Recently, I encountered a post on LinkedIn that made me a little cross. It was a post about the benefits of moss walls.
I like moss walls. They are a great way to add greenery to a space where live plants can’t thrive and they can be made into the most fabulous designs. Indeed the moss wall illustrated in the post was fantastic. The poster then started to make some claims. They started out OK, and if the author had stopped at a certain point, then everything would have been fine: a great moss wall, well illustrated, and a fantastic addition to any space.
Unfortunately, the poster then managed to conflate some research that he might have read about the impact that live moss has on improving air quality. I’ve read some of that research and it seems pretty sound to me, and I have been watching the development of live moss walls with interest – this product, for example, looks amazing.
However, it wasn’t a live moss wall that was being shown, it was a preserved moss wall. This is actually made with preserved lichens – a different type of organism altogether – and something that, when preserved and stuck to a wooden board, would stretch the definition of ‘alive’ to breaking point.
A little bit of sense checking with a technical person would have prevented this mistake and could have allowed the post author to create an article that wasn’t spoiled by a claim that is easily challenged.
It frustrates me when the marketing of good products and services is spoiled by over-exaggerated claims. It annoys me when marketing people put down people with technical knowledge because they have the temerity to point out that a claim might not be terribly robust or might be open to criticism. It really struck home once when a marketing team I was working with were desperately trying to put together a set of questions for a survey. In my naivety, I assumed that they were seeking objective data upon which to build a campaign and a message based on those data. This wasn’t the case. The exercise was to collect survey responses that would appear to validate the claims that they had already decided to make, and they were trying work out how to frame the questions to generate the answers they wanted to back up the claim. I was told that I needed to think like a marketer – was that an admission that marketing isn’t necessarily about truth?
Over the last several years, I have written articles and blog posts to support the marketing efforts of employers and clients. I think that I’m reasonably good at it. The reason that I think I’m quite good at it is because I write about what I know, have researched and am confident is true. Objectivity and reliance on evidence are crucial. I champion evidence-based design, solutions and propositions.
If you are an interior landscaper or in a related industry, and would like me to help you write (or sense check) marketing copy that is backed by evidence, science, research and over a quarter century of technical expertise in the industry, then please get in touch.
A lot of indoor plant sellers will tell you that indoor plants will purify the air. Sometimes, they refer to experiments carried out by NASA (40-odd years ago) to prove the point. However, careful analysis of some of these claims shows that the claims are often exaggerated, or taken out of context.
That doesn’t mean that plants have no impact on indoor air quality – they can. So, how can you get the most of plants’ abilities to affect the indoor environment? I can’t promise miracles, however.
A brief history
In the early 1980s, NASA was investigating the ways that astronauts could maintain their environments whilst on long-term missions. The reaction of photosynthesis is a way of producing fresh oxygen for the astronauts to breathe, and some plants are good at removing other pollutants from the air and water.
The idea was that by having completely sealed living environments, humans and plants could live in complete balance. Coupling this with optimal growing conditions for vast amounts of greenery, the resources needed for a long-term mission could be reduced. This was only a few years after the last manned landing on the moon. Early space stations (Skylab and Mir – the forerunners of the International Space Station) had been launched and were being lived in for months at a time. This research clearly became very important.
Skylab space station (image from NASA)
The results of the experiments showed that some plants were especially good at removing pollutants such as some volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some of these are quite unpleasant and are associated with harmful indoor air quality. These plants have become quite well known and are often referred to as the NASA list of air cleaning plants.
Sick buildings – could plants be the answer?
In 1984, the World Health Organization gave a name to a recently discovered phenomenon. People were feeling ill in modern buildings, and analysis of the environments in some of these buildings identified a number of VOCs as being likely causes of the problem. That problem became known as Sick Building Syndrome, and a great deal of effort was expended trying to identify the building components most responsible for the release of these chemicals into the air inside buildings.
It didn’t take long for someone to notice that a lot of the VOCs identified as being associated with sick building syndrome were those that some plants seemed to be good at removing. Indeed, one of the scientists involved with the original NASA experiments – Bill Wolverton – has since made a career writing about how houseplants can create fresh air.
However…
Thinking back to the original NASA experiments, you will notice that they were carried out with a specific purpose in mind. The plants were grown under conditions that made them actively grow – their metabolism was optimized by controlling the environment with high light levels, good humidity, warm temperatures and precise levels of plant nutrients. There were also vast numbers of plants in the growth chambers.
If you ever visit the hot houses at a botanic garden, such as Kew or the Eden Project, you will experience exactly the type of environment the plants experienced in the NASA experiments. The air inside those spaces is uplifting, fresh and life-supporting. The difficulty lies in recreating those conditions in homes and offices.
Issues of indoor air quality
Fortunately, since the early 1980s, the use of products in buildings associated with sick building syndrome has been significantly reduced. Most homes and offices are not full of nasty VOCs. However, there are some pollutants that have the potential to cause harm, or at least discomfort.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
There are many sources of VOCs in houses. In fact, almost everything you can smell is a VOC of one type or another. Paints and new furnishings often release some compounds, but more mundane products are the biggest source: cleaning products, cosmetics and toiletries. Cooking, too, also produces types of VOC, as does opening a bottle of wine or mixing a cocktail. Most of these VOCs are harmless, although some can be irritating. Other VOCs are actually the result of human physiology. When you breathe out, there will be some VOCs on your breath as well as carbon dioxide and water – these are just the products of digestion and metabolism.
More worryingly are the VOCs that can enter the house from outside. Vehicle emissions, agricultural and industrial activities all contribute to VOCs in the atmosphere that will find their way indoors.
Fine particulates
A more pernicious threat to human health comes from ultra-fine particulate matter, usually produced as a result of combustion. These are often classified as PM10 (particles smaller than 10 μm in diameter) and PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 μm in diameter). These particles can be breathed deeply into the respiratory system, where they remain. Fine particulates come from vehicle exhausts, inefficient combustion of gases and even cooking.
Dust
Larger particulates, such as dust, can irritate the respiratory system and contribute to asthma and allergies. These are either produced inside buildings (and are usually composed of dead skin cells and pet dander), or can be blown indoors through doors and windows (such as fine dust from roads and fields or construction, or pollen from trees and grass). Since most homes are not airtight (and most people wouldn’t want them to be – opening a window is a great way to refresh the air and create cooling breezes indoors), there is little that can be done to prevent dust from getting in from the outdoors. Remember, also, that good ventilation is recommended as a way of reducing the risk of Covid.
Carbon dioxide
The atmosphere is composed of approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon and 0.1% of all other gases (including 0.04% carbon dioxide).
About 80% of the entire atmosphere is within 15km (10 miles) of the earth’s surface (which is only 0.2% of the earth’s diameter) – a fragile and wafer-thin envelope upon which all life depends.
Elevated levels of carbon dioxide are more of a problem in offices than in homes. Small meeting rooms with lots of people, will result in CO2 levels rising fast and getting to concentrations high enough to cause drowsiness and impair cognitive function – just one reason why outdoor meetings might make for better business decisions. In the home, this is less of a problem, although in the winter, when everyone is indoors and windows remain firmly shut, CO2 levels might rise above comfortable levels.
