Ulrich sees it, “We evolved to recognize the kind of natural setting where we could let our guard down because there was water available, sunlight and views to help us spot predators, and refuge to protect us. “We know that patients in hospital rooms with morning sunshine need pain medication about 23 percent less than patients in rooms that only get drab, shadowy afternoon light,” said Roger Ulrich, a professor of architecture and landscape architecture at Texas A&M University. Kellert said, instinctive responses to those natural elements “became genetically encoded, so that part of our emotional, intellectual, and physical well-being depends on having access to nature.”įor true believers, even seemingly negligible details can have profound effects. This fall, the country’s first biophilia-focused master’s program will be introduced at Yale, a collaboration between the schools of architecture and of forestry and ecology studies.Īccording to biophilic theory, Dr. Green Building Council estimates at $7 billion a year, up 37 percent since 2004 - biophilic design has become more prominent, too, and more in demand. It is a quirky, lesser-known cousin of green design, and is concerned more with “speaking to our emotions, our ancient genetic predilections, probably fundamental, for interaction with a natural world” than with the protection of the earth’s material resources, according to Grant Hildebrand, an emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Washington in Seattle and the author of “Origins of Architectural Pleasure.”īut as interest has grown in green design - creating a market that the U.S. Wilson, to describe what he considered the innate human attraction to nature - incorporates real or simulated natural elements in an effort to promote well-being. Jeff Swensen for The New York Timesīiophilic design - the term is derived from biophilia, coined in 1984 by a Harvard biologist, Edward O. “Typically speaking, the air quality in homes is much worse than in commercial buildings,” he said, and “indoor air quality has really become an important issue to consumers.”īiophilic theory informed the design of a greenhouse atop a Pittsburgh row house and a detached porch in Bethesda, Md. Now, after building dozens of the walls in universities, condominiums and offices for $10,000 to $20,000 each, he said he is being flooded with inquiries from homeowners and is planning to expand into the residential market. In 2001 he started a company, Air Quality Solutions, that produces “living walls” of plants like ficus, hibiscus and orchids, which he claims remove up to 90 percent of formaldehyde and other toxic substances from indoor air in lab tests. Darlington, an adjunct professor of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, was more interested in the earthly applications of his work. “If you send astronauts up to Mars, what’s the best way to keep them alive - that sort of thing,” he said. WHEN Alan Darlington began studying the use of plants to improve indoor air quality, he and his research team were focused on sustaining life in outer space.