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ROUND TABLE REVIEW BUILDING


INSIGHTS LIVE


Round table co-chairs James Parker and Oliver Heath


Exploring Solutions for Biophilic Design in Commercial Spaces


BIOPHILIC DESIGN AMBASSADORS ASSEMBLE IN BRIGHTON The group featured biophilia advocates from the worlds of building and product design including (pictured front) Dawn Scott, Senior Colour Designer at sponsor Dulux Trade I


n February, we staged a round table which was focused on the positive effects of workplace environments on users, and we couldn’t have picked a better venue to demonstrate this in practice – the stunning Projects Nile House in Brighton. Sponsored by Dulux Trade, this event was a real-world discussion inspired by human-centred approaches to biophilic design, which demystifi ed the approach somewhat as being more straightforward than it may seem, but also vividly showed why clients needed to be convinced to include it as a must-have for healthy future workplaces. More and more offi ce workers are doing long shifts where they are focused on a screen and dislocated from nature, but lockdowns re-taught us that we don’t want to be removed from the health benefi ts of the natural world simply because we are at work. It is increasingly designers’ job to show clients the compelling, evidence- based case for biophilic design, including potential returns on investment and physical as well as mental benefi ts for staff. From hormonal benefi ts of nature, light and colour, the group discussed


how spaces can be transformed to work better, but also why this needs to happen more in the mainstream. It’s a well-worn statistic that staff are 90% of a business’ costs, and investing in biophilia is an upfront cost. But there are benefi ts in not only recruitment and retention, but also productivity. However, designers are confronted by often reticent clients, and if they do put their weight behind thorough-going biophilia, design measures can still be easy pickings for value engineering. Greater openness to more natural offi ce approaches has been seen in recent years, with higher-end companies and investors’ ESG goals to fulfi l, the attendant hormonal benefi ts to alleviate stress and increase productivity, and powerful drivers such as the WELL Standard. But as our event co-chair Oliver Heath stated, to fully realise the benefi ts of biophilic design, it needed to be seen as part of a ‘human-centred’ approach which improves quality of life, not confi ned to a sustainability agenda that could mean it’s just about “doing less bad,” said Heath (e.g. reducing toxins).


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