How can plants help
Most homes cannot house enough houseplants to actively purify the air. They also cannot provide the necessary conditions for houseplants to be physiologically active. An environment that could replicate the effects found in laboratory experiments would be extremely uncomfortable for people to live in.
However, there are ways to use plants indoors to improve air quality, and some plants are better than others at doing this.
The key is to match the plants well to their environment. The more closely matched they are, the more physiologically active they will be, and that is when the effects will be greatest.
When you search for indoor plants online (whether for home or office), you will often see that retailers often include details about the conditions that they do best under. If you choose plants that suit the different conditions found in the various spaces in your home or office, then you are more likely to notice an effect.
Plants affect the indoor environment in three main ways
Volatile organic compounds
First, the bacteria in the soil that live amongst the roots are able to break down some VOCs, and convert them into substances useful to the plants. This is an entirely natural phenomenon, although only relatively recently properly understood in horticulture. Plants with healthy roots and good soil will have the biggest impact, and those that are the fastest growing will also be the most effective.
Carbon dioxide removal
Second, plants that are actively photosynthesizing will be removing some carbon dioxide from the air. Plants that originate in dark tropical conditions (such as rainforest floors) are able to photosynthesize extremely efficiently – they have evolved ways of making photosynthesis work even in very low light conditions, so that means more carbon dioxide is used by the plants.
It must be emphasized that the benefits to air quality are due to carbon dioxide removal, not increasing oxygen. Why?
The simple equation for photosynthesis shows that for every molecule of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere, a molecule of oxygen is added. So, in an office where the concentration of carbon dioxide might be, say, 600ppm, removing 100ppm is a massive reduction (about 17%) and will have quite an impact on the way you feel. However, at best, you will only be adding 100 ppm to the oxygen in the same space. As there is already roughly 210,000 ppm of oxygen in the atmosphere, adding an extra 100ppm to that is an increase of less than 0.05% – not noticeable at all. Actually, you get even that much back as the plants also need some of that oxygen for aspects of their metabolism.
Fine particulates
Third, plants with hairy or slightly sticky leaves are able to trap particulates on the leaf surfaces, including fine particulates. In fact, plants such as ivy and Cotoneaster are used outdoors to mitigate the effects of pollution in urban areas. Some indoor plants can do that too (although they will need to be cleaned – there is no rain indoors to wash that pollution away). In fact, research carried out at Washington State University some years back showed that many different types of foliage plant attracted dust to their leaf surfaces – possibly as a result of an electrostatic effect – so almost any leafy plant will be useful.
Which plants work best
Plants that are adapted to low light conditions will be the best to improve indoor air quality. They are especially effective in reducing VOCs and carbon dioxide. Plants in the aroid family, such as Spathiphyllum, Philodendron species, Aglaonema species or Monstera species will be good, as will other jungle-floor plants such as Calathea species, Ctenanthe and even small palms, such as Dypsis lutescens.
If light levels are slightly higher, Dracaena specieshave been shown to be effective at reducing levels of carbon dioxide. Experiments carried out in Australia by Margaret Burchett, Fraser Torpy and colleagues, in real office conditions, have shown that relatively few plants are needed to have a measurable effect).
Plants such as Ficus benjamina and varieties of ivy (Hedera helix) and some ferns that do well indoors are good at removing particulates.
Technological solutions
Over recent years, the plant/microbe interactions in the soil have led to a number of innovations that use plants to actively clean the air. These systems were originally designed for large commercial spaces, but domestic-scale systems are becoming available.
In commercial buildings, green walls can have a dramatic effect on indoor air quality – especially when set up with good lighting systems. This is because green walls are set up with lighting systems, proper irrigation and, of course, hundreds of plants – all of which are physiologically active.
In the home, small green walls can now be purchased for relatively low cost, and can be installed by a competent DIYer. Not only do they take up little in the way of floor space, the large volume of compact plants in a good root environment means that they are going to be very effective – especially if you invest in some plant lights to illuminate them (and these are also getting much cheaper).
More recently, active air systems have been developed that use fans to pass air through the foliage and the roots to increase the size of the effect. Domestic-scale active air green walls are being developed and table-top systems, such as Vitesy’s Natede planter, are now already on the market.
Disclosure note: the author has commercial relationships with both foli8 and Vitesy. The author acknowledges their ownership of the copyright of their images in this article. The author is happy to recommend both companies. Their products and services are genuinely excellent.
I recently came across an interesting video, via a post on LinkedIn, on YouTube that explained, with the aid of Nerf guns of all things, how room acoustics could be modified by using different shaped acoustic panels.
The explanation is simple and very elegantly delivered. It also reminded me of some research carried out in the mid 1990s by Dr Peter Costa at Southbank University in London. His research looked at how interior plants can be effective at modifying room acoustics and make loud places quieter.
Noise, especially in offices, can be very distracting and can even cause stress. Mental discomfort, as well as being distracted from the task at hand, can make work unnecessarily tiresome and unproductive.
As people start heading back to the office, they may rediscover the nuisance of noise that might have been missing when working at home. Most homes are actually quite quiet (apart from the noises of children, domestic appliances and pets), and this is because of the amount of soft furnishings, fabrics and carpets that are commonly found.
The office, however, is different. Large, open plan spaces with hard surfaces and lots of right angles can be very noisy places. Sound is reflected all over the place and often not well absorbed. Sometimes you can find yourself tuning into a conversation from several desks away just because you happen to be in the path of the sound that is being bounced around the place.
There are very many excellent manufactured acoustic products that can minimize the effects of distracting noise in such places, ranging from fantastically sophisticated computer-controlled sound masking systems, using arrays of microphones and speakers, to simpler (yet still highly effective) products such as acoustic panels that can be placed in just the right places to deaden the noise.
Noise reducing vegetation
Looking again at the video, the key point is that by introducing shapes that disrupt the path of soundwaves as well as absorbing them, is a very effective way of reducing noise. This is where plants can make a useful (and very cost-effective) impact.
Plants are very irregular in shape. Their leaves point in different directions, are often textured, and foliage comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Mix up a variety of plant types and you will have surfaces scattering soundwaves all over the place.
Plants reduce noise by either absorbing sound or by breaking up the sound and scattering it through diffraction and reflection.
Absorption
Plants alter room acoustics by reducing the reverberation time. Plants work better in acoustically live spaces, such as those that have hard surfaces like marble walls, exposed concrete and stone floors.
Diffraction and reflection
At lower frequencies plants may diffract and reflect sound. This is because the leaf size is small by comparison to the noise wavelength. Plants with lots of small leaves are useful as they scatter and diffuse sound. At higher frequencies the leaves may reflect sound towards other surfaces that may then absorb the noise.
By placing plants around a space where noise reflections are most likely to cause problems, you can achieve some meaningful improvements.
Green walls and moss walls have especially good acoustic properties. Green walls, as well as having a mass of dense foliage, are often mounted on panels made from products such as rockwool or dense foam plastics, both of which have excellent sound absorbing properties in their own right.
