Courting Nature in Design

The love of nature can be nurtured through architecture that conservers energy and creates healthy interiors
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From GreenSource
B.J. Novitski

Biophilic design for health

Much of the research on the quantifiable benefits of biophilia relates to patient healing, and the healthcare industry has taken notice. Indeed, before the USGBC was ready to tackle LEED for Healthcare (due out early this year) an independent group convened to create a precursor, the "self-certifying"  Green Guide for Health Care. This guide describes best practices in the design, construction, and operation of healthcare facilities.

Perkins + Will designed Maimonides intensive-care unit patient rooms with views to distant landscapes for faster healing.

Photo © David Sundberg/Esto

 

One of the guide's authors is Robin Guenther, a principal of Perkins + Will in New York. She points out that LEED for Healthcare is less explicitly biophilic than the Green Guide, though it does have a credit for "outdoor places of respite," for nature contact. She feels so strongly about the importance of nature in healing that, in dense urban settings, she incorporates simulated nature as a second-best alternative. "A tree grows in Brooklyn..." she quips in describing a large column in the middle of the emergency department (ED) of the Maimonides Medical Center. FSC-certified wood panels imitate a spreading tree canopy and bark on the "trunk." Guenther reports: "The response to that crazy tree has been phenomenal. People love it. They recognize it as a tree, treat it as a tree, decorate it like a tree. It's an amazing element that's unexpected in an urban ED." Also enlivening the space are large windows. Because they were necessarily placed at ground level, the glazing is translucent for privacy, but, she says, "the space is so much brighter and alive with the combination of the daylight and the tree."

In other areas of the hospital, nature themes decorate walls and floors. Although such artwork is not as beneficial to healing as actual views of nature, it has been found to be more effective than plain-colored walls or abstract art. Many hospital applications require impervious materials, but Guenther notes: "There are plenty of places to use natural woods and rapidly renewable materials such as sunflower seed board."

The history of hospital design has countless examples of the gradual separation of patients from nature. These include disallowing operable windows for safety and fattening the building footprint for staff efficiency. Less elongated footprints mean less walking for nurses but also less perimeter area for windows in patient rooms. This history will be hard to reverse, Guenther says, but getting staff and patients back in contact with nature-through natural ventilation, daylight, and garden access-will be worth it for patient health.

 

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Originally published in GreenSource
Originally published in March 2009

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