Biophilic Design Enhancing Well-being and Environment [1of2] - Vanessa Champion - BS 111

00:00:00    JEFFREY HART
Hello and a very warm welcome to episode 111, all the ones, of the Building Sustainability podcast. I'm Geoffrey Hart and every fortnight join me as I talk to designers, builders, makers, dreamers and doers. Together we can explore the wide world of sustainability in the built environment by talking to wonderful people who are doing excellent things. And today's wonderful person is Vanessa Champion, who is the editor of the Journal for Biophilic Design and the host of the podcast by the same name. There's a link to both of those in the show notes. This is the first of two episodes. It's another double episode. I seem to be having very long conversations these days. I hope you like the double episodes. I

00:00:49    JEFFREY HART
I always struggle to work out whether I should be making them into one single episode and then putting loads on the Patreon, but it feels like there's so much good information that I don't want to put it behind a paywall. So anyway, you're getting a double episode. Maybe let me know if you don't like them. What was I talking about? Oh yes, today's episode. We will be talking about all things biophilia and biophilic design. From underappreciated biophilic patterns, healthcare, benefits, and of course materials. I always want to talk about materials. At the end of this conversation that you're about to hear, I felt so incredibly connected and part of something that I really believed in and it really felt like it was all joined up. There was the architects working and the designers and the interior designers. It feels like everyone's got this brilliant common goal that I'm just a little part of. Yeah, I hope that you feel the same when you've listened to it. Episode 2 will be out directly after this one, so do head straight on and listen to them both in one go if you've got the time. A bit of news before the episode, the ASBP Awards, the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products Awards for 2024, the shortlist has been announced and there are, as you'd expect, some fantastic buildings and really great products in there. Have a look at those, there's a link in the show notes. A reminder of the free exhibition going on at the Design Museum in London at the moment. You can see full-scale models of wall sections made from beautiful natural materials. So definitely worth going and having a look and a touch of that. Personally, I'm about halfway through a retrofit project on the estate I live on. We are retrofitting the old granary with lovely natural materials. Of course. We're using stunning hemp bat insulation that's gone into the ceiling and then that's being capped with some wood fiberboard to catch all of those thermal bridges. The walls are getting a similar treatment and then we'll be fitting a kitchen and creating a sleeping loft and giving the walls a coat of beautiful clay plaster. Mmm delicious! Ah, what else to say? Oh, Nettlecomb Craft School. Always chatting about the craft school. We have a sale on. The competition ended and now we have a sale on where you can save 10% on all courses. A day in the woods learning a new craft is the perfect Christmas gift. I'm sorry, I had to do it. and it really fits in with this episode. The benefits of sitting in the woods being surrounded by nature are huge as you're here and you'll make something like a spoon from wood from the woodland and it'll give you a little biophilic boost when you're looking at it cooking your dinner. It's an all-round incredible thing to do and 10% cheaper for the next two weeks. So I hope to see you in the woods next year. Patrons, one new supporter this week and that is Clark Taylor. Clark actually sent me a lovely message saying that they're off to learn straw bale building at Yes Tomorrow as the first step in changing career from chemist to natural builder and that this podcast has helped them on the way. That's such a fantastic email to receive, thank you Clark. I wish you all the best on your journey and yeah check back in and let us know how it goes. Clark has sported at the higher level which means they will receive a hand-carved wooden spoon for that biophilic response. coming your way soon. If you would like to be like Clark and support this podcast, and it is independently produced by me, then it would be so very gratefully received. You can do so at patreon.com forward slash building sustainability. There's a link in the show notes. And to say thanks, there is nearly 12 hours of bonus content on there. So yeah, do that if you can. Thanks. The final bits. If this podcast tickles you, then make sure you check out episode 47 of the Building Sustainability Podcast. It's with Bill Browning and Katie Ryan from Terrapin Bright Green. Vanessa actually mentions them early on in this episode. It was nice that they got such a lovely mention and their work is clearly so appreciated. Okay. That is it from me. I'm back at the end. Enjoy Vanessa Champion.

00:05:44    VANESSA CHAMPION
and we interview interior designers and architects, thought leaders, acousticians, researchers, academics, kind of a similar mix to Your Good Self, but probably maybe also focusing on more of the design side of things and how we can improve the built environment for people, planet as well and obviously everybody has to think about this but also the prosperity and I mean that in the widest sense of the word, not just financial economy but also flourishing. So like Professor Derek Clements-Croom, if people don't know who he is, I suggest them, maybe they have a little bit of a Google, but he has this great thing called the Flourish model where basically it's creating spaces and places where we do that exactly, flourish. Yeah, he's done a great book called Designing Buildings for People and he expands the model in there but there's also a load of other good examples and case studies and things in there so that's also a good one to have. Yeah but so personally I started off life as an academic as a lecturer in Greek and Latin at University College London and but I was actually while I was specialised in epigraphy and languages I was also really interested in the built environment in the ancient world and how civic design particularly improved and moulded society to the positioning of various buildings. But then I was also interested in places called the Aesculapian, which Aesculapius was the god of healing. And he had sanctuaries where people would go and relax and sleep. And often these places were out in nature. So they were nature sounds. And when I visited them, when I was in sort of the malleable age of about 20, I was like, oh, my goodness, we should build all health care centers like this. Anyway, fast forward a gazillion years and I'm thinking, well, you know, we've lost that and personal journey of my mother being in hospital and my father having Alzheimer's looking at ceiling tiles. And I'm thinking there's got to be a better way to design health care. So that's why I started the podcast, really. So it combined the kind of the academic side of me because I wanted to find out. I didn't just want to take it for, you know, what is this biophilia effect? Because my mum looked at a picture of nature that I took in. I'm a visual artist as well, so alongside everything else I do photography and filming, particularly of nature. And she started focusing, her blood pressure came down, and her cortisol levels came down, and hey presto, she came back to me. But that was during the flu epidemic, and although she was weaker when she came out, she was back. So that's why I started the podcast series, and obviously now we're We're a printed journal and we're on issue seven at the moment. Next one's coming out is education. And we've had one on healthcare itself and the NHS have written in that and the workplace and cities and things. So yeah, I'm doing the right thing, I think. It takes a long time, but