Green wall in the UK, designed by the author and installed by SH Goss and Co. Ltd
Moss walls are an excellent choice where a live plant green wall is not practical. The shape of moss deflects sound, whilst the texture of soft moss absorbs sound. Mounting materials also have some acoustic properties and, as they cover a large surface area, they absorb sound at different heights and from all directions.
Moss wall by Metiez Moss, Netherlands
As discussed earlier, noise levels in a large space are often not uniform. There are multiple noise sources, and the sound from any particular noise source can be magnified or focused some way from its origin due to the layout of the space. Sound might be reflected in one direction and blocked from going elsewhere. A distracting noise might be perceived some distance from its source. Sometimes the only way to be sure of where noise is coming from is to take some objective measurements with a noise meter and map where the noise ‘hotspots’ are found.
Measure the noise levels all around space, ideally when noise levels are typical for the location (e.g. during normal working hours for offices). You can create a map of the noise levels on a floor plan of the space by noting where noise levels are especially high or low. Then, try and identify the sources of the noise as well as where the noise is loudest (as discussed earlier – that isn’t necessarily the same place.
schematic of an open plan office floor plan
schematic of an open plan office with noise hotspots mapped
Noise meters are relatively inexpensive, and there are some quite useful apps for smartphones too that can be quite accurate (and are certainly capable enough to be able to measure relative differences in noise from place to place).
Once you have a map of noise levels and sound sources, then you can think about where vegetation will have its greatest impact.
Green multi-taskers
As well as being excellent noise management tools, don’t forget that plants in buildings have a multitude of other benefits, not least their ability to improve wellbeing (and workplace effectiveness) when used as part of biophilic design.
For more information about how plants can make buildings better places to be, please get in touch. I can help building managers with your properties, or interior designers and interior landscapers seeking to add evidence-based value to your designs.
A few weeks ago, I completed my training and passed an exam to become a RESET Accredited Professional (AP) – one of approximately 500 around the world, and one of 51 offering services in the UK.
RESET is a data standard relating to the monitoring, recording and communication of indoor air quality. By being an accredited professional, I can now advise organizations and help them deploy an IAQ monitoring and reporting set-up that provides credible and independently-verifiable data on several key IAQ parameters, which can then be used to inform decisions on what IAQ solutions to deploy.
All too often, IAQ products and services are offered without sufficient evidence to demonstrate efficacy, or even need. Sometimes, some quite outlandish claims are made and impressive statistics are quoted that might be completely irrelevant to the context of the space concerned (interior landscapers – I’m looking at you. You can’t keep banging on about so-called NASA research on using plants to improve air quality if you don’t know how to measure it).
If you don’t know where to place an air monitor, how to interpret its data or even whether the monitor is accurate, then how can you be sure that your interventions to improve air quality are working? This is where a data standard is really useful.
The RESET approach is not a design standard – it doesn’t tell you what you must put in your buildings to improve air quality. RESET is a data standard. This means that if your organization is RESET certified, then you (and the users of your building) can be sure that the monitors you use measure the key IAQ parameters correctly (carbon dioxide, VOCs, temperature, humidity and fine particulates), and that the data provided by those monitors is handled, recorded and reported securely and impartially.
RESET also requires that IAQ data is made available in real time to the end users of the building (not just the building manager). This empowers users (e.g. office workers) to hold employers to account for the health and safety of their environment and can even help people make their own decisions about adjusting the environment to be more comfortable and healthy.
For me, being a RESET AP allows me to offer genuinely evidence-based solutions to my clients. I know how to set up an IAQ monitoring system, and I can then apply my knowledge of indoor air quality to recommend the most appropriate solutions (or point my customers in the direction of someone who knows better than me).
RESET is aligned with WELL, Fitwel and the Living Building Challenge, so if you are pursuing one of those standards, having a RESET-certified project will allow you achieve the relevant prerequisites relating to IAQ monitoring and reporting.
I have seen a notable increase in the number of posts on platforms such as LinkedIn extolling the benefits of ambient scenting – the addition of a high quality fragrance to the air inside buildings to make them more appealing (this is not the same as the use of air fresheners, no matter how sophisticated, to mask malodours in settings such as washrooms).
This is actually a subject I know quite a lot about (I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the subject since about 2007), and I can certainly vouch for the effects that scenting has on mood and the perception of the qualities of a space.
Ambient scenting can be used to reinforce brand values, make a place appear more luxurious and has even been shown in some experiments to reduce anxiety in healthcare settings. Some smells are very good at increasing the perception of good air quality – think of those fragrances that smell especially clean, fresh and hygienic.
Ambient scenting also has a role to play in biophilic design – potentially a very big role. Our sense of smell is our most primitive and we often react to a smell before we are consciously aware of it. Scents redolent of nature, when combined with appropriate visual and textural stimuli certainly add an extra dimension to a space – when our senses are stimulated congruently, our surroundings make more sense to us.
The technology of scenting is highly sophisticated (far more complex than an aerosol can or a scented candle) and is often programmable and even web-connected. Furthermore, the actual amount of fragrance chemicals released into the environment is actually really tiny – just enough to be perceived (this is especially true of nebulising systems). Some systems are designed to scent whole buildings through the HVAC infrastructure, with the fragrance oils introduced directly into the air handling unit.
Cleaner air
As well as spotting the increase in the number of posts about the benefits of scenting, I have also seen an increase in posts about air purifiers. This is clearly a hot topic. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, poor air quality was high on the agendas of public health officials and building managers. Poor indoor air quality is associated with symptoms related to sick building syndrome and can, at times, pose a risk to the health of building occupants.
The development of new building standards, such as RESET, and the incorporation of IAQ monitoring standards into schemes such as WELL has brought not only management of IAQ, but also the monitoring and reporting of IAQ to the fore.
Air purifiers are interesting products as well. Different systems employ a variety of technologies to remove fine particulates and remove, or breakdown, volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Unfortunately, as far as I know, none of these air purifiers is able to distinguish between harmful, or unwanted, VOCs and those that smell nice and which were put in the environment deliberately.
The conundrum
The issue that is puzzling me is that many of the companies promoting ambient scenting are also promoting air purifiers, and this strikes me as strange. What drives this corporate cognitive dissonance?
If a company is selling an air purification system, one would hope that their sales people are able to present the features and benefits with some degree of conviction and be able to explain how an air purifier works and what it does to the chemicals circulating in the air.
Likewise, a sales person selling a scenting service should be able to explain how adding more chemicals to the environment can improve the users’ experience of a building (a scenting machine is a product that is designed to actively put more chemicals – no matter how safe they might be – into the environment). I’m not trying to be confrontational here – buildings that smell nice can certainly make using that space more enjoyable. People use fragrances all the time in homes and, of course, on their bodies.
It is quite possible that in situations like these it is likely that the left hand is unaware of what the right hand is doing. The people selling air purifiers may not be the same people that are selling ambient scenting (even if they work for the same company).
Furthermore, the purchaser of the scenting system might not be the same person as the purchaser of an air purifier (even if they work the same customer). If it is the same purchaser, that person now has the burden of potentially making an uninformed choice: is it reasonable to expect a customer to know that the air purifier will eliminate, or at least reduce, the efficacy of their expensive ambient scenting system?
