After posting on Wednesday about biophilia, I came across another paper on the topic that adds a new twist to the whole concept of sustainable design.
Restorative Environmental Design [126 KB PDF], or RED, proposes a reformation of not only our conventional development paradigm but also prevailing approaches to sustainable design. It's "a framework of development that combines the objectives of avoiding adverse environmental impacts while also promoting positive connections between people and nature in the built environment."
The gist of the argument by Stephen R. Kellert of Yale University is that most sustainable design guidelines, such as LEED or BREEAM, are based on the objective of achieving "low environmental impact", which is not enough to achieve true sustainability in the long term. Noting the work of William McDonough, who argues that "a broader and more sustainable design approach must move beyond simply avoiding environmental damage, seeking to generate ecological health as well", Kellert uses the biophilia hypothesis to suggest that McDonough's approach should be extended "to include humans in this ecological health equation, recognizing how people’s physical and mental well being and productivity in the built environment is also contingent on the quality and quantity of their experiential connections with natural systems and processes".
The implication of this argument is the need for a fundamental change of mindset in how we design the urban environment:
The environmental crisis of damaged natural systems and impoverished humannature relations is fundamentally a design crisis that can only be resolved through constructing more efficient and environmentally benign buildings and landscapes. Restorative Environmental Design goes beyond avoiding harm and damage to natural systems and human health to also seeking the restoration of positive and beneficial contact between nature and humanity. Lacking this more affirmative dimension of design and development, sustainability will rarely if ever be achieved no matter how much improvement occurs in resource conservation, energy efficiency, waste minimization, or pollution abatement. Absent the positive human experience of nature, people will not commit the energies, emotions, and resources necessary over time to sustain buildings and landscapes no matter how technologically sophisticated.
Quoting from Judith Heerwagen, Kellert suggests that well-designed buildings with biophilic features "contain the ‘essence’ of natural objectives without being exact copies. They draw on design principles of natural forms". Reading this, I can't help thinking of the vernacular design of rondavels: the round, thatch-roofed, mud-walled homes of Southern Africa. Built entirely of locally-sourced, natural materials and containing no corners or straight edges in their design, and often built on hillsides with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, they surely represent the ultimate in biophilic design.
As Kellert would have it, the key to successful modern design is to translate these ideas to the urban context, and he believes it can be done. I hope he's right.
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