We covered many themes in our podcast chat about mindfulness, placemaking and biophilic design. These are the highlights of our conversation.
Recorded with Zoom Regenerative (ZR) September 2021.
“Zoom Regenerative is a https://fairsnape.com initiative, sharing, pollinating and exploring dots that connect ecology and nature with the built environment. To connect with zoom regenerative, you can like, share and subscribe to this podcast, engage in our monthly events, join us across social media using the #zoomregen or #ZoomRegenerative hashtags, subscribe to our Regen Notes newsletter and find more news and background at Zoom Regen.”
Biophilia and biophilic design
After several years working as a property and placemaking copywriter, I began to notice a change in clients’ briefs about five years ago. Instead of writing about the assets of a building, the design, the floor space, the configuration of the rooms, and the materials, I was being asked to write much more about the environmental context. I call it my windows moment: the day I stopped focusing on the specification of the glass and wrote about the view.
The word ‘biophilia’ then appeared in almost every brief – for office space, retail and for mixed-use and community developments. It began with landscaping and local green assets such as parks and gardens, but gradually it appeared in the interior design too, and in the language used to describe the experience of being in the space. There’s still a long way to go, especially with retail and commercial development, but we’re heading in the right direction.
The big draw commercially is the health benefit of biophilic design. Time out in nature, whether it’s within the designed space itself or in the green spaces nearby, is deeply restorative. This means customers are more likely to return to commercial engagement – with a substantial increase in dwell-time.
Mindfulness in nature and why it matters
I explain in the conversation how mindfulness is linked to biophilic design, placemaking and sustainability. Mindfulness is essentially present moment awareness and focused noticing. Applied to nature, it becomes a profound tool for nature-connection and eco-therapy.
By nurturing a real and present connection, we begin to see that we are part of nature rather than being separate from it. Valuing nature is therefore valuing ourselves too and our future on this planet.
Through mindfulness, we pick up much more value from biophilically designed spaces than might be perceived on the surface. Multi-sensory, mindful engagement allows us to fully absorb every detail of nature in the architect’s vision and benefit from it. Mindfulness takes the design concept from its source in nature and makes it an embodied reality.
There’s an important overlap between the language of mindfulness and the language of biophilic design. As a meditation teacher, I’ve been creating mental images such as walled gardens and elevated seats in my meditations for years – not at all dissimilar from the biophilic pattern of ‘prospect and refuge.’ Meditation or mindfulness teachers have a deep understanding of the psychology of space, which can be a huge advantage if you also happen to work in the marketing of places!
Forest bathing and natural architecture
In the podcast, I talk about what architects can learn from Japanese forest bathing or shinrin-yoku and how it’s an important source experience for biophilic designers. For more information about what a forest bathing event with me might be like, please see my post here.
I also explain how the traditional forest bathing terminology of ‘invitations to experience’ can be of tremendous value commercially, helping to forge a lasting and authentic emotional connection with your visitors in placemaking.
Virtual nature in placemaking
We also touch on the value of virtual nature. This is where technology can step in in place of real experience in nature to offer some of the same health & wellbeing benefits.
As a meditation & mindfulness teacher, this came into its own during the Covid pandemic when many people were living in isolation without access to real green space. By using meditation scripts and prompts, visual imagery, recorded soundscapes, plants and essential oils, I was able to recreate natural scenes and immerse my students in nature.
As an architect or developer, many of these same things can be applied in design. Virtual journeys can be combined with real ones to drive consumer engagement and maximise the health benefits of biophilic design.
Enjoy the discussion here and discover how natural mindfulness, forest bathing, biophilia and virtual nature can impact, inform and enrich the design and marketing of the built environment.