One mitigating argument is that scenting systems are supposed to be situated where air purifiers aren’t. If that principle was universally applied, then there might be no issue – and maybe that is the norm. But I am not convinced that is always the case, especially with an increase in sales of portable air purifiers. These, by their nature, are going to be moved around and quite possibly moved into spaces where there is a scenting system in place. It is also possible that the person specifying the air purifier is unaware of the the presence of the scenting system.
Credibility
I think it is unlikely that companies are deliberately selling both services to be used in the same spaces. There might be a short-term gain by doing so – the customer is going to get through a lot more expensive fragrance than might otherwise have been the case – but I doubt it would take very long for them to spot the problem.
Being a benevolent sort of person, I suspect that the poor sales people flogging air purifiers and scenting systems might not be sufficiently aware of the other products and services offered by different parts of their company (although their marketing departments ought to be). And if they are unaware, it makes it harder for them to help their customers make informed choices. This is clearly an opportunity for some training to be given (and if you are one of those companies facing this dilemma and would like some training developed for your sales and/or marketing people on this matter – please get in touch and I might be able to help you).
If sales people are actually selling both types of product, especially to a purchaser that might be responsible for buying both types of product, then there is an even greater need for some education to ensure that they remain credible and really understand the needs of the customer.
I had the great pleasure of being interviewed by Dr Vanessa Champion, editor of the Journal of Biophilic Design last week. We discussed biophilic design in the new workplace and also biophilic design in the home working environment (which is, for many, going to be the workplace for a significant portion of the working week).
Personalisation of space is a key message in this podcast. There are tips on how Biophilic Design supports and benefits the whole person and how it enhances a whole sensory environment. Some designers might separate off those elements from Biophilic Design, but they are all an integral part, including views, improved acoustics, lighting, ergonomics and when used together provides us with an holistic solution. It’s all about comfort.
As a horticulturalist, I also discuss the benefits of plants, and we also talk about new styles of workplace and ways of working. People are talking about new hybrid ways of working, where some are working from home, some are in the office, and some half and half. Creating collaborative spaces, being able to break up big expanses of open plan offices with planting is an excellent idea. It also will give the feeling of comfort, improved acoustics, privacy.
Recently, someone asked me whether I thought leather had a place in biophilic designs. It’s an interesting question, which I answered with a few off the cuff ideas, with the promise to think about it in more detail.
My initial response to the question is “it depends”. As someone that eats animals, and has no religious belief, I have no ethical problem with using animal skins and animal fibres, as long as it is not gratuitous or involves endangered wild species. I wear leather shoes, and have, in the past had leather sofas and leather upholstery in a car.
Everyone’s ethics have their boundaries, though, and there may be no logical reason for those limits. For example, I’m not a fan of fur farming (but what is the real moral difference between eating and wearing an animal?), and I am certainly very interested in seeing how lab-grown meat develops.
As mentioned above, I have no religious beliefs, but many do. The ethics of the religious are guided by the teachings of their religion, and there may be taboos about which animals may, or may not, be exploited for food, fibre or hides.
It could be argued that leather is a good use of a waste product. If we, as a society, are content with farming animals, then surely it is right that we use as much of that animal as possible. That might make leather a useful (and arguably a more sustainable) product, but not necessarily biophilic.
Moving back to the main question: does leather have a place in biophilic designs, assuming no ethical objection? From my own, possibly narrow, perspective, I’m not sure that leather is, per se, a biophilic material, even if it is a natural(ish) product. It is highly processed – rarely resembling an animal skin by the time it is tanned, coloured, stretched and made into a product.
For me, biophilic design is first and foremost about comfort – physical and psychological. We are most comfortable when we are in environments that stimulate our senses in a way that reflects our evolutionary history as plains-dwelling animals, using well-adapted and highly evolved senses to find food, fuel, water and shelter. This is something I have covered in previous posts, so won’t go into great depth here.
This might be a biophilic space, but does the sofa have to be leather to make it so? Photo by Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels.com
In artificial environments, like cities, we can recreate concordant sensory stimuli through design, and that might (and often does) mean the use of artificial materials. In fact, in urban environments, it is only possible to create biophilic environments by using a wide range of synthetic materials and manufactured products.
Floor coverings are an excellent example of where synthetic products can be used in a biophilic design (good examples from Interface, who are pioneers in biophilic design and sustainability), and wall coverings too. Consider also lighting and acoustics. Modern biodynamic lighting and AI-generated soundscapes that recreate natural stimuli are only possible with advanced technology.
One final point. Good designers make sure that they are aware of the users of the environments they design. In commercial spaces, it is likely that vegans, or followers of some religions, will find the use of some animal skins or animal fibres offensive or taboo. In that case, why risk unnecessary hurt when there are alternative materials available?
So, in conclusion – I think that it is possible to create fantastic biophilic spaces without using leather or other animal products. On the other hand, if a designer (and all the users of the space that designer is creating) have no ethical issues with using animal products in design, then they can be used as part of a biophilic design.
The interior landscaping industry is having to adapt very quickly to changing market conditions, and it has been fascinating to watch how that is happening.
After the initial shocks of Lockdown 1, followed by the gradual reopening of offices and hospitality over the summer, many in the industry looked to adapting conventional ways of doing business to adapt to the physical changes in the workplace. A lot of effort was put into using vegetation to enable or encourage physical distancing – screens, barrier planters, plants used to enforce pedestrian traffic flow around a building, etc. These all had some short-term impact and kept many interior landscapers busy (and in business).
Clean Team Florence sanitizer planter from Livingreen Design
Others looked to diversify their offering. Innovative planter manufacturer, Livingreen Design, developed a range of planters that incorporate a hand sanitizer dispenser, which, along with other hygiene and disinfection services has allowed some plant companies to offer additional valuable services to their clients – although keeping plants extra clean is also a challenge.
It’s going to be relatively easy to wipe down desks and screens once or twice a day with a disinfectant wipe, but we don’t know how well, or for how long, viruses can survive on the surfaces of leaves, flowers or moss. We also don’t know the effects of using surface disinfectants or fogging on plants: many plants are not going to thrive with a daily dose of Dettol spray. With those considerations, it may be that companies decide that plants in offices are going to be too much trouble.
Great for desks and hard surfaces, but what about plants?
Lockdowns 2, 3 and beyond: What can plantscapers do?
Hoping that everything is going to return to the way they were, and planning on carrying on as before, is probably not going to work. The landscape of the workplace (as well as hospitality and retail) is going to be very different – for months, if not years to come. How can the interior landscaping industry adapt?
Doing nothing and hoping for a return to the pre-Covid ways of doing things is likely to lead to bankruptcy. Even with the promise of a vaccine being realised, too many businesses have noticed the benefits of home working and other hybrid set ups. Office costs will be lower, and office buildings will be reimagined. Employees will see many benefits from more home working (time and money saved on commuting, being one advantage) and the towns and suburbs might be revitalized as city centre business districts get quieter.
That means conventional interior landscaping will be less appropriate than it was before. Offices that do remain are likely to resemble co-working spaces and have more in common with hospitality venues than conventional open-plan offices.
