IV. BIOPHILIC HOMES DESIGN PROPOSAL

In the past, pattern books were commonly used to provide easy-to-understand instructions that made architecture accessible to the masses. These were printed and bound volumes that cataloged and illustrated designs in order to help distribute this knowledge to an audience beyond designers and architects. 104 With the primary goals of making the practice of biophilic design widely available for use in the home and building off of Terrapin Bright Green’s 14PatternsofBiophilicDesign, this thesis project plans to adapt the idea of the pattern book to modern times, creating a pattern book of biophilic design practices for residential use and a series of examples of how these can be implemented. Differing from the Terrapin Bright Green Pattern book, this version will apply specifically to residential settings and will be directed not only toward designers, but also any ordinary person, so as to make the practice of biophilic design easy to understand and implement at any skill level. This aspect of the project aims to specifically address the accessibility issue of biophilic design in the residential field, by the creation of a resource that can be understood and used by anyone and that will hopefully provide the knowledge of implementation for any circumstance. The goal of this pattern book will be to create a simple, easy-to-understand way of implementing biophilic design, creating a catalog of applications and strategies of this practice, and supplementing these with a series of drawings that exemplify how these practices can be applied.

Following the creation of the pattern book, this resource will be put to practice in the conceptual design of a series of residential environments across a variety of locations to exemplify how these practices can be put to use in various situations. These designs will draw directly on the information presented in the pattern book and will serve to demonstrate how the resource can be used, along with how the application of biophilic design can be seen in practice in both existing homes and new builds. These will be completed in a series so as to be inclusive of different sites and climatic conditions, further emphasizing the core purpose of making these design practices and their benefits accessible to a wide range of residential settings. These biophilic residential designs will be documented by a range of drawing types, including plans and sectional renderings, and the designs and their representations will vary in what program or residential type is shown depending on the best representation of the biophilic practices implemented. The intention of these small-scale residential design exercises will not only be to utilize information presented in the catalog and provide confirmation on how this resource becomes valuable, but to also supplement this information in an easy-to-understand visual representation of how the resource can be used for people who may not be as familiar with this topic.

The design process will begin with the creation of a pattern book-like resource that builds on the previous research of biophilic design applications by focusing specifically on the application of this design method in the residential environment. Drawing on this resource, a series of residential prototypes for various locations and climate zones will be developed to serve as an example of the ways in which these practices can be implemented in a variety of homes. This process will pull upon previous works on biophilia and biophilic design, such as the literature of Edward O Wilson and Stephen R. Kellert and the existing “pattern book” proposed by Terrapin Bright Green, to add to the current foundation for the importance and application of this practice, but will also add to the field by investigating how implementation can be specific to the residential field. The proposed pattern book and resulting designs will act as resources to the broader public to provide knowledge on how to implement biophilic design in the home and will hopefully facilitate the widespread use of this strategy and the effect of its benefits on health and wellness to a greater majority of people than it currently has reached.