00:09:13    JEFFREY HART
it's doing the right thing. Definitely doing the right thing. It's really interesting that the healthcare example is It's sort of the archetypal example, isn't it, of of the biophilia effect? Yeah. The studies about about the healing effects in hospitals. Yeah. Roger Ulrich

00:09:31    VANESSA CHAMPION
did a study in the 80s, actually, and you'd think would have picked up by it by now. But he did a study of patients looking at a view of nature and then obviously patients not looking at views of nature. So looking at a wall and looking at other stuff and It was proven that they got better quicker and they needed less medical intervention. There were less sort of negative signs that the nurses witnessed and they basically got out of the hospital quicker. So there was a seminal study that was done. And then after that, he went on and studied, you know, did more and more research, um, to prove that views of nature and, and Terrapin bright green. So people who, who sort of like, uh, interested in biophilic design, um, it's a good, good place to start actually Terrapin bright greens website. Um, that he's, and then most people who followed biophilic design follow his 14 or their 14 patterns. Um, of biophilic design and the, and the best one really is the visual connection to nature. It's that direct connection that we see. So views of nature, obviously real plants and stuff, but, um, yeah, so yeah, healthcare, healthcare started, um, sort of, well, yeah, it was kind of one of the early things anyway, of, of proving that the biophilic effect really improved our, our wellbeing.

00:10:50    JEFFREY HART
Do you know when you became aware of the term sort of biophilic design and biophilia?

00:10:56    VANESSA CHAMPION
Yeah, so I said I was a visual artist and I was selling my images to businesses, to offices and things. I was printing on acoustic panels so that boardrooms weren't boring, but also I had lovely views of nature so that people had a window in spaces where there wasn't a window. So I went along actually to a, it's Rocca, which is a bathroom tiling company and they do beautiful bathrooms and sinks and all that kind of stuff, but they're in a Zaha headed building. near Imperial Wharf and they did a seminar basically on bio, well they were doing it on, you know, environmental and sustainability in design and the guy who was doing it mentioned biophilia and because as I said I was sort of, you know, I was a real Latin and Greek language nerd so when I heard biophilia I'm like oh biophilia I know what that means bio meaning life and philia meaning love it's like living loving life stuff um so I found about it there and then when I realized actually about how it helped us flourish it kind of made made sense um I mean personally I've been living naturally since I was about 15 When I say living naturally, that makes me sound like I'm sort of running around naked, but I don't mean that. I mean that I was just eating naturally, using natural materials, not wearing nylon, not wearing polyester, you know, really not eating ping meals either. I mean, not that my mum was a kind of like good cook and stuff, but do you know what I mean? I kind of really was conscious. I made conscious decisions every time I spent stayed anywhere, it had to have this kind of natural connection. So anyway, when I heard the term, I was like, oh, this is something. And then, because as I said, when my mum was sick and my dad was, he spent his last days, I said he had Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, and he was looking at ceiling tiles. And I'm thinking that doesn't make sense. While the environment around him was kind of okay and looked like a home, looked like a house, I mean, kind of that homely kind of effect. You know, it was looking at ceiling tiles. I'm thinking, well, how many more people are spending their last days looking at ceiling tiles and especially with like, you know, vascular dementia and Alzheimer's where your frame of reference is so small. I mean, that must have been horrendous. It must have been like torture. it moved me so much to really and then I was said when my in the same time and you know you couldn't make that up but when at the same time when my mother was in hospital and she was looking at a pinball and a dustbin and a clock and she was going nuts I'm thinking do you know what there's there's these two situations at exactly the same time which could be improved by this biophilia effect. So yeah, so it was from that really. It was kind of a whole bunch of things that sort of led to that. But yeah, I've always known that obviously nature connection is important. But yeah, the biophilia and biophilic design was where I first found out about it. Yeah,

00:14:03    JEFFREY HART
I think I mean, I was very much the same in that finding out the term biophilia and biophilic design just kind of made sense of what I was already doing and the way I was living life and the way I was building my buildings. Um, yeah, so then to find out that there was this, this stack of research behind it, uh, that's, that was sort of saying that we all, what we all already kind of could feel, um, it was really. Yeah. It's great to know that you are actually on the right track already.