Indeed, the trend to such design styles was made evident recently when Plants At Work, the UK trade association for the interior landscaping industry, held its annual awards ceremony. Case studies of some award winners, e.g. SLG Cheltenham, Farfetch or Uncommon, Liverpool Street really show how such a design style is becoming more common.
These new ways of designing interior landscapes may present some challenges. Individual spaces in buildings may be used irregularly, which may mean inconsistent lighting and heating, which may affect the choice of plants used, or their maintenance schedules.
Other interior landscapers are looking towards putting their expertise in designing plant displays, using high quality plants and planters, to use to supply the growing number of houseplant enthusiasts as well as homeworkers missing their office greenery (good examples are In-tray Plants from Indoor Garden Design, or Foli8 from Planteria).
Technology and flexibility
Adapting to customers moving away from their traditional locations in city centres brings a number of logistical challenges. With customer density changing, service operations have to become more efficient. This is where technology offers some interesting opportunities.
Nurtio Technologies has developed an innovative system that combines a sensor (that measures soil moisture, temperature, light and nutrient levels) and a clever artificial intelligence algorithm that can help plan service schedules and alert the interior landscaper if there are sudden changes to the environment.
By learning the behaviours of individual plants (and groups of plants at the same location), the algorithm can predict when, and how much, water should be added and enable some flexibility in service schedules. One interesting opportunity that might arise, especially if access to buildings is tricky, or if plant displays are more dispersed as a result of a move to remote working, is that the business of watering plants can be delegated, leaving more time, or capacity, for skilled horticultural technicians to do the more complex parts of the job: pruning, grooming, pest/disease management and carrying out changes and re-designs.
UK interior landscapers needing more information about the benefits of the Nurtio system should get in touch with me.
I recently started a contract for a couple of days a week with a UK interior landscaper to help with the launch of a new line of business. Most of my work is carried out from home, at my less than perfect home office set up (OK, it’s the dining table), but last week I needed to visit their premises.
It has been a while since I was last in an interior landscaper’s premises. Despite each company’s differences in set up and size, there is something quite special about walking into the plant storage and preparation area. All the plants stored and being prepared for new installations. Everything labelled and assigned to each plant technician for their weekly routes and racks of containers and sundries ready to be assembled into displays that bring life to commercial spaces.
There is also the atmosphere. There is no doubt that a space with thousands of healthy plants has a special feeling. There is the smell of compost and freshly-watered foliage. It is quiet – even when people are working, there is a sense of calm, and there is a sea of green. I have written before about the human eye’s ability to discern hundreds of different shades of green, and in locations like this, you will certainly many of them.
I spend most of my working life at a desk: writing about workspaces, writing about interior landscaping, joining video calls and meetings (that was my work pattern for years, even before the pandemic), so this trip out was a welcome chance to refocus.
Today is the 22nd of December, 2020. Here, in tier 4 Kent, it is quiet. Schools have broken up for the Christmas holidays and, thanks to a new strain of the Covid-19 virus, we are experiencing a near lockdown. This means the roads, and the skies, are nearly empty.
Oddly, it is also 14 degrees Celsius, the rain has stopped (for a while at any rate), and it is warm enough to sit in the garden with a cup of coffee and contemplate life. As I sat, looking at the garden (and thinking about the jobs that need to be done there, as well as those indoor chores, and for work), I tuned into the sounds. A robin was singing, pigeons and doves were making their less tuneful noises, and sparrows were chirping.
Around here, we also have small flocks of parakeets, which add an exotic touch to the area. Whilst they don’t have a pretty song, they do look stunning as they flash by.
That fifteen minute break cleared the mind in a way that a fifteen minute break on the sofa, or at the desk, couldn’t do. It allowed my eyes to focus on distant object (trying to find the tuneful robin in a holly tree), my sense of smell was treated to fresh coffee (which somehow smells better outside) mingled with the evergreen mossy smells of a damp garden and my ears tuned in to that bird. The sensory stimulation was congruent – there were no clashes.
It turns out that it isn’t very much. The authors sifted through over a thousand papers and carried out a detailed review of 14 of them. The key finding of the review was:
These studies show that, when contrasted with equal durations spent in urbanized settings, as little as 10 min of sitting or walking in a diverse array of natural settings significantly and positively impacted defined psychological and physiological markers of mental well-being for college-aged individuals.
Making yourself aware
One of the questions in the WorkFree assessment tool asks “When did you last hear birdsong?” It is not a trick question, it is there to make you think consciously about the last time you were aware of the sounds of nature. It is there to remind you to take as break from your desk once in a while and go outside and just be in the moment. Tune in to your surroundings and let your senses be stimulated from every direction.
This is even more important in the winter. It is too tempting to just stay indoors. For home workers, it could mean that you don’t even get a daily walk from your front door to the car or station (which office-based workers have to do, regardless of the weather), and that means your world shrinks to a few square metres.
Being in nature does not necessarily mean being in the countryside
The study mentioned above refers to how much time in nature is needed to benefit mental health. The studies excluded long excursions into deep wilderness (which is just as well, given the scarcity of real wilderness in Southeast England) and concentrated on easily accessible nature. That means public parks and gardens as well as walks in the countryside, and almost everyone in the UK is within a few minutes walk of a public open green space, whether it is a pocket park, canal towpath or some woodland.
The benefits of being in nature, for even a brief period, are now well understood.
“The future belongs to the nature-smart – those individuals, families, businesses and political leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative power of the natural world and who balance the virtual with the real. The more high-tech we become, the more nature we need” Richard Louv
Richard Louv, in his book The Nature Principle, explains it really well. The whole book is very readable and I highly recommend it, but the chapters in the section called “Creating Everyday Eden” are especially relevant to the world of work, especially chapter 15, Nature Neurons go to Work. The book was written just as the benefits of biophilic workplace design were becoming understood – references to office design and indoor greenery abound, but the message is just as relevant now in times of home-based and hybrid working.
Biophilic design need not be confined to office buildings and other commercial spaces. The benefits of biophilic design can be obtained in the home office too, and without having to spend a fortune. This post explores the benefits of biophilic design and gives some very simple and cost-effective tips to help you thrive in your home working setting.
What is biophilic design?
Biophilic design is a design process that brings the theory of biophilia into the built environment. Biophilia is a theory rooted in evolutionary biology and genetics, and was first popularized by Edward O Wilson in his classic book, Biophilia, published in 1984. Essentially, the theory reminds us that we are animals that have spent over 99% of our evolutionary history living in environments, such as the open plains of Africa. During that time, our survival as a species depended our senses being fine-tuned to that environment, and our reliance on various species of plant, animal and fungus for food, shelter and fuel.
It is only a few short centuries since we ceased being hunter-gatherers and domesticated ourselves to live in artificial environments, such as cities. In less than a thousand generations, we divorced ourselves from our natural environment and the sensory stimuli that we need to thrive.
Biophilic design is a way of creating environments that rebuild some of those sensory and biological connections, which reduce stress and increase wellbeing and happiness. Consider the domestic chicken. As a wild animal, the jungle fowl is a forest-dwelling bird that thrives by scrabbling around on the ground, picking up a varied diet of seeds, leaves, insects and other invertebrates. When domesticated and placed in conditions of intense population density and cramped conditions, they fail to thrive. However, the free-range hen, even though far from its jungle home, has an environment much closer to its natural conditions, and can lead a less stressful life, often living longer and requiring fewer veterinary interventions.
