase in creative problem solving performance in a group of novice hikers. Their research presents a “cognitive advantage to be realized if we
spend time immersed in a natural setting.”4 People around the globe have leapt to incorporate this growing body of evidence into their lifestyles through increased activity in nature. Take for example the growing trend of Forest Therapy – also known as Shinrin-Yoku. Developed in Japan in the 1980s (likely out of necessity given the intense urbanization of Japan), this field has become a staple of preventative health care for the Japanese. Drawing from the same body of wisdom and scientific evidence, Forest Therapy encourages people to spend quiet, contemplative time walking in the woods to improve their mental and physical well-being.5 Putting aside for a moment the fields of psychology and cognitive behavior, there are also many medical studies that present the benefits to physical health of exposure to
nature. One study conducted on a 200-bed suburban Pennsylvania hospital found that post-op patients with views of nature from their windows recovered faster than those who were looking out onto a brick wall. They also had less complicated recoveries and less need for pain medication than those whose views faced the brick wall.6 Another study by researchers in Tokyo showed the increased longevity of elderly citizens who lived closer to public, walkable green spaces. Furthermore, the study found an increase in longevity from those who lived near a space where they could stroll and those who lived near or on tree-lined streets or parks. This study marks an interesting approach to the differentiation between various types of outdoor exposure.7 Despite the seemingly clear trends in countless scientific journals, many researchers struggle to draw a substantiated causal link between the noted health effects and the exposure to nature. The sticking point has been the question of how to quantify the effects of nature. A good example of this dilemma is illustrated in “The Relationship Between Trees and Human Health: Evidence from the Spread of the Emerald Ash Borer.” This study took data from the naturally occurring spread of an invasive forest pest, which was causing a huge loss in tree populations across 15 US states. The study compared mortality rates with the presence of the emerald ash borer on the county level between 1990 and 2007 and found a correlation between loss of trees and an increase in mortality related to cardiovascular and lower respiratory tract illness. However, the study was based on observed data and thus was unable to claim causality.8 In a discussion of this study, researcher Howard Frumkin stated a primary challenge of the field: it is still unclear how to define a dose of nature. He also postulates “even the most rigorous biomedical research results would not tell the whole story… In a world of
specialized researchers and niche journals, it is the rare study that quantifies all the benefits of trees, for human health and well-being, the environment, and the economy.”9 In another study in the February 2012 edition of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, several researchers looked into the question of the health effects of green design on the scale of the city. What they found was that the total area of green space in the city was not the most accurate indicator of a healthy city, in fact the inverse was true – cities with more green space had slightly higher rates of all-cause mortality. There were several factors that could have yielded this result (the selection bias of a greener city for the infirm and elderly, for example), but there was one that seemed far more likely than the rest: the lack of distinction in the study between sprawling, private suburban lawns and high-volume, multi-use public parks. For the purposes of quantifying “greenness,” these were counted as the same.10
A primary challenge of the field remains: it is still unclear how to define a dose of nature.
The outcome of the study is a lesson for scientists, planners, architects, and citizens alike: that the design of our outdoor spaces is as important – if not more so – than the fact of their existence. The study plainly states that, “if we green our cities without attention to the form the green spaces take, and the kinds of contact that residents want to have with their natural environment, there may be no benefit for population health.” Central Park is living proof of the greater power of well-designed, usable, public green space. By providing a huge, natural environment in the middle of New York City, Central Park serves as a nature hub for all citizens. It is host to countless events – cultural, athletic, educational, and social – and provides the city a release from the 15
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Clockwise from upper right: Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond provided him the immersion in nature that inspired his lifelong writing about the benefits of simple living and exposure to the natural world. In stark contrast to Thoreau’s cabin, these tower blocks of apartment units have become all too common the world over and effectively block out the natural world entirely. In between these extremes are the familiar American suburban home (which provides a narrowminded view of inclusion of nature through lawns) and an urban brownstone, which may attempt to fix its lack of natural connection with an indoor green wall.
overwhelming stimuli of the urban metropolis. I’ve long posited that Central Park serves as a giant biophilic pressure relief valve, without which the city would fail to balance the intensity of the urban landscape. By comparison, a suburban compound with individual lawns – though possibly greener in area ratios – is essentially a monoculture ecological desert not much better than concrete. Science alone cannot answer all the current questions of this field. There is a demonstrated need for collaboration between many fields – biomedical research, landscape architecture, architecture, medicine, and countless others – in order to build a nuanced and informed rubric. We must work together to grasp a full understanding of the factors at play in the field of biophilic design and how to modify modern life to once again be in balance. There is also a clear need for new methodology to guide designers through the process of integrating biophilic design 16
into their projects. We must pose and answer the questions that continue to crop up. How much biophilia is enough? When and where is it most critical and to whom? Clearly, there is a qualitative difference between different kinds of exposure to nature, which affect us in different ways. It’s not as simple as “greener is better.” It is vital that we make distinctions between the needs of an office worker and those of a prisoner; between the types of natural access afforded to people living in Scandinavia and in the Caribbean; between the slightly positive effect of having an African Violet in the corner of the office and the transformative power of a lifestyle shift that pushes us out into nature on a regular basis. The Exponential Scale of Biophilic Design: A New Hypothesis In an effort to add to the growing field of investigation in biophilic design, I’ve put up some methodological scaffolding upon which to build future research – let’s call it the “Scale of Biophilic Design.”
The Scale of Biophilic Design
I propose that the needs for biophilic design change in quality and quantity along a spectrum that is far from linear. This nonlinearity needs to be clearly recognized by the design community practicing the young field of biophilic design. As our habitats move farther away from the natural world, our need for immersive nature increases exponentially so that the needs for natural immersion at each level is multiple times more critical than at the preceding one. This Scale measures the effectiveness of typical biophilic design responses against the benefit of being out in nature. As the need increases, the degree of natural immersion needed gets higher. There is a gradient of quality of nature wherein a lawn is better than no lawn, but a forest or healthy meadow is better than a lawn. The quality is related to the abundance of life present – the diversity and the ecological health – as well as the accessibility.