00:14:38    VANESSA CHAMPION
Absolutely and you use the word feel and that's really important I think because a biophilic design is actually probably the most evidence-based design principle but ultimately it's that feeling And that's exactly it. And it's like we've forgotten, we've forgotten that we're part of nature, that we are nature, that it's inherent in us, that we're dependent, we're interdependent on nature. You know, without nature, we don't have water. We don't have food. We don't have shelter. We don't have any of that. And yet we're still, you know, building, constructing, consuming as like it's like a, you know, an infinite source. And obviously we know it's not. And it's just nuts. And that's another thing for me. So biophilic design isn't just about well-being for us, it's also about the well-being of our planet because by its nature, you have to use sustainable materials, you have to use more environmentally friendly materials and obviously then you make the sustainable choice about where you source your wood from and all that kind of thing so there is a there's a sort of differentiation which obviously you know about but I think what you mentioned about that feeling is actually So the whole thing with biophilia is actually about creating those places where our stress levels come down, we can work better, we can focus better, you know, we can add up better, we're more creative. Well, obviously we know there's like a whole stress epidemic that's been going on really since just before, you know, we know obviously before COVID, but it really kind of ramped up, but just, you know, just before COVID and obviously then during COVID and then since. But stress is such a major thing and, We know that by designing workplaces and healthcare units and everything else, in forms of factories, long open plan desks where there's loads of noise, we just don't focus. be the best that we that we can be. So, again, it's just going back to that word feeling because it's that's really a key point. It's about creating spaces that feel good. I mean we can maybe talk about sensory design but you know, how we feel, how we see, we touch, we smell, this whole sensory design thing which biophilic design is all wound up in, it's about creating those spaces where we feel good, we feel happy, we feel content and yeah and you know our blood pressure's down and and yeah we can yeah we can be the best versions of

00:17:19    JEFFREY HART
ourselves really. Brilliant. Shall we chat a little bit about biophilia? So you mentioned Bill and Katie's work at Terrapin Brightgreen. There's the patterns of biophilic design. Do you want to maybe, I wondered if you wanted to give a few sort of examples, maybe sort of some easy ones that people can kind of replicate. And then also I was thinking, you know, what about the sort of really beneficial often missed ones? Yeah,