The battery human, also once released into a free-range environment (even though we are still constrained by our physical environment and societal expectations – hunting and gathering in the streets of our cities will be frowned upon) will thrive, and biophilic design is one way of creating such an environment.
The home office environment
The office worker has, in many instances, been let loose from the constraints of the office. During the pandemic, the cathedrals of capitalism were deserted and the shiny factories of data processing and document production went quiet. Even now, offices are significantly less occupied than they were before Covid-19 and, despite the frantic calls from the owners and managers of underused and expensive property assets, it looks likely that working from home, at least part time, will remain a normal part of working life.
As a result, the newly liberated office worker was forced to create a new working environment in their homes.
For some, this has been easy – there may be a spare room that can be used, or space at a large dining table, or even a garden building that can be used. However, for many, especially younger people living in expensive shared accommodation, creating a usable space has proved a challenge.
Good weather in the spring and summer gives opportunities to take breaks outdoors, whether in a garden, a public spark, or even a walk around the local streets. However, wet and cold autumn and winter weather means that the outdoors is a little less appealing. We need to consider how to create a working environment that maintains some of those connections with the outside world. So how do we do it?
Some simple tips for a biophilic home office
Give yourself a view
If possible, arrange your workspace so that when you look up from the keyboard or screen you can see out of a window. Even if the view is of another building, it will be something distant to focus on, and that will ease eye strain and bring give you a sense of what is going on outside – it might hello you decide whether to venture out on a break, or hunker down in the warm, but whatever the weather, you will connect to the world outside.
Open a window
An open window will refresh the air and flush out excess carbon dioxide and other pollutants generated from within the home. It will also bring the sounds of the outside world in – you may hear voices or birdsong or the sound of the wind. It might also be traffic noise, but even that can sometimes be a relief from silence.
Buy some houseplants
This is the eye-catching, Instagram-friendly intervention that will illustrate the pages of the colour supplements and lifestyle websites. However, it is an effective way of bringing some life indoors. Houseplants need not be expensive or huge. Ikea, for example, has some terrific plants and pots at very good prices (and I am an expert on indoor plants, so you can trust my judgement on this). They add green interest to the indoor environment and also demand some care. Watering (not too much), cleaning and trimming and arranging plants can be very therapeutic.
Follow your nose
Our sense of smell is our most primitive – detecting chemicals in the environment (which is what the sense of smell is all about) was the first sense to evolve in the animal kingdom. We often react to scents instinctively and before we are consciously aware of them, so we can use fragrances to create a multi-dimensional sensory environment very easily. The range and quality of home fragrances is more comprehensive than ever before, so there is bound to be something appealing. I’m not going to go down the road of recommending particular scents for particular settings or tasks – we risk straying into pseudoscience – just choose something that you, and your housemates, like.
Water
We use our sense of hearing and smell to detect the presence of water, often before we see it – this is a survival mechanism. As wild animals, we needed to be able to find safe water – not just to drink, but to find prey that also needed a drink.
The sound of rainfall or babbling streams can be found easily just by asking Alexa (or other smart speaker system). A fish tank or small indoor water feature can also be soothing.
Take care of your skin
The skin is your largest sense organ, but often the least stimulated in the working environment. As well as stopping your insides from falling out, your skin is home to sensors that detect temperature, pressure, movement and resistance, shape and texture and even changes in humidity and static electricity.
Don’t starve it of sensation. Use different textures around your workstation and allow your skin to be stimulated. Create a breeze (not a draught), experience some sunlight, walk barefoot, wear less if the temperature (or your need to be on a webcam) allows it or even take a shower for pleasure rather than utility.
Comfort is the key
Biophilic design isn’t just about plants. It isn’t about bringing nature indoors. It is about being comfortable – physically and mentally. Comfort brings happiness and happiness is the key to both life satisfaction and also job satisfaction. A little investment in comfort can pay huge dividends for the individual and employers relying on home-based workers.
As we move deeper into autumn and, with the knowledge that for very many people, working from home will be commonplace for the foreseeable future, the issue of air quality becomes more important.
‘Good’ indoor air quality is very hard to define, and very subjective. There are some pollutants that must be considered as potentially damaging to health, such as fine particulates (PM10, PM2.5), various oxides of Nitrogen (often written as NOx), a cocktail of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ozone. These are often generated outside of the home, especially as combustion products or from vehicle emissions, although some are also produced by domestic activities, such as cooking and cleaning.
Local air quality is affected by a whole host of factors, such as proximity to roads or industry, and also the weather. In the autumn and winter we experience storing winds, which are good for dispersing and diluting pollution, but also very still days when pollutants can be trapped in the lower atmosphere where they build up to risky levels. This air also finds its way inside our homes – more so than in offices, which are often quite air tight and fitted with sophisticated air management systems (usually referred to as HVAC systems: heating, ventilation and air conditioning)
Something else to consider is the amount of pollution created in the home, especially in the kitchen. Cooking produces a whole host of volatile organic compounds. Particulates and combustion products are also produced – especially if you are prone to burning food.
Now, of course, we have an additional factor to consider. Airborne infections spread on aerosols (the fine droplets created when coughing or sneezing), whether as a result of Covid-19, or the common cold, will have to be factored into the way that homes are heated and ventilated.
Health advice recommends high levels of ventilation to reduce the risk from aerosol infections, but in a house, that means opening doors and windows (rather than adjusting a complex HVAC system), and that might mean letting expensively heated air out and polluted cold air in.
On the other hand, it also means letting cooking fumes and carbon dioxide out, so it might be possible to maintain a healthy balance. But how would you know?
Air quality data
There is an old saw that says that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. With air quality, that is especially true. Pollution is pretty-much undetectable by the senses (you might smell fumes, but you couldn’t possibly estimate the concentration), so the only way to know for sure is to have access to data.
Local outdoor air quality data can be found on various web sites, and these are pretty accurate within a few miles (but generally not down to street level). A good example is https://www.iqair.com
This screenshot shows the air quality around my location (marked by a red dot), with my closest monitoring station shown in the box. However, local knowledge tells me that the air quality in Belvedere – an urban area – is likely to be a little different from my semi-rural location (although on the occasion of this reading, the whole area looks to have very similar air, and pretty good, air quality.)
Indoor air quality is a different matter, however, and the only way to know what is in the air inside your house is to measure it.
There are very many indoor air quality (IAQ) monitors on the market for domestic use. Some resemble toys and others look a bit like medical devices. Others are a little more subtle.
With IAQ monitors, the quality of the data depends very much on the quality of the sensors, and that can vary. There is some truth that you get what you pay for and if you can afford it, spending a little more will get you a better monitor.
Some IAQ monitors connect via WiFi and will send data to an app on your phone, and some can even be connected to smart home devices, so if a certain threshold is breached, it can switch on a fan, or an air purifier or dehumidifier, for example.