Until now, people have often treated biophilic design in a linear way – assuming that the introduction of a few plants makes up for a complete loss of nature (like a green bandaid). These approaches are simplistic and far too inconsequential a response. They may not provide much more value than a placebo if not also part of an overall lifestyle that brings us back outside an in touch with a diversity of life. The diagram above proposes a non-linear approach to the field of Biophilia. Along the x-axis is a selection of human dwelling typologies ranging from immersion in nature to total sensory deprivation. As one moves along the scale toward exposure to nature, the need for biophilic design intervention gets smaller. For example, someone who spends much of their life on a farm is not in terrible need of intentional, ameliorative biophilic interventions. However, if that person were to move to a suburban house, their need for
Above: The Scale of Biophilia posits a new theory of a non-linear growth in the need for biophilic intervention at a range of architectural typologies. ©McLENNANDESIGN
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biophilic design would grow. The scale helps to divide typologies into categories of need. According to this methodology, there is a “sweet spot” where biophilic design can make a huge difference to the user’s lifestyle and wellness. This sweet spot is such because biophilic intervention is both possible and needed – there is an opportunity to leverage architecture to enhance biophilic experiences. As architects, spending our time enhancing the nature connection within these typologies could be the most effective use of biophilic design. As you move to the right on the scale, you enter environments that are nature impoverished and biophilic design moves will always be inadequate. There is a reason that seamen spend limited amounts of time on submarines and must balance that time of sensory deprivation with time spent in a more natural environment. In this case, the time dimension becomes very important. Few people spend all of their time in any one of these typologies and as such, we must think holistically about our approach to people’s lifestyles beyond the one structure in question. For example, someone who lives in an urban apartment but goes out every weekend to a cabin in the woods will be exposed to far more biophilic surroundings than someone who lives in an urban apartment and spends their weekends at a casino. Biophilic design then is not a cure but part of an overall treatment.
In sensitive demographics, the need for concentrated interaction with the natural world has been shown time and again to be vitally important. 18
Any convention that aims to measure relative need for biophilia must address variables that have long been ill-defined: the qualitative difference between a paved courtyard and a park, the amount of time that people spend interacting with nature, and the amount of time that people spend inside or in nonbiophillic environments. These variables have long eluded scientific study and will be critical in guiding the conversations to come. Having a clear, qualitative biophilic scale could also begin to help answer the question of how to suggest, require, discuss, and implement biophilic design in architecture and planning projects. By quantifying the needs of a given typology on the Scale of Biophilic Design relative to other projects, designers could target their biophilic design responses accordingly. The implications of such a nuanced approach are profound. For those who work in environments where there is an extreme nature deprivation, more frequent exposure to the natural world could be of vital importance and suggest that both design and policy are required for substantial interventions. People who work in prisons, on submarines, or in internally focused structures should have significant corresponding time out in nature for their long-term health and well-being. Less extreme but still critical is understanding what is required for people that spend significant amounts of time in tall buildings – away from the ground plane and separated from landscape by distance and height. As diagram to the right shows, there is a decreased connection to the natural world as you move farther from the ground. While beautiful views of nature from a high rise certainly helps, there is a point where even these views become abstracted if the distance is simply too great. Beyond the separation from the natural world, there is an additional separation from human interaction. I’ve long posited that children especially suffer from living above a certain height off the ground. At 200 feet of distance,
Elevation and the Corresponding Need for Biophilic Design Intervention
we can no longer tell one person’s face from another and at 500 feet, we can barely see the tops of people’s heads. This disassociation with other members of our species creates a disconnect when it makes up the majority of our experience at a young age. The diagrams put forth for the first time in this article are suggestive of scale and impact and should provide a much-needed framework for researchers to test and adjust based on scientific rigor and longitudinal studies on impacts to people. Thoughtful approaches to biophilic design will take into account the particulars of the site and the demographics of users. The biophilic needs of a space will change depending on the age of the users, the amount of time spent inside the space, the seasonal fluctuations, and many more criteria. For example, the very young, the elderly, and the sick are especially sensitive to the effects of natural exposure and most harmed by a lack of exposure to
life. In these sensitive demographics, the need for concentrated interaction with the natural world has been shown time and again to be vitally important. Similarly, those who live in the more extreme latitudes of the world – and therefore spend less time outside – have been found to react positively emotionally and medically when they bring nature more deliberately into their daily lives.
Above: The distance that humans live off the ground has been relatively low for hundreds of thousands of years. What are the effects to our health and psychology of living so far away from the rest of the natural world on the ground? ©McLENNANDESIGN
The best investigation of the biophilic needs of a project is wide-reaching, nuanced, and deep. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to biophilic design, but rather there is a range and a sweet spot that differs depending on conditions. Designers practicing biophilia would be wise to think more deeply about how to design differently. As we begin to understand the variables at play, we can adjust our responses to the context.
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END NOTES 1 Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. 2 Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson, The Biophilia hypothesis (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993). 3 Florence Williams, “This Is Your Brain on Nature,” National Geographic, January 2016, www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/01/ call-to-wild/. 4 Ruth Ann Atchley, David L. Strayer, and Paul Atchley, “Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings,” PLoS ONE 7, no. 12 (December 12, 2012) 5 “Shinrin-Yoku Forest Medicine,” Shinrin-yoku: the Medicine of Being in the Forest, accessed February 11, 2017, http://www.shinrin-yoku. org/shinrin-yoku.html. 6 R. Ulrich, “View through a window may influence recovery from surgery,” Science 224, no. 4647 (1984) 7 T. Takano, K. Nakamura, and M. Watanabe, “Urban residential environments and senior citizens’ longevity in megacity areas: the importance of walkable green spaces,” Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 56, no. 12 (2002) 8 (Geoffrey H. Donovan, PhD et al., “The Relationship Between Trees and Human Health: Evidence from the Spread of the Emerald Ash Borer,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 44, no. 2 (May 2013):.) 9 Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH, “The Evidence of Nature and the Nature of Evidence,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 44, no. 2 (May 2013):. 10Terry Hartig et al., “Green Cities and Health: A Question of Scale?,” Annual Review of Public Health 35 (March 2014):.
