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INDUSTRY VIEWFINDER
What are your reasons for pursuing biophilic design?
building’s users, encouraging them to consider their environmental impact more generally. Despite these benefi ts, there are evidently still barriers holding architects back from fully exploring the possibilities biophilic design presents. Our survey delved deeper into these to fi nd out exactly what is holding architects and their clients back, as well as looking at the many positives of this growing trend.
Challenges Despite the benefi ts biophilic design can bring, when we asked our cohort of architects whether they are ‘explicitly’ employing biophilic design in their projects, the answers were split down the middle, with 50% saying they were not.
There are clearly several major challenges preventing some architects from fully exploring what biophilic design can offer. In particular, it would appear the associated cost presents a hurdle, which also links to the other key obstacle – the attitude and awareness of clients, whether that be clients not having the budget to implement biophilia, or not having the desire to, potentially due to a general lack of knowledge.
Clients & lack of understanding
When we asked if our respondents think their clients fully understand the overall concept and benefi ts of biophilic design, 65% said they didn’t. This demonstrates there is clearly work to be done in ensuring clients are brought up to speed on what exactly biophilic design means and why they should be considering it. We also asked what they see as the biggest challenges for implementing biophilic design, asking respondents to select their top fi ve answers and rank each of them in order of importance, from 1 to 5. Each was then given a total points score, with the answer coming in the third spot overall with a score of 123 points being ‘lack of client understanding’, emphasising that there’s a real gap in the knowledge of clients and that it’s presenting as a signifi cant barrier. Of the 50% of our cohort who said they don’t currently employ biophilic design in projects, a signifi cant number cited clients – in
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various ways – as their reason why. These responses varied in nature from clients not being interested or not having the budget/ funding, to lacking awareness of the benefi ts. Despite the clear resistance from clients as well as local authorities shown in our survey, our respondents generally thought there wasn’t cynicism from suppliers or users on biophilia (86% and 84% respectively). There was more cynicism coming from contractors – 44% of our sample said they were suspicious of biophilia’s benefi ts, as compared with 36% of clients, showing the latter were relatively less cynical.
Cost & return on investment Aside from a probable lack of understanding, the other most signifi cant barrier appears to be cost, with many referencing it when asked why they don’t currently employ biophilic design. Furthermore, when we asked what the biggest challenges for implementing biophilic design are, the highest scoring answer was ‘cost of maintenance’ (154 points) followed closely by ‘cost of installation’ (152 points). We also asked our cohort if they have managed to measure return on investment in biophilia for their commercial clients, and the majority said they had not. This will undoubtedly be a huge obstacle as clients will want some sort of guarantee that there is some return on investment before being willing to take the leap, particularly if it’s an area they are not familiar with.
Sector appropriateness
Another barrier for architects is the perception that biophilic design is not appropriate for all sectors they work in. When asked what sectors they are employing biophilic design approaches in, (selecting all that applied to them), healthcare sat at the bottom end of the scale with only 17% selecting it. 20% said they employed it in high-rise residential buildings, 25% said they currently used it for education buildings, and 26% for heritage buildings. In fact, all but two of the other options were selected by less than half of respondents: hotels & bars (28%), retail (28%), and public &
ADF JANUARY 2025
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