For years, the customary approach to architectural design tended to treat building and landscape architecture as two separate entities. Over time, such a dissociation – defining a strict difference between indoor and outdoor living has impacted, often in negative ways, both human beings and their natural environment. But the emerging trend of biophilic design is changing this dissociative concept, as biophilia combines both indoor and outdoor living in more balanced dimensions of physical wellness and spiritual health.
This type of design is expressed as “an innovative approach that emphasizes the necessity of maintaining, enhancing and restoring the beneficial experience of nature in the built environment.” This definition, from professor and author Dr. Stephen R. Kellert, describes a design tactic which stems from the term biophilia, meaning life-loving. In 1984, biologist and Harvard University professor Edward O. Wilson published his book “Biophilia” that coined the title, meaning, “the innate tendency to focus on life and the lifelike processes.”
