What is Biophilic Design and What Is Its Modern Day Significance?

Biophilia has been increasingly influencing Landscape Design, Interior Design, Architecture, and Urban Planning. Well, Biophilia indicates a love of life and living things. Its meaning in the real sense is creating a living environment for us to feel better connected to nature.

A natural setting is where human lives feel relaxed and calm. Our physical and mental well-being is dependent on nature, and we can better engage with the natural environment for our fitness. An environment connected to nature affects our health, productivity, mood, and our relationship with others – intuitively, all human beings are attracted to nature.

Federal, State, and Local Governments are now acknowledging the creation of a sustainable, liveable city. This calls for landscape designers and urban planners to implement creative strategies to cope up with sustainability and climate change. Biophilic design is linked to development for better by doing much better to save the natural environment from destruction.  

With global urbanization on the rise, a new model for development is the prime need for enriching lives and well-being to create the best opportunities for living things to flourish. A great landscape design involves a holistic approach by merging the good points of parks, and green spaces and connecting the buildings and spaces between them.

The Key Principles Pertaining to Biophilic Design Applications For Landscapes

The six aspects of biophilic designs interrelated to landscape designs include –

1. The Natural Environment

In the office settings, when the natural world is incorporated, the natural environment and its features become the focus. These forms are the basic things which are the earthy colors, plants, sunlight, nature images, and animal images.

2. The Natural Shapes

Lines and forms occurring in nature are the natural shapes. The notable examples are the arches and vaults, water paths, recreating rocks, and other naturally occurring things in the landscape designs.

3. The Natural Patterns

Just like the natural shapes, the natural patterns are dealing with patterns and processes occurring in nature. This can be displayed through the plant's growth, rock erosion over time, and the use of scale and rhythm.

4. The Natural Light

Natural light is one of the easiest forms. Healthy is sunlight, the emphasis of biophilic design is always on light and space. Light helps in merging the interior and exterior by using the warmth element and different shapes.

5. The Plants

Now it's obvious that plants will be included in the natural landscape designs. In your interiors, focus on the natural plants, plant color, and imagery. The whole idea is to create a relationship between the interiors and natural elements by incorporating green friends.

6. The Human-Nature Relationship

The final element is a recreation of the human-nature relationships to restore the same relationship that existed years ago. In Biophilic landscape designs,  all the previous elements are tied together. So the interiors can focus on the specific themes which are safety, order, complexity, mastery, curiosity, affection, control, discovery, awe, and exploration. These themes create chances for easily combining the modern with the timeless.

How Important is Biophilic Design For Modern Times?

Biophilic design cherishes the idea of a city with combined traits of urbanization, technology, evolution, and the natural environment. Incorporating Biophilia into landscape designs enables human lives to experience nature and feel a part of it, despite living in the crowded cities. Due to the intertwined connection with nature, biophilic design will safely become a standard in landscape design.

There are some more reasons that support the theory towards better acceptance.

With the drastic after-effects of climate change and the pandemic, the main focus of human lives is mental well-being. These catalysts are now adopting the biophilic design at an accelerated rate, which proves the impacts are traveling beyond just the aesthetic qualities.

Green infrastructure helps reduce CO2 emissions, boosts the plants and wildlife biodiversity, and also regulates the buildings' temperature.

Post the pandemic times, remote working has not fully become obsolete. Here is where, biophilic design helps in creating a balanced, inspiring, and more productive home-office environment.  

Finally, at the end of the discussion, it is safe to say, that biophilic design can be fulfilled when the right mindset and the willingness to improve connection with nature are balanced on the same scale. With biophilic designs being incorporated into the living and working environments by making a few strategic changes from the ground up, a novice and innovative outlook gains its prominence. To get started, plants, healthy landscape colors, artwork, and a lush rooftop terrace are some recommendations.