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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.”
JULIA DRACHMAN is a designer and storyteller based in Seattle, Washington. Her background in sustainable architecture inspires her work. She currently produces an independent podcast called “Design Can Save the World.”
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incorporating biophilia at the design table BY PHAEDRA SVEC In the Waldorf education tradition, children go through the day in alternating periods of concentration and expansion, as if in a breathing rhythm where there is inhaling and exhaling.1 This biophilic structure is important for many reasons, but primarily because it is needed for children’s wellbeing and wholeness. It also promotes assimilation of knowledge, brain growth and creativity. In the inhaling or breathing-in phase the child directs his attention in a concentrated way to an activity that relates him to himself (solving a challenge, watercolor, knitting, listening to a fable, setting the table etc.). In the exhaling or breathing-out period, the child relates mainly to the surrounding world (free play, free running etc.). For each breathing-in period the child needs a breathing-out period and so a pattern is established in the structure of daily activities. As children grow developmentally, the periods of concentration gradually increase, but never is there a breathing in without a breathing out. I’d suggest that as adults, and creative people this in-breath and out-breath are still important. How can designers take in all the complexities of a place and a project’s pieces without an equal focus on the simplicity and the whole? How can we as designers maintain the rigor of design without the out-breath that replenishes our creativity stores. Practicing biophilia can generate a structure of breathing in and breathing out that is itself an expression of our innate inclination to affiliate with natural human rhythms.
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Biophilia is an inherent human inclination to affiliate with nature that even in the modern world continues to be critical to people’s physical and mental health and well-being. - Stephen R. Kellert + Elizabeth F. Calebrese
In Breath... When I begin a biophilia workshop, I usually start it with a quiet visualization exercise that helps define biophilia, not just in words, but so that participants can develop a visceral understanding of the concept. I invite them to close their eyes, take a breath, and recall a natural place that was readily visited by them during their childhood or at a formative time in their life. I ask them to remember it with each of their senses in turn until they can almost smell the water or reach out and touch the ground. I ask them what the place meant to them, what they went there to do or process and how they interacted with the elements. I ask them many questions and try to evoke their natural responses to the living things in that place.
opposite page: At the beginning of a biophilia workshop, participants are invited to close their eyes, take a breath, and recall a natural place that was readily visited by them during their childhood.
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After a pause, I ask if that place still exists today as it did in their memory. For many, those places have been completely transformed. If they are still there, I ask participants how it would feel if someone had plans to develop their place, paving it or modifying it unrecognizably. I ask them to notice where in their bodies they feel that sensation. For me, it is at the base of my throat, I feel a tightness in my vocal chords. I ask them to touch that place on their body. That feeling is biophilia. We love our place. We love it so much, it becomes a physical part of our existence, fundamental to our human experience of life.
When I first relate the requirements of the Biophilic Environment Imperative (of the Living Building Challenge) to a new design team, I usually hear a fair amount of grumbling about the logistics and cost of getting the entire team together in one location for eight solid hours to talk about only one subject - biophilia. At any point in design, but particularly in the beginning, there are many pressing issues that need to be addressed. In some cases, this eight-hour meeting requirement can become a barrier to taking on the Living Building Challenge because the team doesn’t feel they have the luxury of time to dedicate to this imperative. While I know the time pressures in design and construction are ever present and ever condensing, I also feel really discouraged every time an architect expresses this sense of time scarcity from the very beginning of the project. It suggests that we as a profession have accepted these external pressures without a challenge. I hear about and feel this time scarcity every day in my own life as well – it seems real. Yet many design teams also waste time in re-design whenever goals are unclear or team communication misses the mark. I have come to believe that we always have enough of everything we need (time, money, energy etc.) but we often fail to imagine the best use for what we have. When I hear myself saying, “There isn’t enough
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time,” I also hear the voice of one of my mentors in Biomimicry, Dr. Dayna Baumeister, who once commented that a building is a human artifact that will be around in some form for much longer than 100 years. Yet, how is it that design and construction teams do not feel they have the time to consider and work through how our buildings can improve the ecosystem functions of the living systems they occupy?
We must practice being a part of the life that we want our designed places to support.
On any given day, I feel that I do not have time or energy to read or make up a story with my sons, and yet I do it because the penalty for missing the story is missing the childhood. I have even been known to fall asleep while telling a story and they tell me that is when it gets most interesting. Each morning I feel that I do not have time or energy to exercise, then I remind myself that these extra pounds and aching joints are the result of not maintaining healthy habits every day. It is the same with design habits. We must practice being a part of the life that we want our designed places to support. 26
In working with design teams to help them move toward more regenerative practices, I often look for habits to introduce that when practiced daily can help a team leap-frog to a new level of performance and integration. Practicing biophilia is one of those habits. Like any new habit, it is important to break the big overwhelming goal into bite-sized chunks that will seem more manageable. If I can get a team to start down the path of Biophilia, I find it not only transforms the regenerative nature of their project, but it also transforms the designer. The practice of biophilia over time may also chip away at the agreements we make as a profession around time-scarcity. This false sense of scarcity keeps us from manifesting our best work, while learning to observe the abundance of life can help us to fill up our creative reserves. When I hear, “We can’t afford to do biophilia for eight hours,” or “Getting everyone together in the same place is too expensive,” I ask if we can meet virtually for four hours. If I can get them to start, I believe they will discover value. And they almost always do!
Out Breath... Before the four-hour virtual session, I ask project team members to prepare by picking three questions from a list of twenty-five place-based queries from the Whole Earth Bioregional Quiz. I ask them to spend 30 minutes researching the answers to questions like, “What is a migratory bird that passes through this area?” or “Who were native peoples in this area and what did they eat?” I ask them to collect information and images. If we meet in person, I ask them to bring a natural object from the place to share. Depending on their personal sense of time scarcity, I find that most people do the homework because it is enjoyable. When they do, they often come to the meeting excited, already having learned something new about the place. The act of learning something novel seems fundamental to unleashing human creativity.