00:17:51    VANESSA CHAMPION
absolutely, absolutely. As you mentioned, there's 14 patterns. As I said, you can go to the Therapy in Bright Green website and actually download it for free, which is a lovely gift for everybody. I suppose the most important, there are five for me, there are five most important ones that have the sort of greatest effect. And actually on, I think it's sort of early on in the 14 patterns download. It has like different stress reductions and cognitive performance and emotion and sort of, you know, blood pressure leveling of each of these things from all based on evidence or this is all evidence based. But the first one, which is obvious, really, I suppose, is this visual connection with nature. So that's that's views of nature that's having real plants around you. That's the the beautiful you know, awe-inspiring views that we have. So that could be like, well, if you're in your workplace, literally bringing in living wool, for instance, or, you know, lovely broadleaf plants around you. Obviously it clears air as well, which we'll talk about in a second. But if you don't have a window, if you have a window into nature, so if you're in your home office or like I have here, I have a sort of very long door and it affords me a beautiful view of the squirrels playing and the birds. And so I have lots of activity, but then I have seasonal change out of the window. I see the cherry trees. I see all the flowers, I see the daffodils coming up in the spring. It's just beautiful, you see seasonal changes. So we know that that's really good for us because it lowers our blood pressure and our heart rate and obviously improves our cognitive and our mental state as well so we can focus better. The second one is the non- visual connection with nature. But again, it's direct connection to nature. So there's everything that isn't visual. So that's auditory, there's obviously things you can hear, there's things you can touch, smell and taste. Obviously we know that brings your blood pressure down and it sort of releases your, you know, obviously reduces your cortisol levels. But that's things like, so you can introduce birdsong, waterfalls, just rustling of leaves, but it has to be real. So it's not like, you know, just, like piano sounds or something like that. It's actually a real, real direct connection to nature. The smell, so you can bring in like pots of lavender, rosemary, you know, all those things. And things you can touch, so like natural materials, linen, cotton, wood, that's all really good for us. And also things you can taste too, so think about maybe positioning herbs and things around by the kitchen area, if you're designing workplaces. So it's creating this real connection, this direct connection to nature. So that's really the second one. So then there's the other, just the other three things, which I mentioned briefly then. So the other three things are thermal airflow, thermal and airflow variability. So that's actually changing temperature within a building or within a space. So that's like how it would be in nature. So if you think about an ordinary workplace, often the heat level is the same. In hospitals, it's most definitely the same, but it's about mimicking what happens in nature. So it gets cold, then it gets soft and it gets cold, then it gets hot. There's natural breeze coming through, then there's no breeze, then there's a bit of a breeze. And then also the quality of the air changes. So when it's raining, it gets damp. So it's about creating that, which is one of the best ways of doing that is having an open window, which doesn't cost anything, but it's actually open the window. So, yeah, and obviously that's another reason why we if we can create beautiful biophilic spaces in cities where there's more natural trees, it means the air quality that you're letting in would be better as well. So it's a bit of a, you know, joined up kind of approach, but we do need that. The presence of water is really one of the most important things as well. But we need to have a view of nature. So from an environmental psychology point of view, we also know that if we just hear water, we think there's a leak. um but if there's if we hear and see water then it's a it's a real positive effect on us um so if you can put in a water feature it can be very simple you know just a little fountain um it can be actually when you come into a workplace i'm talking about workplaces like because i think i don't know if most people listening to your podcast might be working in workplaces or building in public spaces, but also obviously in your house or your home, in your home office, or even in like your lounge or your space where everybody gathers together to create these little sort of interventions really, where it just keeps reminding us that, oh, we're connected to nature. If you look around a space and there is no connection to nature, there's nothing that reminds us of the outdoor space. then that's when you need to really, really think about where your interventions are going to be. And really, the last one is prospect. And it's probably my favourite one, really, I suppose. And this is sort of what we call prospect and refuge. Well, there's two different ones. There's prospect and refuge. But this prospect is about looking out. It's about having this beautiful view of nature. So creating spaces where you can sit, and take time and look out. If you're designing workplaces it's creating office desks say for instance that that may look out even out onto the city or something but it's about having those sort of wide open views, which really inspire us. But actually, if you bring that even back to a sort of smaller kind of concept, just to use the office example, if you create an area like with some tables, um with you with something like their back but you know back against the wall kind of thing and then you're looking out and you can see like the whole office um as well we know that's really good for us because um it helps our blood pressure come down and all this sort of thing but it also um It reduces fatigue and irritation because we have this thing called attention restoration theory, which is at every level, you know, people talking about micro breaks because we're focused so much on one thing. But actually, if we look up every now and again, it helps our brains just kind of come back down. I've actually, so I'm off on a bit of a tangent, but I've been studying how our brains work, you know, sort of beta and alpha waves, because obviously all this is all based on research and I just want to know why. But obviously alpha waves is where we're in like a meditative or kind of calm state when we're in nature. And we might be chanting or whatever else it is, but even if we're just in nature, it's good for our brains. This alpha state, beta state is where we're really doing lots of concentration, we might be doing a spreadsheet, we might be doing lots and lots of really intense design calculations and things. We need those moments to restore your attention, so attention restoration is about restoring yourself, taking you back to this sort of alpha state, however quickly it might be. And yeah, so the prospect thing is really good because it actually affords you those moments of relief. So obviously if you can look out onto plants, we know that's even better for us. But going alongside the prospect, there's refuge and that is the thing of Because our physiology, so the whole sort of biophilic concept, this whole concept of biophilia is that we're, you know, physically and biologically the same as we were when we were living lives on the plains, you know, 100,000 years ago. We're still the same. beings, we're still the same animals if you want. And when, you know, when we were exposed, you know, walking through and then there was the saber-toothed tiger that would jump out, it's like we don't have our back against the wall, we need to retreat and go and have, you know, know we're safe because our cortisol levels are up all the time, our backs are exposed and it's the same kind of mindset that we feel because our bodies are still like we might hear loads of noise around us and things and um we're still expecting to be attacked we're still so we've got this fight or flight thing you know people have heard of this fight or flight and our adrenaline you know very very often you know we most of our work day is is is high you know our cortisol levels and our stress levels are high because there's loads of noise there's loads of people around us and we don't we haven't engineered these prospects and refuge spaces in so it's about creating little nooks like like the nook pod things um where people can go and and sort of you know tuck themselves away and but still look out so still be part of something um there's a lady called harriet dr harriet short who talks about alone together and that sort of feeds into this, it's about And also, if you know people who are sort of neurodiverse, and I think all of us at some stage, you know, in our day, where we want to just be away from everybody, we just need to focus, we need to just take some time. So these prospects and refuge for me, I think is probably one of my, I'll say favourite, but I think it's one of the most important elements of design, of this biophilic design concept. You know, over and above, obviously, the direct connection to nature, but if there's one that you know, anyone takes away, it's about creating these spaces for people to huddle in. Because, you know, to go back to the auditory thing, but we know that if it's very noisy in our environment, again, our blood pressure goes up, we can't focus, so it's giving our bodies rest, time for rest. So yeah, so prospect and refuge is one of those key

00:28:28    JEFFREY HART
ones. Brilliant. I like that, the alone together. I just saw a post somewhere that was saying about someone that goes to a silent reading book club where they have half an hour where everyone meets in a big room and they have a chat. And then everyone sits and reads their own book silently for an hour. And that's their evening. So they're doing a very solo task of reading. But, but in a very communal sense, I felt that was wonderful. Yeah, I love that. I think

00:29:05    VANESSA CHAMPION
that's like, it's almost like, like a retreat, isn't it? Or like, you know, you go to when you go to a Buddhist temple, for instance, and you go there, you know, on the on the Sunday, and they, you know, they do the chanting, but then you have this quiet time where everybody's in the room together. And you can just be or if you're in a church, you have these times where, obviously, though, then it's often led by somebody, but I love the fact that you can all be I do work in Africa, so I've travelled with nomadic tribes in Uganda and there is this sort of beauty. It's funny, there's this whole thing about quietness. I'm fascinated by that as well. I'm very fascinated by sound. But the whole thing of being quiet, we've forgotten how to do that. We seem to be always wanting to be on, we're wanting to be watching, you know, videos, we're wanting to be watching, scrolling through Instagram. And we don't have these quiet moments. We don't have this restoration for ourselves. You know, we're, I don't know, we're sort of nuts, isn't it, really? It's bonkers. But by, you know, designing these spaces and then encouraging people to be together and be quiet as well. It's a really good idea. And I love that idea. Um, silent reading book club. Um, what a cool, cool

