2.2.8 BIOPHILIC DESIGN TOOLKIT

The “Biophilic Design Toolkit” is an online resource developed by the International Living Future Institute that provides guidance, inspiration, and support for designers looking to investigate biophilic design. The toolkit combines a collection of resources and is broken down into the fundamentals of biophilic design, success stories, design guidance, a biophilic design map, activities and a guidebook, and opportunities to further your education in the subject. It covers the introduction, the planning and design stages, and the construction and occupancy of biophilic design projects. 62 In this resource, they define biophilic design as “the practice of connecting people and nature within our built environments and communities” and explain that our brains are evolutionarily conditioned to seek out places beneficial to our health and well-being due to the foundations of human psychology resting in our reactions to the natural world. 63 The toolkit categorizes biophilic design into three categories: the Direct Experience of Nature, Natural Patterns, and People, Place, and Culture, and they identify biophilic spaces as those which “involve the use of well-recognized characteristics of the natural world in the built environment”. They define the Direct Experiences of Nature as the built environment bringing nature into the space of design and offer examples such as water, plants, animals, and light. When explaining Natural Patterns, the resource states that they create environments impacting our senses, fostering experiences of place, and providing important moments, with examples including bounded spaces, order and complexity, and sensory variability. Finally, they define People, Place, and Culture as projects that integrate history, geography, and ecology of an area to sustain the human need for culture and heritage through vernacular forms, with examples such as historic connection to place and indigenous materials. 64 The resource further breaks down each category by the wellness benefits they promote with regard to stress, cognitive function, emotions & mood, and creativity in an attempt to answer the question of “why biophilic design?” and provides evidence that all three of the categories positively impact these wellness categories. 65 In further explanation of the topic, they refer to ThePracticeofBiophilicDesign by Calabrese and Kellert in their description of the principles and elements of biophilic design and provide a card deck resource to break down these elements in even greater detail. 66 They then describe the importance of multi-sensory design in the practice of biophilic design, as the engagement of senses is an integral part of the human connection to nature. 67 This is followed by a series of example projects that display the successful use of biophilic design, including Living Building Certified Projects, Stephen R. Kellert Biophilic Design Award Recipients, and community-acknowledged projects that are shown on the biophilic design map. 68 The Design Guidance category of the resource offers guidance for the implementation of each of the three categories, but also provides key opportunities and examples of how each element can be implemented within the broader categories. 69 The resource wraps up with a collection of activities and opportunities you can take advantage of in order to expand your knowledge of biophilic design, such as certificates and online courses. 70 Overall, the “Biophilic Design Toolkit” references a variety of literature and research on the topic of biophilic design to provide a comprehensive resource on the topic for those who may be interested in learning more about or implementing the practice of biophilic design.