After we complete the visualization exercise, I ask participants to share their place-based information. If they didn’t bring research or images, I ask them if they can tell a story about an experience of the site. Then I usually share the research that I have prepared ahead of the meeting that includes biological, geological, watershed, climate, and climate change data and analysis. I ask a few key team members to prime the slide deck with cultural, biological and ecological information and rich imagery. The dialogue we share helps the client and the rest of the design team to engage more deeply in the essence of the place and its living systems and to see patterns of life. The purpose of the exercise is to inspire a desire to participate with the living system and a curiosity to learn more.
In Breath... After some immersion in place-based research, we shift directly into a discovery process to uncover the early opportunities for integrated biophilia. We may not yet know everything that a biologist or an ecologist might like us to know about the place, its functions and stressors, but hopefully we have at least captured the initial instincts and impressions of a biologist and perhaps their early research. Ideally, we have also invited someone with this expertise to the work session. McLennan Design often partners with Juan Rovalo, a biomimetically trained biologist with Biohabitats, or a number of other favorite ecological consultants who work in the design industry. It also works to include someone from a local nature preserve or conservatory organization eager to participate in a design conversation. To guide discovery, I like to use a biophilia framework developed by Terrapin Bright Green2 which consolidates and abbreviates the six biophilic categories and seventyone biophilic design elements from Stephen Kellert’s framework3 into three simple, digestible categories and fourteen patterns of biophilic design. The Terrapin framework is accessible and helps teams get started. The
WHOLE EARTH BIOREGIONAL QUIZ biophilia questions Who were the indigenous peoples of this place? What endangered species are in this place? What migratory birds pass through the area? Can you name five edible plants of the region? What is the path of water through this place? 27
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I am always surprised by the responses I get during the feedback session . . . clients often express a deeper sense of purpose and responsibility to the place and reverence for the development decisions they are about to make. three primary categories are: Nature in the Space, Natural Analogues, and Nature of the Place. This framework helps me to guide the project team to start working from the outside first, moving gradually into the building bringing natural elements and functions inward, and then moving toward interior patterns and details. We focus on the multisensory experience the team intends to create.
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We start with a matrix that has been populated with a few ideas. Then, through dialogue or small group work, we populate as many ideas as arise when prompted by the matrix. This ideation period examines and expands many possibilities while stimulating creativity. Later, the lead designers will determine which ideas best support the overall design principles of the project.
Out Breath... Four hours will fly by all too quickly and leave the team hungry for more. As a closing session, I ask each person to share their experience of the workshop, something that they found energizing and something that they feel compelled to pursue further. This again engages people personally and sets the project up to continue to integrate biophilic design and place-based research that will ultimately fulfill the rest of the requirements of the Living Building Challenge and result in a rich multi-sensory experience of the place, its culture and living systems. I am always surprised by the responses I get during this feedback session. Participants often express gratitude that they had time to take a much-needed creative breath cycle during the design process. They express joy at having been able to reconnect to their childhood place, and to remember some of the reasons why they are doing this work. Clients often express a deeper sense of purpose and responsibility to the place and reverence for the development decisions they are about to make. The process helps them articulate and express some of the more intangible goals for the project. Some of the consultants or contractors who are not usually involved in the early ideation phase usually enjoy the opportunity to play and feel valued as part of a team. All these intangible benefits from four hours of well-planned time help to frame the value of incorporating biophilia in design. This momentum can carry forward and guide integrative design throughout the project. There are many reasons to incorporate biophilia in design. Biophilic design fosters a love of place and therefore fosters the stewardship of that place and its living systems over time. Biophilic design promotes wellbeing for both people and the living systems of a place. And claiming time for biophilia in the design process gives creative people the opportunity to connect with the innate natural rhythms of design, allowing them to refill creativity stores and connect to the purpose of their work. Instead of fueling a scarcity mentality, it builds abundance. 
END NOTES 1 (Heckmann, Helle, 2011) Daily Rhythm at Home and its Lifelong Relevance. Waldorf Today. https://www.waldorftoday.com/2011/11/daily-rhythm-at-home-andits-lifelong-relevance-by-helle-heckmann/ 2 (Browning, W.D., Ryan, C.O., Clancy J.O. 2014 ) 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design: Improving Health and Well-being in the Built Environment. New York, Terrapin Bright Green LLC. http://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/14-Patterns-of-Biophilic-Design-Terrapin-2014e.pdf 3 (Kellert, S. et al., 2008) Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science, and Design Practice of Brining Buildings to Life. John Wiley.
PHAEDRA SVEC is an architect, regenerative systems planner and Director of Regenerative Design with McLennan Design. With over 20 years of experience in the sustainable design movement, she has served as chief sustainability trouble maker on many award-winning, highperformance projects.
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THE SHAPE OF WATER: HERON HALL’S REVOLUTIONARY WATER DESIGN
DESIGN
CASE STUDY: MOHAWK/DALTILE SHOWROOM, TORONTO
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Sustainability consulting firm Terrapin Bright Green (TBG) published a report titled “14 Patterns of Biophilic Design.” This framework highlights 14 patterns that create a relationship between nature, human beings, and the built environment. When incorporated into a project, these patterns can effectively enhance health and wellbeing for individuals and society. In designing the Toronto showroom for Mohawk/Daltile, McLennan Design used this framework by TBG to ensure we adequately and holistically addressed the need for biophilia in this space. This floorplan shows some of the biophilic design attributes that respond to a variety of patterns in this framework.