00:30:27    JEFFREY HART
concept. Lovely. I was interested in, I mean, we started talking a little bit at the beginning about healthcare. Um, how, how do you think, well, what I was thinking about healthcare is obviously, you know, it feels like healthcare and say schools are probably, uh, some of the most important or more important places that we should be applying these principles. But the healthcare one especially has kind of difficulties, like my friends currently in, or just got out of hospital, they took flowers off of him because of, there's people with allergies and things like that. So there's very, and sort of, you know, if there's lots of plants that they maybe need to be cleaned because they might collect dust or, uh, seems like there's lots of barriers to, to what we might initially think of as, as sort of design solutions. So are there, are there other sort of well suited ways for, for healthcare?

00:31:26    VANESSA CHAMPION
Yeah. Um, as I mean, yeah, exactly. I've, you can see the thing is, While you can't put plants in the wards, you can put them in other areas in healthcare, so that's also a thing. We're having discussions with people in the NHS, you can put it in certain reception areas and also in the staff breakout areas. People forget that healthcare places are also workplaces, so it's also not having It's also about, it's an education piece as well, isn't it? It's about understanding that, you know, while whoever it is that said in the first place that we can't have plants in the, in the wards themselves or in those spaces, I understand it in an ICU unit or whatever, but, but that you can put it in other places, which will have a, you know, really, really, really positive effect. reducing stress but also making families more comfortable and you know having that whole initial approach into the hospital a better one. Having trees and planting and gardens, I mean Horatio's garden concept is brilliant that you see in hospitals where It's for, you know, particularly for children, but obviously other people can go in often to most of these, but you can go in and it's a garden, so you can go and you can sit and they have places as well where if people are in their long term but are mobile, they can go and do some gardening. There's one here in Hertfordshire where people can go and actually do a bit of gardening, which is fantastic. But there's other things like, even like circadian lighting. So you can adjust the lighting so it does change during the day. You can create better soundscaping actually in the wards. And so we'll be talking about in the wards where people can't view, can't have real plants around them. So you can create better soundscaping. You can put bird song or soundscape. You can encourage people to choose the sound they want and localize it. I mean there's enough tech that's cheap enough really for people to do that or even to encourage people if they have their own iPods and things like that to encourage them to look at nature or to do a streaming thing or to do a communal streaming of like some woodland or whatever. I was working with an AV company and it produced these tellies that are wheelable and that means people can have like a face-to-face with their consultant in a, you know, remotely while they're in hospital. So if the consultant can't get to them for whatever reason they can do a one-to-one with them. But when that tele is not being used, when that interface isn't being used, they can swap that for a view of nature, which they could then select as a, you know, maybe they're like a really, you know, blue mine, sea, ocean, nuts. They could just watch some sea, you know, watch some waves or, you know, if they love the trees, they could, you know, switch it to that and combine it with like a nature scape or nature sounds or, you know, piano music or whatever else they want with it. But the lighting is really important. A lot of these places, they have the same lighting that's sustained the whole time. and when my mum was passing away I mean obviously I said that you know beforehand that during the flu epidemic she was in but she got sick again and she passed away in February this year but when she spent her last days there was so much cacophony and the lighting was the same and it was only near the end where they realized that they could dim the light Honestly, I can't even begin. Sorry, you can probably hear the anger in my voice there, but I just, you know, that should not happen. That should not happen. But, you know, creating proper circadian rhythm lighting for the staff as well, which would help, you know, reduce stress, improve the mood and also the cognitive performance of the staff because otherwise they're on all the time. They know those lights where they are so it's all the same. But it's actually creating views of nature. That's really the most important thing as I mentioned right at the beginning and this is obviously where all this has come from for me because I took in the pictures of nature which I now also install into the NHS and you know, like people having sort of cancer treatment where they're sitting there for, you know, for hours and they're just staring at a white wall and curtains or just, you know, horrible chairs, which are all mismatched because the design is awful. There's no, even no earth tones in the colorways. I mean, that could be done. It's not, that's not rocket science. But, you know, these views of, so the views that I put in there, they're actually printed on this metal, which is fire retardant. the chemicals that are also the sorry the polymers of the inks are actually fused with the polymers of the metal so it means they can clean it but because i don't print the white it looks 3d so as people even if they're absolutely supine and they can hardly move if they just you know if even a slightly movement of people around them it looks like the trees are alive and that's the analog it can go on the wall there is no excuse so if they Having views of nature is really, really important. If you can't move the beds to a view of nature, and obviously if the views out of the window are just other brick walls or car parks, which often these places are, then put a picture of nature on the wall. I don't understand what's the matter with these designers and these people. It's like they wouldn't want to be in a hospital where they're just looking at a wall. they'll probably go, because the people who are in charge of this will probably be able to afford to go into like a private healthcare facility. This should be for everybody, this should so be for everybody, these views of nature, but it should be in the wards where people are getting, are recovering, are having treatment. It should not just be in the places where you know it's just thoroughfares and you know they stick artwork on the walls and things and it's like oh yeah that's great we've ticked the box but it's not this should this should be in places where people where people are healing we should create healing places of healing we should actually do that places of healing you know so i don't know if it's answered your

