Biophilia Effect: Improving Your Designs With Nature

How often have you heard the advice to take a long walk in order to overcome writer’s block or to focus better on a problem you’re trying to solve? Human beings have an affinity for nature. In most cultures throughout history a fondness for nature is easily observed and nature is often prescribed as a healing therapy.


In a housing relocation study those children who experienced the greatest increase in nature views also made the greatest gains in standard tests of attention. Similar results have been seen in college students with windows that offer more views of nature. Natural scenes and imagery seem to provide a reliable and consistent source of emotional, cognitive, and physical benefits.

Nature has often been used as therapy for people with physical and mental health problems and even to simply improve mood. 

In the mid 80s Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson introduced the biophilia theory, which suggests that human beings thrive in nature and suffer in its absence. Since that time studies like the ones mentioned above have offered convincing evidence to support the theory.

What’s perhaps most interesting, especially for our purposes, is that the biophilia effect doesn’t require real natural environments. Imagery of nature is enough to see the effect. Looking through the window at the mountains or seeing a photograph of the mountains on your wall will both have a similar effect to make you feel better and improve our concentration. An artificial plant will have a similar effect to a real plant.


Biophilia in Architecture

In recent years buildings have been including more and more natural elements into their designs. It’s been demonstrated that doing so has measurable benefits in productivity, emotional well-being, stress reduction, learning, and healing. Some ways architects take advantage of the biophilia effect (PDF) are:

• Filling spaces with daylight through skylights and windows
• Presenting more views of the outside world
• Indoor gardens
• Fountains and garden ponds
• Parks and other outdoor gathering places in urban neighborhoods

How to Take Advantage of the Biophilia Effect in Your Designs

First, decide if the biophilia effect will really add something to your design. The biophilia effect is most useful when healing, learning, and concentration are important. Is your design looking to heal or teach? Do you need visitors to be able to focus and concentrate more?

In many cases you’ll be able to answer yes to the previous questions, but what if your design is trying to get a visitor to take an impulsive action? In that case do you want them concentrating more? Is healing or learning important? As with most design principles think about whether the biophilia effect is important to your design goals.

With the assumption that you do want to take advantage of the biophilia effect what can you do? Obvious things are to use imagery and other touches of nature to your design. Use photos and illustrations of plants and trees and rivers and anything else you might find on a nature hike.

We can also use natural textures as backgrounds behind parts or all of our designs. Textures of wood, leather, water, grass, stones, or anything else you might find outside.

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Vanse Design (2010) by - Steven Bradley. 'Biophilia effect: Improving your design with nature' [online] Available from: http://vanseodesign.com/web-design/biophilia-effect/ [Access date 04/04/2016]