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Flooring • • •
visual connection to nature non-visual connection to nature connection with natural systems biomorphic forms and patterns material connection with nature
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Work Spaces • • •
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Moss Walls
visual connection with nature biomorphic forms and patterns material connection with nature
Planters • • • •
complexity and order prospect refuge
visual connection with nature thermal and airflow variability connection with natural systems refuge
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Lighting • • •
non-rhythmic sensory stimuli dynamic and diffuse light mystery
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The Beauty of Every Inch by Josh Fisher, Director of Creative Media, McLennan Design
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MD HOSTS HIGH SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE WEEK
Six Students Guided Through “Regenerative Design Investigation”
In August, six high school students participated in a week-long green architecture course led by McLennan Design that introduced them to the field and immersed them in a regenerative . Through a series of brief presentations by MD staff and guests, we sought to spark their imagination and engage them in dialogue about the multifaceted practice of architecture. The students were tasked with first mapping the Bainbridge Island community of Winslow through place-based analysis and interviews with pedestrians. Next, they were asked to determine what was missing from the community for young adults. As the week unfolded, the students, choosing to work as a unified team, began the process of developing a vision for a music and food venue specifically for youth. From the students’ vision statement: The concert / theater will be a place for young adults, high schoolers and locals to perform and listen to live music. It would also provide discounted food... The youth on this island have very little to do at night, so the music center would provide jobs, a place for fun and a sense of community. They then developed their design through drawings, sketches, physical models and 3d computer models in Sketchup. The students’ proposal sought to reuse the now vacant Virginia Mason building at Winslow and Erikson and included a Welcoming Hall, café, restaurant, DJ dance floor room, stage room for bands, outdoor dining and gathering spaces as well as an occupiable green roof. Their design includes many sustainable and biophilic design features including: •
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a tree-like structural element that channels rainwater from the roof through the floor of the Welcoming Hall rooftop gardens that provide habitat, treat stormwater and improve sound insulation natural ventilation system that supports cooling and connections to the outdoors a piezoelectric dance floor that generates energy when danced on rooftop solar panels for renewable energy generation
“I had a great experience! This class showed me how to think outside of just buildings; architecture is how we interact with our built environment and connect to the community around us.” -Sofia W.
“This architecture week has really expanded my horizons in terms of sustainability, and what kinds of impact buildings have on the planet, and what we can do to help.” -Vanja H.
Our Thanks to . . . Sunni Wissmer Volunteer Network Coordinator with the International Living Future Institute for presenting on ILFI’s Ambassador Program. Tina Song Project Manager with Clark Construction for organizing a presentation on the Loom House, currently seeking LBC certification. Julia Drachman Podcaster with Design Can Save the World for facilitating the student / community interview process. Matthew Coates, Kim Selgel President of Coates Design Architects and Exhibition Host and Volunteer Coordinator for Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA), respectively, for a tour of BIMA and the Gateway Complex. Rick Chandler Curator, Bainbridge Island Historical Museum for providing the students a tour of the museum and insight into the rich history of the Bainbridge waterfront and downtown Winslow areas.
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HERON HALL ACHIEVES LBC PETAL CERTIFICATION Home of Challenge Author 100th Project Certified Worldwide
Heron Hall from Drive. Photo by Iklil Gregg
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In September, Heron Hall became the 100th project worldwide to achieve certification through the Living Building Challenge - the world’s most progressive green building rating system. Place, Water and Beauty petals were targeted for the initial petal certification and the firm plans to obtain the remaining four petals over the course of the following year as part of a phased roll-out, ultimately resulting in a full LBC certification for the Bainbridge Island residence of the McLennan family. The LBC’s place petal focuses on ecological restoration and curbing urban sprawl. Projects meeting the place petal intent engage relationally with their setting integrating restoration projects as necessary to regenerative ends. Likewise, the Beauty petal seeks to contribute to a sense of place through its inclusion of culture and place specific elements integrated throughout the project solely for the delight and wonder of occupants. The water imperative requires a project meet all water demands within the carrying capacity of the site, collecting, using, reusing and releasing water onsite in a way that mimics natural hydrological systems. Heron Hall has served as a showcase for new, deep green products, many of which were debuted in the home, including Mohawk’s award-winning Lichen Collection of plank carpeting, Neil Kelly’s line of FSC certified, red list free kitchen cabinets and Coldspring’s Earthwise landscaping pavers. The certification as the 100th project is poetic and symbolic for McLennan who created the standard. 36
Entryway. Photo by Iklil Gregg
Family Room. Photo by Iklil Gregg
Back porch with salvaged tree. Photo by Dan Banko
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LBC HOME BREAKS GROUND ON BAINBRIDGE ISLAND McLennan Design Leads Design on Silver Rock
Photo by Steven Christian
McLennan Design’s Jason F. McLennan and Steven Christian led design on Silver Rock, a new Living Building Challenge home that broke ground in May on Bainbridge Island. Named by the future residents for large stones found on the property with silvery veins running through them, Silver Rock will be home to an engaged, nature-loving family of four who hope to create a multi-generational haven on five wooded acres near Manzanita Bay. The family’s vision for the development of their property includes a careful restoration of the land and an active role in the food chain through the promotion of permaculture, the attraction of bees and other wildlife, the remediation of invasive species, the addition of farmland and an orchard, and even the acquisition of a herd of goats! This vision and the family’s relaxed, informal style are reflected in the design developed by McLennan Design. The family has taken an active role in the LBC documentation process, using it and regular site visits to educate their young children on the significance of building in such a deeply sustainable way. Silver Rock’s design will not only mitigate the negative impacts of new construction but will actively enhance the health and preservation of the natural site. The project is slated for completion in 2019.
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STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP CELEBRATED IN TEAM RETREAT McLennan Design and Christine Lintott Architects Gather on B. I.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT CLA’S WORK.
At the end of August, McLennan Design hosted our friends and partners from Victoria, BC based Christine Lintott Architects at our offices on Bainbridge Island to celebrate and deepen a two years long strategic partnership between our firms. The evening and day spent together allowed our two teams to engage on personal and professional levels as we shared meals, rooftop conversation and ferry rides, followed by a full day design charrette exercise in which we examined our shared ethos and aligned ourselves around our ideas of place and the opportunity to use design as a tool for positive change in the world. This collaboration is grounded in design solutions that grow from place and meaningfully invite nature into a project from the conceptual phase on. Our two firms are currently collaborating on a Living Building Challenge showroom in Toronto for flooring industry giants Mohawk Group, a mixed-use, multi-building, entire block urban Victoria, British Columbia residential project and a net-zero energy cohousing project in Yellow Springs, Ohio, among others.
