Archives of Design Research

Over the last 30 years, a growing number of studies have focused on finding the connections between nature and human health. The conclusion of those researches all appear to indicate that coordinated contact with nature does positively influence human health and psyche, in particular within the context of healthcare facilities. In his well-known study, Roger Ulrich analyzed the influence of environmental factors on 46 patients recovering from gallbladder surgery (1983). According to this research, patients who were given a room with an unobstructed view of the trees surrounding the hospital required fewer analgesics, complained less about discomforts such as nausea or headaches; had faster post-surgical recovery time; and were more satisfied with the hospital personnel, compared to the other group of patients whose window faced a wall. These behavioral responses to environmental factors provide significant markers for the positive influences that biophilic environment can offer to patients’ recovery and general human well-being.

Nowadays, an increasing number of clinical facilities and therapeutic services recognize the benefits of incorporating biophilic elements into their new and existing care facilities. One such instance is the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Yisun, Singapore (Figure 3), whose ubiquitous use of natural elements contributes to patients’ recovery. This health institution integrates multiple biophilic features including an extensive use of natural light, natural air circulation, view of natural scenery and wild life, vegetable roof garden, rain water usage, solar heated water, and natural sound of water and birds.

Figure 3 Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Singapore (RMJM, 2010)

Several studies in the 1990s have investigated the relationship between worker productivity and exposure to nature, particularly the effects of introducing indoor plants in the workplace. For instance, a study by Rachel Kaplan investigating 615 office workers uncovered that performance level and job satisfaction were higher in the workplaces that provided views of natural elements. Likewise, a study led by Virginia Lohr, from the Dept. of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Washington State University, displayed similar results. For one of her study, professor Lohr observed separate groups of individuals working in windowless environment; both tasks and environments were similar for all participants to the exception of a few potted plants strategically placed in sight of half the test subjects. The result of this study led to the conclusion that the introduction of plants in work environments can result in a substantial increase of workers productivity, improved cognitive functioning and concentration level, and a reduction of stress level (elevated mood, lower blood pressure) compared to the control group with no access to nature (Lohr, Pearson-Mims, & Goodwin, 1996, p.97-100). Furthermore, other biophilic elements such as access to daylight in addition to plants were also examined by Dr. Tøve Fjeld from the Agricultural University of Norway; his several studies outlined additional physical benefits such as decreased fatigue and headaches, as well as skin and respiratory improvement (2002). Similar physiological, psychological as well as cognitive benefits can also be observed in educational environments; related studies in California have highlighted improvement in students’ academic performances including an increased ability to concentrate and interact, enhanced cognitive functioning, reduced symptoms of attention deficit disorder, reduced absenteeism and decreased aggressivity (Heschong, Wright, & Okura, 2002, p.101-111).

Reintegrating nature back into our urban living environment has become an important issue over the past decades with the world’s growing urban population, the extent of environmental degradation, and the challenges posed by climate change. The future ecological role of cities will be evidently critical. Considering that many modern urban environments are largely devoid of nature, major cities around the globe are increasingly trying to integrate biophilic measures in their urban planning and design in order to restore and manage natural systems’ complex ability for climate adaptation, flood protection, pollution reduction, sustainable food and energy production, biodiversity; and also for improved quality of life and well-being of the public through healthier lifestyle and neighborhood.

These efforts towards greening the urban infrastructure can be implemented through large and small scale adaptations of the city environment such as: the addition of green roofs to buildings, urban agriculture, the increase and restoration of parks and vegetation areas, car free zone, green parking, revitalization of regional hydrologic system, downspout disconnection, rainwater harvesting, and permeable paving; each providing cost effective structural and cultural services to urban areas. The use of plant for acoustics, humidification, water polishing, or evaporative cooling are increasingly becoming facilitated, and ecologically responsible private ventures such as urban beekeeping or backyard and rooftop gardening are encouraged by local authorities in support of the local food movement and the promotion of a healthier lifestyle.

New York City, one of those forward-looking cities actively making efforts to develop their green infrastructure (NYC Green Infrastructure, 2012), recognizes the multiple advantages that biophilic urban design can offer to its citizens. The High Line Park (Figure 4), an exemplary specimen of creative green urban infrastructure (Steiner, 2011), is the spectacular repurposing of one of the city’s abandoned industrial relic, metamorphosed into one of the most popular public destinations in the city. Appreciated by local residents and international visitors alike, this successful balance of historic preservation and aesthetic/ecological enhancement has had an overwhelming impact on the neighborhoods it traverses, and has resulted in an increase in property value, improved local identity, revitalized local economy, healthier socio-cultural activity, improved public safety, greater pollution control and enhanced biodiversity. Many other cities, motivated by this extensive list of benefits, are subsequently using the case of the High Line Park as a benchmark for their own sustainable urban renewal projects.