00:37:43    JEFFREY HART
question so

00:37:43    VANESSA CHAMPION
i've gone off i don't know very much emotional about it Well,

00:37:46    JEFFREY HART
yes, I could. I could definitely hear the passion that you have for that topic. And I wholeheartedly agree. It's the place where we should have the most healing in all senses. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, as I say, my friend was in hospital recently and and the photos he was sending of just just horrible plastic. Yeah, that kind of slightly yellowed white plastic as well. It's

00:38:12    VANESSA CHAMPION
not right. It's not right. And I did a brilliant interview with Dr. Leighton Phillips. He's part of NHS Wales. He's in the southwest of Wales. And he's kind of like sort of director of innovation down there. And he's introducing biophilic design. And the way he's doing it, he's getting his staff involved. So they understand it. So they get it and they advocate it. and they can experience it and realise how different it can make. Um, so when I, at the end of the sort of podcast I did with him, I said, look, you know, how are we going to get this into the NHS? You know, obviously putting all the weight on his shoulders. I said, how are we going to, how are we going to get this into the NHS? What do we, what do we, um, what do we need to do? And he said that, and I've taken this for so many other, you know, um, uh, workplace kind of concepts as well, but every time we buy, We have a choice. We can either buy what we normally do or we can buy better. We have a choice. We can choose to buy better. We can choose to do better. We can choose to to be better. And I think that's the same for everything, really. I mean, you know, whether it's ethical building, sustainable building, eco building, create, you know, which materials are going to use, where are you going to source them from? Are you going to source them from a massive conglomerate, which is exploiting people on the other side of the planet? Or are you going to go maybe local? You know, while you think it might cost you more, actually, it probably wouldn't. And it definitely wouldn't be costing the earth more. And you'll be sustaining a smaller business and all this stuff. And it means as well, you can build a relationship. And yeah, it's just it's about buying better, isn't it? But every time we buy something, it's like, you know, buying something with a fair trade label on. But in all sense of the words, you know, so. Yeah, but anyway, that was that was his kind of solution to it. And I think that's, that's so important. And if we're designing these healthcare spaces, it's the reason I'm doing this really is, is because I just want a whole joined up approach, because you have the designers are here, you have the facility managers, which are over there, you have the, you know, the guys will the women, whoever is with the purse strings over there, then you have the bean counters above them, and then you have, and then there's the construction people. And it's like, Oh, for goodness sake, we all talk to each other. You know, it's like a playground, isn't it? It's like a playground for everything. Even if you're designing an office building, it's like everybody's like off on one. They're all doing their own thing. And it's when you see, and I think this is what I'm really, I've taken heart actually, to use your name, but I just really, because people are, there's more people coming together. There are more people who live and breathe and feel um you know sustainable ethical design and i mean ethical in every and again in every sense of the word for people and planet and everything but they're coming together because and they're starting and they're working you know working together and we're choosing who we work with so i mean that's eventually We hope that we end up being more of us than they will of the conventional way of designing and building. It has to be more roundtable and also designing with the people in mind. Who's going to be using it? What's it going to be used for? How are they going to be feeling? What are they doing? What's the nature of their job task? Are they going to be concentrating? Are they going to be doing sales? Let's create zones. Let's create spaces for people to do the things so they can, again, flourish in what they do. Sorry, I'm rambling. No,

00:41:52    JEFFREY HART
that's good. You're here for a ramble. Yeah, it's sort of that idea of not just creating containers for people to do a thing in, but actually creating a space for them to thrive in all senses.

00:42:09    VANESSA CHAMPION
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you must do that, mustn't you? I mean, for what you do, the designs that you create, Geoffrey, are, I mean, no way, like you say, no way would they be glass containers. They're like, they're hugs. They're really physical hugs that you create that go around people who use the spaces. I mean, they're delightful. Oh, thank

00:42:31    JEFFREY HART
you very much. That's very kind. Yeah,

00:42:34    VANESSA CHAMPION
no, you so think about what, where, you know, how you're going to design, the materials you're going to design, how are they going to, how is it going to, and going back to your words, how is it going to feel? How is that space going to feel? Yeah, I think, I think they're beautiful, Geoffrey, really do.

00:42:48    JEFFREY HART
Oh, thank you. It's interesting, actually, because so I'm in my house at the moment, which I very consciously for sort of sustainability reasons made quite or very airtight. So there's no no sort of drafts in terms of energy performance. No air is leaking out. You don't get that cold kind of draft down the back of your neck when you sit on the sofa.

00:43:14    VANESSA CHAMPION
What I'm

00:43:15    JEFFREY HART
realizing I spent the weekend at my my partner's who lives in a little cabin and you know the the window was open and the breeze was rolling in and Just how much more alive I felt in that space than in my space and so I think I'm gonna have to slightly change the way I use my own house to kind of I don't know. It's a difficult balance, isn't it? Because there's mental well-being, but there's also, you know, I don't want to be using lots of energy again for sort of for the planet, for the well-being. It feels like there's these points where there's no perfect solution, is there? It's finding that balance.