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ECOLOCK BRINGS INNOVATION TO SELF-STORAGE INDUSTRY Ground Breaking Ceremony Observed on September 25th
There are more than 2.5 billion square feet of self-storage space in North America, spread over 45,000 + facilities. A concept originally invented for deploying military, self-storage has grown to be the most profitable form of commercial real estate on the continent, but has undergone little design or business practice innovation as an industry since its inception. CLICK HERE TO READ KELOWNA CAPITAL NEWS REPORT ON ECOLOCK BULDING
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McLennan Design is leading design for a British Columbia based self-storage company that will change all that. On September 25th, EcoLock, a hybridized self-storage and co-working space with its sights set on reinventing this tired paradigm, broke ground in Kelowna, BC. EcoLock is targeting LBC’s Petal and Net Positive certifications. Additionally, this project is one of a select few piloting Canada Green Building Council’s Net Zero Carbon Program. To achieve these targets, the building will pioneer construction using Just Biofiber SSR blocks. These blocks are primarily made of hemp, which absorb and permanently sequester carbon at seven times the rate of North American forests. This will make EcoLock one of the largest building-specific sinks of sequestered atmospheric carbon dioxide in the world. Use of this innovative new building material combined with rain water catchment and a photovoltaic array that will provide 105% of the building’s energy needs will result in a highly visible, deep-green building that provides experiential learning opportunities to thousands of people. By activating the ground floor for co-working in a building designed for the health and wellbeing of its users, this transforms into an asset what in most urban contexts would amount to a neighborhood liability.
“Many [self-storage] facilities are low-density, unproductive spaces that don’t contribute to the fabric of a neighborhood. EcoLock Kelowna will demonstrate that there are greener, more customer-focused alternatives to enable dense, walkable urban living and creative storage solutions.”
- Don Redden
CEO of Ulmus Development, Ltd., parent company of EcoLock Kelowna
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JASON F. MCLENNAN ON SPEAKING TOUR National and International Locations on Itinerary
McLennan Design’s CEO is in the middle of a national and international speaking tour that kicked off in Nashville, TN at Vanderbilt University where on Monday, August 27th he lectured on “The Power of Transformative Goals” as part of Vanderbilt University’s FutureVU initiative. On September 13th, Jason opened the NetZero Conference in Los Angeles as the starting keynote speaker, providing a lecture on the subject of “Net Zero for All People.” The conference was attended by over 900 people and featured 75 speakers and 9 workshops over a three-day period, the nation’s largest conference focused on net-zero building. In the coming weeks McLennan’s tour will continue with addresses to the following organizations: Design Connections, Austin, TX | Keynote Presentation on the subject of “The Intersection of Regenerative Design and Health + Wellness – Are You Up for the Challenge?” on October 7th. Greenweek, Salt Lake City, UT | Keynote Presentation to 3form and LightArt on the subject of connecting the building industry’s work on net-zero water and energy to global climate change and GHG reductions on October 11th. Yale University, School of Divinity, New Haven, CT | Presentation to Yale Alumni on the Living Village Concept on October 17th. Schools Sustainability Forum, Sydney, Australia | Keynote Presentation on Regenerative Design in the Academic Arena on October 29th. Transformational Leadership Series, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT | Presentation on “Using Clarity, Beauty and Inspiration to Inspire Change: A Leadership Exploration on January 25th - 26th. In addition, McLennan has been asked to serve as a board member for the Laurentian University McEwen School of Architecture in Sudbury, Ontario and will be visiting in November for an advisory council meeting and to present remarks. All told, McLennan will be speaking to several thousand people this fall and winter, delivering powerful messages of change to diverse audiences.
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MCLENNAN DESIGN HOSTS YALE CONTINGENCY
Shared Day in the Pacific Northwest Aligns Team on Expansion Project
In the last days of summer, McLennan Design welcomed to the Pacific Northwest our colleagues from Boston firm Bruner Cott and an esteemed delegation from Yale Univeristy with whom we’re collaborating on the Yale Divinity School campus expansion - the largest LBC academic project in the world. We began the full day we shared with a tour of the Bullitt Center by our own Jason F. McLennan and joined by Dennis Hayes, founder of Earth Day and president and CEO of the Bullitt Foundation. For project specific inspiration, we next joined Father Jerry Cobb for a tour of Seattle University’s Chapel of St. Ignatius, designed by Steven Holl. From there we traveled to the Bertschi School, where we were toured through the first LBC certified project under version 2.0 of the challenge by Skanska architect Stacy Smedley. Our Seattle agenda completed, we boarded a Bainbridge Island bound ferry for a tour and candlelit dinner at the newly LBC petal certified Heron Hall. Our delegation’s time together concluded the next morning with a tour of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted by Slade Bedford. Beyond the days’ agenda, logistics and happenings, this time served to align our cohort and design team, providing an intangible but imperative foundation of understanding and camaraderie, and opportunities to explore not only physical structures and the ins and outs of LBC certification, but also key conversations and important design ideas.