This is an example of a domestic IAQ monitor (the Awair Element) that displays IAQ data on the front of the monitor and on an app.
What should be measured
As a minimum, a domestic IAQ monitor should be able to measure total VOCs, fine particulates, temperature and humidity. Carbon dioxide measurement is also useful. The monitors should also be able to display an overall air quality score as well as the individual parameters, and that can help the user to decide what to do (e.g. open or close a window).
VOCs and fine particulates (PM2.5) can be quite dangerous. Carbon dioxide less so, unless at extreme concentrations. However, carbon dioxide is worth keeping an eye on, as at concentrations well below harmful levels, it can make you feel drowsy, have an effect on the ability to concentrate and can impair cognitive functions. The source of carbon dioxide is mainly people, and it doesn’t take long for levels to increase in a well sealed building with a few people in it.
Using data to help you make decisions
There may be times when you see the various IAQ parameters on your monitor telling you different things about the overall IAQ. For example, you may notice that particulates and VOCs are quite low, but carbon dioxide is increasing. Opening a window will certainly reduce the concentrations of carbon dioxide, but may result in the other pollutants increasing as outside air is let in. However, unless outdoor air quality is really bad, it is unlikely that in the short time a window is opened to flush out the carbon dioxide that concentrations of the other pollutants will rise to concerning levels.
Knowing about IAQ will help you make informed decisions about how to manage your indoor environment, such as heating, ventilation, use of plants or avoidance of certain chemicals or activities – will you work in the kitchen while someone else is frying bacon or burning toast, for example? Without the data, you wouldn’t know.
IAQ monitoring as part of the home-workers office kit
If you are used to working in an office, there is a good chance that IAQ is already monitored – it will be used to help manage HVAC systems. If your office has a wellbeing certification, such as WELL or RESET, you should find that IAQ data is shared with all the users of the building.
Knowing about IAQ in an office can be empowering and be useful to help building managers understand local issues (i.e. your immediate surroundings), as well as what is going on in the whole building.
As a home worker, this information is also very useful, as it will help you manage your working environment and keep it as healthy as possible.
Working with my colleagues at Fusion Spaces, we are developing the WorkFreeTM home workspace assessment method to look further into managing home office space to be as healthy, safe, comfortable and empowering as it can be.
For further information about WorkFree ™, please contact us by email or take a look at the web site.
As a child, growing up in the 1970s in a village in the Lincolnshire fens, I was always very aware of the changes in the seasons – not just as the landscape went from black to green to gold and back again, but also because our village community, in common with thousands of others, maintained seasonal rituals that were rooted in farming practices, especially those in summer and autumn.
There was ploughing (with lapwings and gulls following the plough), and ploughing matches – yes, farmers competed (and still do) against each other to see who can plough the straightest furrow and they have special competition ploughs to do it.
The sugar beet harvest marked winter, with the rivers of mud on the roads and the stench of the local sugar factories (even from ten miles away, if the wind was bad, you could smell them).
Spring brought emerging crops and, a few miles to the East, the bulb fields and the annual Tulip festival in Spalding. At that time, coach tours from all over the country would visit the Lincolnshire bulb fields, which rivalled those in the Netherlands.
Midsummer was the time of village fetes, always held in a farm yard. Late summer brought the cereal harvest (followed, in those days, by stubble fires) and then, in the autumn came my favourite – the harvest festival.
Even as someone who has never been remotely religious, there was always something special about seeing the mountains of fresh produce and specially-baked loaves (made to look like wheat sheaves) adorning the village church. Harvest festivals with their optimistic hymns and harvest suppers were a very obvious reminder that the food we ate came, almost miraculously, from the land around us, grown with real expertise.
I studied Agricultural Botany at university, and worked in agricultural research for several years – that certainly kept me in touch with natural cycles. Then, I changed track and entered the world of workplace design and interior landscaping. After a quarter of a century embedded in offices, the seasons were almost obliterated from day-to-day thought (apart from the odd day of snow disruption).
In fact, as an interior landscaper, putting plants into buildings makes one acutely aware that the insides of buildings don’t have seasons – it is the lack of seasonal variation that determines the types of plants that can thrive indoors – those that are adapted to near constant light and heat (and that will be the subject of another post).
However, things have changed.
This year, with all the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us have been working from home. I don’t think that I was alone in spending more time noticing and appreciating the world around. Many of us were treated to an especially long spell of good weather, starting almost as soon as lockdown began – it was if it was a small compensation for the chaos going on around.
Regular walks around the fields near where I live have been a bit of a revelation. From equinox to equinox I’ve noticed the growth and ripening of crops, the blossoming of wild flowers, more butterflies than I can remember seeing in years and the changes in birdsong as the summer progressed. As we enter autumn, the hedgerows are heavy with berries and the fields have already been seeded with next year’s crops.
The pulse of nature is not only noticeable from the countryside. In the UK, we are very lucky that our urban areas are generally well provided with public parks and gardens, and these provide very necessary spaces for people to gain the benefits of fresh air and sunshine, as well as to appreciate nature. Indeed, many of our parks are richer in wildlife than the countryside.
Public park. Photograph by George Freeman
The forced pauses in our routines give us time to reflect and gather our thoughts. Noticing the changes in seasons – the result of the inevitable progress of the Earth orbiting around the sun as it has done for over four billion years – has provided me with a very necessary reconnection with nature and the passage of time.
Without a purpose behind a design, and the intent to make an environment better for the people that use it, we cannot describe a space as biophilic.
Over the next few paragraphs (which are based on my presentation to Cultivate ’20 Virtual in July 2020), I am going to discuss what I think it means to build a biophilic design brand for interior landscapers and designers.
It doesn’t mean what logo to use, or what name to give your business. It is more about the philosophy behind your business – your vision and your values.
Why am I banging on about biophilic design – isn’t it what everyone is doing right now anyway?
Biophilic design is the design trend of the moment. It is associated with greater wellbeing. However, many of its proponents think mainly, or only, in terms of the emotional, almost spiritual, need to connect with nature.
This can be an effective approach, is easily understood and has a lot of merit.
Let’s did a little deeper
Research has consistently shown, for almost 50 years (maybe longer) that when we put plants in buildings, things get better.
People feel happier
Symptoms associated with sick building syndrome disappear
Stress can be reduced
People become more productive
Various mechanisms for the benefits have been suggested – physical and psychological – but for years, all we had was a catalogue of discrete research projects without a compelling narrative to tie them all together.
This is Ken Brewer. He was with Ambius (my former employer), and its predecessor companies for over 30 years and was the North America Technical Director. As well as being a much missed colleague and friend, he is the man who first told me about biophilia – some time in the early 2000’s.
When he told me about it, the research that I (and many others) were doing suddenly made a lot more sense.
The concept of Biophilia is not new
However, it has been the work of Edward Wilson since 1984 (incidentally, the same year that the WHO first recognized Sick Building Syndrome), and more latterly Stephen Kellert, that has brought the concept of biophilic design to a much wider audience.
Biophilia theory is rooted in evolutionary biology and genetics. It contends that we, as a species, have an inherent need to be in an environment that relates to our basic needs as a species.