00:44:00    VANESSA CHAMPION
Yeah, it is. It is most definitely. And you know, I mean, if in your space, you've, you've, you know, you've created it so that it absolutely seals. I mean, if you do have, you know, if you've got a door to get in, so just, you know, just knock that door open every now and again to just change the air, because it's so important for you. And also, I mean, obviously, it sounds like where you are, you've seen, I mean, you've got an amazing sound coming from this this podcast so you've obviously it's it's completely it's very acoustically brilliant actually but if you're you know if you've gained if people yeah but if people are designing for workplaces I did an interview with Paige Hudsman, and she's an acoustician, she's a psycho-acoustician. So she doesn't mean she sort of like, you know, goes there and, are you there? She's not psychic, but psycho. She looks at how the audible traits actually affect our brain, how it actually affects the neurons in our brains. And she was saying that, you know, the cacophony in the workplace, is so bad and obviously you can put acoustic panels on there, you can put soft furnishings, all this stuff which we know we need to do rather than all these blasted plastic covered tables with plastic chairs and metal bits and bobs everywhere where everything is reflecting things backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. and all those horrible white ceiling tiles that never sit properly and they sort of start going manky colours and all this sort of stuff. I know there's a lot better now but, you know, generally a lot of office places are really manky. She said to me that one of the best things you can do for improving acoustics in a space is to open the window. So if it's really, really bad, so I'm not talking about spaces where it's all closed in or closed and sort of quiet, but actually if you're in a cacophonous office, it's to open the window, it's to open the door, because it lets the sound waves out because if you think what a sound wave is actually it's going you know it's a wave like a ripple on the water and they they keep going on and on and on and on i remember learning about that when i was about seven and thinking oh my goodness imagine all the telly noise and the people noise and because it goes out and out and out and out into space i was told when i was a kid that i'm like i think oh my god the space must be so noisy So I suppose it is, really. But anyway, that's another tangent. But yeah, so open the window. Open the window, Geoffrey, because it's really good for you, because also it improves the thermal and airflow variability, which is what I mentioned before, which is one of the really great patterns of biophilic design, is creating the airflow, because then it's a different temperature for you as well. So you flourish in that space, so yeah. Open the door. We've

00:46:38    JEFFREY HART
sort of segued nicely on to materials there. And that was a thing I'd like to ask you about in terms of, you know, maybe we get a lot of architects, people that are renovating their homes, a lot of people that probably just work in an office, but thinking about the materials that they could finish their space with. Um, what, what sort of suggestions

00:47:08    VANESSA CHAMPION
might you have? Oh, gosh. Yes. So cotton, linen, wool, you know, wood. Um, yeah, just natural materials. Um, I've, um, I've just come back actually from the dreaming in Wales and, um, it's the epitome of biophilic design interior. I've never heard of that.

00:47:30    JEFFREY HART
What's that?

00:47:31    VANESSA CHAMPION
So I don't know if any of your listeners remember Charlotte Church. She was a singer. She was kind of a child prodigy. And long story short, she's now running a retreat centre in Wales. And I went over to interview her, actually, for the Gem of Bifurc Design podcast and did a video interview with her. And she's really interested in sound healing. But it's actually Laura Ashley's old house. So Laura Ashley's old house had fallen a bit into disrepair. And obviously, the Ashley family weren't there anymore. And it had been sold to someone else. And she saw the land and fell in love with the land. and she then she couldn't believe it was up for sale so she bought the place and she said well how am I gonna how am I gonna how am I gonna do this but she's bought the place and she's now designed it with Sarah of London another good person to look up actually S-E-R-A of London and she worked with sustainability advisor and biophilic design advisor Claire Bowman of RCZM design. There might be RCZM architects. If people don't know their work I suggest you have a quick look but I know Claire and she told me about it. And Claire did a lot of the sourcing as well. And I have to say, Geoffrey, that there were so many ideas in that space that was just perfect. So there was a reclaimed table, which has actually been sourced from this sort of smaller company that just use wood, that just use wood that's been fallen or, you know, just sitting there and they've, they use that so they don't cut any more new, you know, don't cut any trees down, it's really purely sustainable. And they created these beautiful benches where we all sat down and while I think most of us who went, who kind of, I was on the retreat as well, We're like, oh, I like to do my own thing. You know, I kind of normally would sit in the corner on my own. It forced us all to be together. And that is another thing that biophilia is about. It's about creating these spaces for people to be, because biophilia is actually love of life and living systems. And that means us too. So it's not about, you know, combating loneliness as well, but it's actually about we're social creatures. So it's making sure that we also support each other and have spaces where we can connect, even if we are, like we just said, alone together. Yeah. But that was really beautiful. The other sort of materials there was like a cob, like you do, and the sort of cob walls kind of constructions and sort of earthen you know earthen plaster around the walls and there was exposed brick, there were these rattan hand-woven lampshades, which you have to see, they're like these beautiful, they're like lanterns, but because they're all the same material going all the way through the spaces, all the different rooms and the corridors, the light comes through these excuse me, the light goes through all of you know through the little holes in these sort of crocheted lights and casts these beautiful patterns on the walls so it's like sort of like dispersed sunlight as you walk through but the light fittings as well, they're like bulbs and not bright you know if we're creating homes you know obviously this is a home space but you know it was just it's like how do you want your home to be do you want it to be like a bright you know sort of neon infested kind of space or do you want it to be like a nurturing home and loving space for loving for yourself as well as anybody who might enter it including your pets you know kind of these little warm you know havens for people to come to so light bulb colours are really important these warm spaces. There was a silk lights as well which had been done so again using natural materials so rather than using nylon which, because I thought they were tights, first of all, when I saw them. They've been kind of like expanded around a kind of light, old light shade thing. So we're using old light shades. So it was obviously reclaim, so a lot of reclamation there. But they put these beautiful silk things, which were then hand-painted, like these beautiful designs. So if you want to kind of think like how Saris or Dana, with like hand-painted sort of shapes and dots and lines, But it gave it a really organic, natural feel because it was done by hand and not by machine. So it wasn't like a printed design, it was all done by hand. So that's really important. So it's creating these kind of using materials and finishes that are real, that connect us to life and living things and living people and each other. And also, the curtains which were linen and have actually been repurposed, some of them were really old, they've done loads of sourcing to find these really long panels. linen and cotton panels which if you think about in sort of like the 40s it was kind of all the rage or before and slightly before that but they've you know these things are still in existence or even to create them new but what they did was they dyed them with tea so I used to do this and I do it for like outside and you know when you use cotton and you want to kind of like more natural color I put a load of tea bags the old tea bags and I dye material with tea so you get these lovely earth colors and Yeah, so these beautiful hangings and the curtains at the window were just, it was all this earth tones. It was lovely, yeah. So, yeah, anyway, just that's another kind of idea is to use natural dyes as well. You know, and it's great as well if you can, if you're creating your own home, to do it with your family. Yeah, do it with your family, do it with your kids. It's, you know, it creates a nice little sociable thing that you can then nurture and it's a talking point as well. People come