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in the footsteps of Nanabozho: becoming indigenous to place BY ROBIN WALL KIMMERER
After all these generations since Columbus,
some of the wisest of Native elders still puzzle over the people who came to our shores. They look at the toll on the land and say, “The problem with these new people is that they don’t have both feet on the shore. One is still in the boat. They don’t seem to know whether they’re staying or not.” This same observation is heard from some contemporary scholars who see in the social pathologies and relentlessly materialist culture the fruit of homelessness, a rootless past. America has been called the home of second chances. For the sake of the peoples and the land, the urgent work of the Second Man may be to set aside the ways of the colonist and become indigenous to place. But can Americans, as a nation of immigrants, learn to live here as if we were staying? With both feet on the shore? What happens when we become native to a place, when we finally make a home? Where are the stories that lead the way? If time does in fact eddy back on itself, maybe the journey of the First Man will provide footsteps to guide the journey of the Second. From my high bluff on the coast I look east and the hills before me are a ragged range of clear-cut forests. To the south I see an estuary dammed and diked so that salmon may no longer pass. On the western horizon, a 48
bottom-dragging trawler scrapes up the ocean floor. And far away to the north, the earth is torn open for oil. Had the new people learned what Original Man was taught at a council of animals – never damage Creation, and never interfere with the sacred purpose of another being – the eagle would look down on a different world. The salmon would be crowding up the rivers, and passenger pigeons would darken the sky. Wolves, cranes, Nehalem, cougars, Lenape, old-growth forests would still be here, each fulfilling their sacred purpose. I would be speaking Potawatomi. We would see what Nanabozho saw. It does not bear too much imagining, for in that direction lies heartbreak. Against the backdrop of that history, an invitation to settler society to become indigenous to place feels like a free ticket to a housebreaking party. It could be read as an open invitation to take what little is left. Can settlers be trusted to follow Nanabozho, to walk so that, “each step is a greeting to Mother Earth”? Grief and fear still sit in the shadows, behind the glimmer of hope. Together they try to hold my heart closed. But I need to remember that the grief is the settlers’ as well. They too will never walk in a tallgrass prairie where sunflowers dance with goldfinches. Their children have also lost the chance to sing at the Maple Dance. They can’t drink the water either. [...] 45
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I go to sit with my Sitka Spruce grandmother to think. I am not from here, just a stranger who comes with gratitude and respect and questions of how it is we come to belong to a place. And yet she makes me welcome, just as we are told the big trees of the west kindly looked after Nanabozho.
fusion with the land. Following Nanabozho’s footsteps doesn’t guarantee transformation of Second Man to First. But if people do not feel “indigenous,” can they nevertheless enter into the deep reciprocity that renews the world? Is this something that can be learned? Where are the teachers? [...]
Even as I sit in her still shadow, my thoughts are all tangled. Like my elders before me, I want to envision a way that an immigrant society could become indigenous to place, but I’m stumbling on the words. Immigrants cannot by definition be indigenous. Indigenous is a birthright word. No amount of time or caring changes history or substitutes for soul-deep
I get up from my needle-soft nook between Grandmother’s roots and walk back to the trail, where I am stopped in my tracks. Bedazzled by my new neighbors – giant firs, sword fern, and salal – I had passed by an old friend without recognition. I’m embarrassed to not have greeted him before. From the east coast to the edge of the west, he had walked here.
Our people have a name for this round-leafed plant: White Man’s Footstep. Just a low circle of leaves, pressed close to the ground with no stem to speak of, it arrived with the first settlers and followed them everywhere they went. It trotted along paths through the woods, along wagon roads and railroads, like a faithful dog so as to be near them. Linnaeus called it Plantago major, the common plantain. Its Latin epithet Plantago refers to the sole of a foot. At first the Native people were distrustful of a plant that came with so much trouble trailing behind. But Nanabozho’s people knew that all things have a purpose and that we must not interfere with its fulfillment. When it became clear that White Man’s Footstop would be staying on Turtle Island, they began to learn about its gifts. In spring it makes a good pot of greens, before summer heat turns the leaves tough. The people became glad for its constant presence when they learned that the leaves, when they are rolled or chewed to a poultice, make a fine first aid for cuts, burns, and especially insect bites. Every part of the plant is useful. Those tiny seeds are good medicine for digestion. The leaves can halt bleeding right away and heal wounds without infection. This wise and generous plant, faithfully following the people, became an honored member of the plant community. It’s a foreigner, an immigrant, but after five hundred years of living as a good neighbor, people forget that kind of thing. Our immigrant plant teachers offer a lot of different models for how not to make themselves welcome on a new continent. Garlic mustard poisons the soil so that native species will die. Tamarisk uses up all the water. Foreign invaders like loosestrife, kudzu, and cheat grass have the colonizing habit of taking over others’ homes and growing without regard to limits. But Plantain is not like that. Its strategy was to be useful, to fit into small places, to coexist with others around the dooryard, to heal wounds. Plantain is so
I go to sit with my Sitka Spruce grandmother to think. I am not from here, just a stranger who comes with gratitude and respect and questions of how it is we come to belong to a place. And yet she makes me welcome, just as we are told the big trees of the west kindly welcomed Nanabozho. 47
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prevalent, so well integrated, that we think of it as native. It has earned the named bestowed by botanists for plants that have become our own. Plantain is not indigenous but “naturalized.” This is the same term we use for the foreign-born when they become citizens in our country. They pledge to uphold the laws of the state. They might well uphold Nanabozho’s Original Instructions, too. Maybe the task assigned to Second Man is to unlearn the model of kudzu and follow the teachings of White Man’s Footstep, to strive to become naturalized to place, to throw off the mind-set of the immigrant. Being naturalized to place means to live as if this is the land that feeds you, as if these are the streams from which you drink, that build your body and fill your spirit. To become naturalized is to know that your ancestors lie in this ground. Here you will give your gifts and meet your responsibilities. To become naturalized is to live as if your children’s future matters, to take care of the land as if our lives and the lives of all our relatives depend on it. Because they do. As time circles around on itself again, maybe White Man’s Footstep is following in Nanabozho’s. Perhaps Plantain will line the homeward path. We could follow. White Man’s Footsteps, generous and healing, grows with its leaves so close to the ground that each step is a greeting to Mother Earth.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her first book, Gathering Moss, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. Her writings have appeared in Orion, O Magazine, and numerous scientific journals. She lives in Fabius, New York, where she is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Robin Wall Kimmerer, excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Copyright © 2013 by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
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Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of Milkweed Editions, www.milkweed.org.
Being naturalized to place means to live as if this is the land that feeds you, as if these are the streams from which you drink, that build your body and fill your spirit.
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Antioch Pocket Neighborhood
MD is leading the design for a new residential development in the Village of Yellow Springs, Ohio at Antioch College. An ongoing close collaboration with future residents is engendering a tightly knit community built on the shared values of equity, inclusivity and sustainability. The project will be Net Zero Energy ready and has adopted higher sustainable design practices as inspired by the Living Building Challenge. This pocket neighborhood is serving as a prototype for future development by Antioch College and includes single family homes and duplexes. See McLennan Design’s vision for the project in this fly through!
