Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Summer 2018 - 1

FROM THE FOUNDER

BIOPHILIC DESIGN:

A POSITIVE FORCE FOR
HEALTHIER BUILDINGS

O

ne of my favorite movies growing up
was Cool Hand Luke, starring a very
young Paul Newman. He plays a rebel
and a leader who gets ground down
by the southern U.S penal system. During
the movie, Paul Newman's character is
forced into solitary confinement where
he is deprived of light and contact with
the outdoors for trying to escape. Most
people can only withstand several days of
this type of punishment before they start to
break down mentally - even though they
receive food and water daily. This type of
environment is devoid of the things that
maintain our well-being.
In British Columbia a few years ago, I
spent four hours climbing through a dark
cave to finally emerge through a crack into
a forest. The green leaves, the dappled sun
light, the wind and sounds of the birds
at first appeared utterly miraculous. The
positive psychological impact of this instant
transformation from a dark and dreary
cave to lush forest was stunning. I felt
instantly better! Now, the scientific study
of biophilia, our innate attraction or love
of nature, is helping us to understand what
we love and hate, about our surroundings
and why. What makes us tense, what
helps us to relax, to focus, to heal, to be
more productive. This knowledge of
patterns or elements that we desire in
our surroundings gives us the basis for
biophilic design practice which is ushering
in a movement towards the integration of
living and non-living elements of the built
environment - living architecture.
LIVINGARCHITECTUREMONITOR.COM

Many great designers like Frank Lloyd
Wright and Frederick Law Olmsted
understood biophilic design implicitly.
Humanity, having evolved in response to
the natural world, is attracted to natural
light, running water, prospect, fire, bird
song, and vegetation - particularly if they
are diverse. For the presence of these and
other elements have, over hundreds of
thousands of years, contributed directly
to our ability to survive. E.O. Wilson, an
eminent biologist who coined the term,
"biophilia" in his 1984 book so named,
argues that what we call "beauty" is actually
our word for the perfection of those
qualities that have contributed most to our
survival.
Clearly there is little of beauty in the
depths of a dark cave or locked in a dark
cell. There is also a disturbing lack of
'beauty' or biophilic design in much of
the architecture which fills space in our
cities and in the cities themselves. In this
Biophilic issue, Dr. Timothy Beatley,
James Brown and Dr. Judith Heerwagen
share their thoughts on challenges and
trends in this field. More biophilic design
of buildings is an indicator of the trend
towards more restorative, living buildings.
Green roofs and walls, in combination with
other elements, such as water features and
the ability to have direct contact through
gardening, can be a powerful element in
the overall design of a biophilic building.
We've included biophilic design into the
Living Architecture Performance Tool,
which provides a framework for evaluating

the performance of green roof and/or wall
projects. The case study of the Phipps
Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
featured in this issue also provides a wide
range of biophilic elements that together,
make a powerful statement. The love of
their green roof in New York, was a driver
in convincing employees of Cook Fox
Architects to move the green roof to their
new location - thanks to the modular
system they installed more than a decade
ago. The green roof and wall in Liberty
Square New York provide a quiet, almost
serene atmosphere and vantage point to
contemplate the tragedy of 9/11.
Biophilic design can bring us back to
a place that we left decades ago, when
we forgot to include human health and
well-being at the center of our built
environment. Let us move swiftly in this
direction with the knowledge that we can
significantly improve our physical and
mental well-being and better prepare for
the survival challenges to come.
Sincerely yours,

Steven W. Peck,
GRP, Honorary ASLA
Founder and President

LIVING ARCHITECTURE MONITOR / SUMMER 2018 / 1
http://www.LIVINGARCHITECTUREMONITOR.COM
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Summer 2018