00:53:33    JEFFREY HART
round for dinner. It's funny actually, I had forgotten, but I actually received an email from Charlotte Church when she was starting that project saying that she'd like to work with me. Really? And I sent her an email straight back saying, hello Charlotte. I'm sure it probably wasn't from Charlotte, but saying, yes, I'd love to work with you. And then I never heard from her again. It's good to hear that she's done a wonderful thing

00:54:01    VANESSA CHAMPION
without me. I was going to say, maybe just a different bunch of people came on, but yeah, you'll have to, well,

00:54:12    JEFFREY HART
she's going

00:54:13    VANESSA CHAMPION
to actually build

00:54:27    JEFFREY HART
Oh my goodness, thank you, Vanessa. That is part one of two parts. So make sure you head on into the next episode. We talk more about materials. We talk about example projects as some of the most beautiful projects. We talk about biophilic design and sustainability. We talk about interior landscapers. I ask, is this a trend? We also talk about the journal for biophilic design and all the great stuff that's found in there. There are links in the show notes. There's a link to the book, Designing Buildings for People, Sustainable Livable Architecture. That is with Hive, who give money to your local independent bookshop every time you buy. They also give me a little bit of money if you click on the link. And just if anyone is thinking that I'm just creaming in the money, I think I have nearly made the threshold of £20 that they pay out on in eight months of putting all the hive links on. So yeah, it pays for maybe my coffee. I've also put a link to Terrapin Bright Green, The Patterns, also put a link to the podcast with Bill and Katie and Horatio's Garden. I've been reflecting on that, the making my house airtight and not having a breeze and changes in temperature. I think the changes in temperature is really interesting because it kind of goes hand in hand with a log burner. and the way that I'll have the log burner on for a bit and when I get back it's cold and so there's a real, you know, you heat up the space and then it slowly dissipates so you've got that changing temperature all the time. But again it's sort of tempered with this knowledge that wood burners are actually pretty bad for local pollution in terms of what's actually coming into my house, so every time I open the door I get a little cloud of particulate matter coming in, but also what I'm giving to my neighbours. So, oh goodness, it's complex isn't it, trying to do the right thing. I also realized that my NVHR, which I love because of what it does for giving me fresh air, but without losing the heat that I put into the house, it does a really good job of regulating the humidity. So actually, internally, my humidity level doesn't fluctuate that much. And so that's interesting to know that that's actually potentially not as helpful. And I have gone down this thought path before. I kind of reasoned that I built myself a tiny little house because I really like spending time outside. I spend a lot of time outside, my workshop's outside. Actually, I'm probably getting a huge boost from doing all of those things. You know, walking to do my laundry is not in my house. Too small. You know, I think because I don't really spend a huge amount of time actually in my house, then I'm getting those boosts from elsewhere and therefore it's okay for it to be a bit more airtight and a bit more regulated. I mean it's also full of cork. I was thinking about that refuge point and my my mezzanine sleeping loft. I deliberately kept the walls cork colored, the sort of dark cork that Matt was talking about in the last episode on the cork house. I wanted to keep it dark so that it sort of had a snug, warm, cosy feeling to it. There's been a few times where I've retreated up to my bedroom and just sort of felt quite soothed by this space. Obviously, you know, I've got trees in it, I've got lots of woodgrain, I've got natural colours. I did as much as I could to make it a biophilic experience. So yeah, what am I saying? I think I'm saying I can deal with having quite an energy efficient house because it gives to me the biophilic stuff in other ways. Have I? Am I justifying that to myself or to you? Right. Episode two. Get on it straight away. I will see you there. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I hope you're doing really well. See you soon.