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coral reefs
EMULATE
While they make up less than 1% of the ocean floor,
the world’s coral reefs contain upwards of 25% of all marine life, which, through a complex web of relationships thrive in an impressively challenging ecotone, marked by wave energy, massive storm disturbance, temperature changes and UV exposure. There are three main coral reef typologies: fringing, barrier and atoll. While the conditions that give rise to these typologies differ, all reefs share some similarities in the condition in which they grow, including bottom topography, wave and current strength, light, temperature and suspended sediments. Coral itself comprises the living substrate upon which reef colonies develop. A single coral polyp, the result of sexual reproduction, reproduces asexually to create a coral body made up of thousands to millions identical polyps that share a nervous system and some digestive functioning. Each polyp secretes calcium carbonate (the genesis of limestone) and lives within the resulting cup shape, or calyx. Periodically, the polyp will secrete a new calyx floor, resulting in slow growth (.3 – 10 centimeters per year). Inside its custom calyx, a polyp remains safely ensconced in the daytime. At nighttime, however, the polyp will emerge from the calyx to feed on the currents. In addition to these nighttime current feedings, coral and algae have formed an obliged symbiosis; polyp tissue contains photosynthetic algae that aids in coral’s growth. Coral, in exchange, protects the algae while providing it with compounds it needs for photosynthesis. In some species of coral, this symbiosis is so specialized that the coral body has the ability to filter UV light to maintain ideal conditions for the algae’s photosynthesis. This foundational relationship between coral and algae is just the first example of symbiosis in an ecosystem marked by cooperation. Coral is half of the symbiotic pair in many different relationships, providing habitat and protection to crabs, lobster and shrimp, which in return provide protection against aquatic worms and other predators that would feast on the softbodied polyps housed in the coral. Clown fish and anemones live in close symbiosis; the fish supply the anemone with food, the anemone protect the fish, which have a special immunity to the anemone’s sting. Moray eels and coral trout, two entirely distinct fish species, hunt in pairs and equitably split their catch. A variety of cleaner fish eat parasites off larger fish – an exchange that feeds the former and keeps the latter healthy.
WRITTEN BY EDITORIAL STAFF IN CONSULTATION WITH JUAN ROVALO OF BIOHABITATS 52
A precisely and dynamically balanced ecosystem, small, herbivorous fish eat seaweed and algae that, if left unchecked, would smother the coral below. Parrot fish eat the coral itself, digesting the algae within and excreting the calcium carbonate that washes to shore as fine, white sand; a single parrot fish can excrete as much as 11,000 pounds of sand per year. Larger predatory fish keep the smaller fish populations in check and crabs and sea cucumbers ingest the detritus that falls to the sea floor. Tragically, coral reefs’ characteristic resiliency is flagging with sustained stresses; ocean acidification and rising water temperatures as a result of carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere, food chain collapse due to over fishing, and structural damage as a result of careless tourism have combined into a lethal force threatening the total collapse of these ecosystems in the next twenty to thirty years. Already in the last thirty years an estimated fifty percent of the world’s coral reefs have died. In 2016, a sustained warming period caused a widespread bleaching event that alone killed as much as 29% of the world’s remaining reefs, hitting the Great Barrier Reef especially hard, where as much as 85% bleached. Coral bleaching is a stress response in which the coral body expels all its algae, thereby erasing its characteristic color, distinct by species, and leaving behind just the white, calcium carbonate exoskeleton. If water temperatures return to normal before algae smothers the reef, it can revive. Given the warming trend of our oceans, this possibility is increasingly slim. Conservation efforts focused on the protection of herbivorous fish and other organisms that keep algae blooms in check have proven effective but slowing and reversing global climate change is imperative for the future of the reefs.
“I can mention many moments that were unforgettable and revelatory. But the single most revelatory three minutes was the first time I put on scuba gear and dived on a coral reef.”
- Sir David Attenborough
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AUTUMN 2018
ABOUT MCLENNAN DESIGN McLennan Design, one of the world’s leading multi-disciplinary regenerative design practices, focuses on deep green outcomes in the fields of architecture, planning, consulting, and product design. The firm uses an ecological perspective to drive design creativity and innovation, reimagining and redesigning for positive environmental and social impact. Founded in 2013 by global sustainability leader and green design pioneer Jason F. McLennan and joined by partner Dale Duncan, the firm dedicates its practice to the creation of living buildings, net-zero, and regenerative projects all over the world. As the founder and creator of many of the building industry’s leading programs including the Living Building Challenge and its related programs, McLennan and his design team bring substantial knowledge and unmatched expertise to the A/E industry. The firm’s diverse and interdisciplinary set of services makes for a culture of holistic solutions and big picture thinking.
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ABOUT JASON F. MCLENNAN Considered one of the world’s most influential individuals in the field of architecture and green building movement today, Jason is a highly sought out designer, consultant and thought leader. The recipient of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Prize, the planet’s top prize for socially responsible design, he has been called the Steve Jobs of the green building industry, a World Changer by GreenBiz magazine. In 2016, Jason was selected as the Award of Excellence winner for Engineering News Record- one of the only individuals in the architecture profession to have won the award in its 52-year history. McLennan is the creator of the Living Building Challenge – the most stringent and progressive green building program in existence, as well as a primary author of the WELL Building Standard. He is the author of six books on Sustainability and Design used by thousands of practitioners each year, including The Philosophy of Sustainable Design. McLennan is both an Ashoka Fellow and Senior Fellow of the Design Future’s Council. He has been selected by Yes! Magazine as one of 15 People Shaping the World and works closely with world leaders, Fortune 500 companies, leading NGOs, major universities, celebrities and development companies –all in the pursuit of a world that is socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative. He serves as the Chairman of the International Living Future Institute and is the CEO of McLennan Design – his architectural and planning practice designing some of the world’s most advanced green buildings. McLennan’s work has been published in dozens of journals, magazines and newspapers around the world.
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