We evolved, and spent over 99% of our species’ history, in an environment resembling the savannah, and that is the environment that we instinctively feel most comfortable in: open, undulating landscapes with scattered and clustered vegetation and good access to water and shelter.
Our senses evolved to work at their best in such an environment, and so it makes sense to create our artificial environments to stimulate our senses is much the same way as in our wild setting. This is where biophilic design differs from conventional interior design – it combines multiple design elements in a holistic way to stimulate our senses.
The difference between a space full of pretty plants and biophilic design
The offices of Segment in California (image by Ambius North America) incorporating many elements that might be considered biophilic
At its core, biophilic design is a design philosophy that is based on biophilia, which incorporates natural elements and natural analogues in such a way as to create an environment that is stimulating, engaging and provides sensory stimuli that work together to minimize stress and discomfort.
It triggers an emotional connection with the space as a result of an appropriate sensory balance and sense of psychological and physical comfort.
There is a huge benefit to putting plants into buildings – the very act of enriching a space can have some profound effects in terms of wellbeing and productivity.
The difference, however, between doing interior landscaping and biophilic design isn’t what you put in a building, but how what you put in a building speaks to the people that use the building. In other words, it isn’t about the products.
It is also about why.
Why has your client asked you to put plants in their building? What is the intent?
Biophilic design has many definitions. Terrapin, for example, propose a number of characteristics that make up biophilic design in three broad categories, as we can see here.
Nature in the space
Nature of the space
Natural analogues
The first and last of these are areas are what interior designers and interior landscapers are really good at. With a bit of imagination, they can be pretty good at the other as well.
When combined well, these elements create a sensory environment that is harmonious. The sensory inputs we experience are congruent. They complement each other and allow us to understand our environment.
When our senses are stimulated discordantly, when we can’t make sense of what we are seeing, feeling, hearing and smelling, then we become stressed. If we hear a threat, but can’t see it, or if we smell the ocean but see the grey walls of an office, it takes mental effort to come to terms with those stimuli.
The importance of good organizational culture
Craig Knight’s research, and that of others, has shown that the biggest impact on performance and wellbeing isn’t plants, art, smells, and everything else that we do, but it is organizational culture.
The more people are empowered to manage their work and their work space, the better things are. Such empowerment can, and should for our industry, extend to engaging as far as possible with the end users of buildings – e.g. office workers – and giving them some agency over the plants and other enrichments.
Get empowerment right, everything else follows
And this doesn’t just mean with the clients. If designers get it right within their own organizations, they too will reap the benefits.
In fact, I think that designers need to live the values that are sold to clients in order to sell those ideas credibly, and for employees to sell and service those ideas with conviction
That’s how you build a biophilic brand identity: human-centric companies providing human-centric services.
It seems to me that it is likely that there is quite a strong interaction between design and organizational culture (although more evidence is needed to determine the strength of the effect), and that there are some synergies to be exploited.
This can be represented simply as a diagram. This is merely an untested hypothesis at present, but based on current evidence, an interaction between the extent of biophilic design and end-user empowerment might reasonably be expected to look something like this.
The more you enrich a space, and make it interesting and biophilic, the better.
Likewise, the more the end user is considered, the better – moving from design being done to the user, through being done for them, ultimately to being done with them.
And this is where the principle of intent comes in.
If an organization is willing to invest large sums to enrich a space with wellbeing in mind, then it may be reasonable to assume that the culture behind such a decision looks beyond physical comfort and considers issues such as empowerment, engagement, corporate citizenship behaviours, identity, and monitoring.
And, unless organizations make efforts to address the mental space in their organizations as well as the physical space, then they, and their workers are unlikely to fully realise their potential.
For me, the ultimate goal of biophilic design is combining the best in design – all the plants and other elements – with the intent to make life better for the users of the space.
If the intent for creating wellbeing isn’t there, then all you are doing is making spaces pretty.
That’s better than nothing, but it’s not what I think is truly biophilic – genuine, human-centred spaces created with the wellbeing of the user in mind, with our senses stimulated harmoniously and designed by someone who really gets it.
Here in the UK, it is the last day of National Plants at Work Week, organized by the interior landscaping trade association, Plants at Work. Usually, this is a celebration of the benefits of greenery in the office.
This year, however, our workplaces are very different, and may continue to be for a while yet, and Plants at Work have been discussing the ways by which we can all use plants wherever we work – the home office, kitchen table, spare room or even in the garden.
Where we work is not just a room, with a desk and computer. For many, the place where we really work often isn’t physical at all, but inside our heads. The office and the laptop are just tools to communicate the outputs of work. For many, work can’t be measured by keystrokes or attentiveness to a camera or attendance at virtual meetings. At best, that is just a measure of activity.
Certainly, for some jobs, activity measures are the only practical proxy of work outputs, but those for whom the office is primarily the place to transfer ideas to a document or communicate them to a colleague, then the place where those ideas are formed is the real workplace. That means being in environments that forge creativity.
That could be a warm bath, or a walk in the woods. It could be the laptop on the dining table, but it may also be somewhere else entirely. Inspiration can happen anywhere and at any time – not just between 9 and 5 in an office block.
As good a place to be creative as anywhere. Photo by Tanner Vote on Pexels.com
For many years, those that have worked from home as a matter of course were often viewed with suspicion by employers and colleagues alike. Were they really working, or were they slacking off? (Were those employers incapable of actually measuring outputs?)
Some employers did insist on monitoring remote staff using technology, but now that even those managers are forced to working at home, maybe there is a little more understanding that people can be trusted to do good work without the need for a desk in the corporate office.
Evolution
It may be that as we contemplate the future of work, there will be a more rapid evolution of the home working environment. Already, employers, faced with a future when more and more people will be working away from the corporate office for extended periods, are examining their responsibilities for creating safe and healthy working environments.
This certainly includes getting technology right, and ergonomics. Good chairs and lighting are going to be vital, along with legal obligations such as complying with display screen regulations.
As well as the bare minimum, enlightened employers might be considering providing some of the things that make office life more bearable – perhaps some professionally prepared plant displays (e.g. this service from a London firm, Indoor Garden Design through their new venture https://www.intrayplants.com/ ).
Some are even offering the delivery of home office buildings, although that raises many questions.
I wonder about how insecure a company must feel that it needs to remind its employees who they work for with a branded pod placed, presumably rent-free, in the back garden with the desk facing away from the window – recreating the environment of the office battery cage. If company culture has to be reinforced by having a massive logo, rather than by decent management, then I would be very worried. And what might be the consequence of hanging a poster over the logo?
The pod itself looks really well designed – good acoustics, modern lighting and all pre-cabled, but is this where you will be expected to be creative and imaginative? Maybe a few pot plants would help.
The nature of work is changing, and it is changing in ways not even imagined at the beginning of the year. Many office workers have had nightmares of trying to juggle space, homes schooling and caring along with work, but many have also experienced the benefits of being able to manage their work with more freedom, and have found themselves more productive, more creative and more engaged.
By being forced to loosen the leash on staff, employers should be seeing the benefits of empowerment and trust. The benefits to employers and employees of being liberated from the constraints of the workplace battery farm need to be preserved.
Kenneth Freeman | Purposeful Places 