Figure 4 The High Line Park, NYC (2009)

Figure 5 The green vertical wall of Quai Branly Museum, Paris (Patrick Blanc, 2006)

Among these various efforts of inserting nature in and around cities, vertical vegetation has been especially popular in both indoor and outdoor urban constructions. One of the well-known examples would be the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France (Figure 5); with its green vertical wall designed by Patrick Blanc, a French botanist largely responsible for developing and promoting the modern vegetated wall system (Gandy, 2010). This aesthetically pleasing greenery with surprisingly rich texture not only improves the energy efficiency of the building, but also provides dust reduction, air quality improvement, urban noise absorption, contribution to public health, as well as visual identity enforcement of the existing structure. Consequently, vertical gardens have become popular in many other places in the world from department stores to governmental buildings (Beatley, 2009). Seoul City Hall’s Green Wall, recently awarded the Guinness Book Records as the world’s largest interior vertical garden, illustrates how the greening initiatives of the big cities are getting stronger and more ambitious. An important issue, however, for the success of these walls lies in the management of the bio-organism that compose them. Too often similar looking structures are found in poor conditions only a few months after completion, most likely due to the lack of care and related knowledge as well as our conflicted human viewpoints towards the plants, often seeing them as mere decorations and easily disposable. In order for these greening efforts to be truly biophilic and sustainable, the treatment of all living organisms involved in green urban infrastructure should be carefully balanced and monitored; moreover, the public needs to be accordingly educated and encouraged to participate in the overall process.

In the 1980’s, professor Wolverton, while working for NASA, explored unconventional and efficient ways to produce fresh food and to recycle air and water aboard spacecrafts. His research revealed the ability of several plants not only to recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen, but also to capture harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene, or ammonia with much greater efficiency than any existing artificial air purification systems. Although his researches have yet to be used for space exploration, it has led to the publication of a popular book “How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office” and the development of the ‘Plant Air Purifier’ (Figure 6), an ingenious plant pot that increases the natural air cleaning ability of common houseplants by a factor of 100 with the use of an active ventilating system and hydroculture (Wolverton, 1997). This direct use of living plants for purification of indoor air has later been followed by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur and Harvard professor David Edwards, with their futuristic looking product ANDREA (Figure 7a) that encapsulates a living plant in order to increase the efficiency of the natural purifying process. The system, in a similar fashion than the Plant Air Purifier, relies on forcing air, with the help of an electric fan, through the self-watering aerated substrate on which the plant rest; the activated coal in the substrate then captures pollutants allowing the micro-biota living in the root system to decompose them. According to a study published by David Edwards, this system is superior to conventional air filtration systems such as HEPA or coal filters (Edwards, 2009).

Another project by Mathieu Lehanneur inspired by research conducted at NASA, “O” (Figure 7b) encapsulates a type of micro-algae (Spirulina Platensis) to generate pure oxygen in the home. The device constantly monitors the oxygen level in the air, and when it detects that the level is insufficient, it automatically stimulates the natural photosynthesis process of the microorganisms it contains in order to release oxygen using a lighting and water agitation system.

Figure 6 ‘Plant Air Purifier’ (Wolverton, 2006)

Figure 7a ‘Andrea’ air purifier (Lehanneur, 2009)

Figure 7b ‘O’ Oxygen Generator (Lehanneur, 2006)

Although environmentally conscious manufacturing has been one of the major concerns of the world for some time now, the problem of waste management is yet far from being solved; as many of the mass-produced consumer goods are still made from non-recyclable, composites or hazardous chemical compounds. Evidently, our industry’s commitment for transitioning towards more energy efficient and environmentally sound materials and processes has never been so critical; and many researchers are trying to find pollution free and renewable substitutes for common materials.

Ecovative, founded by Eben Bayer (CEO) and Gavin McIntyre (chief Scientist), successfully demonstrate the possibility of employing natural processes and microorganisms in order to cultivate environmentally responsible material (Figure 8a). The manufacturing process uses mycelium – the vegetative part of a fungus – mixed with waste organic matter in a low-energy manufacturing process that last 4 days and provides an innovative replacement for expanded foam packaging that is fire and water resistant and entirely biodegradable and compostable. The roots of the company can be traced to 2004, when founders Bayer and McIntyre, then students at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Mechanical engineering and design, were looking to replace insulation materials sourced from the petrochemical industry (Styrofoam) with a material that could be part of a sustainable cyclical natural process. One of their experiments led Bayer, who grew up on a farm in Vermont, to reproduce a natural phenomenon he had observed and to mix mushrooms with a substrate material (perlite) to stabilize it. After years of development, Ecovative now has perfected the manufacturing method and has expanded their business by offering their services to designers and architects willing to find new use for their sustainable technology.

The Living, a New York-based eco/bio design team led by Architect David Benjamin, was the 15th laureate of the Young Architect Program and built for the occasion the ‘Hy-Fi’ Project (Figure 8b) in the courtyard of MOMA PS1. Recalling the trunk of an enormous tree the structure is also functional and was designed to create a microclimate by naturally drawing in cool air through the bottom of the edifice and pushing it out the top. A structure almost entirely made of a new type of carbon-negative bio-degradable mycelium bricks that is insulating, sound-absorbant and water, mould and fire-resistant, developed and produced in collaboration with Ecovative.

Likewise, the manipulation of bio-organisms’ natural properties has the potential to become instrumental in the quest for new sustainable building materials. Various attempts to produce bio-manufactured bricks are currently on the way, among which the ‘Bioengineered Brick’ (Figure 9) by architect Ginger Krieg Dosier uses a mixture of bacteria, calcium chloride, sand and urine to create a non-fired and durable building material.

Figure 8a ‘EcoCradle’ Mushroom Packaging (Ecovative, 2008)

Figure 8b ‘Hy-Fi’, MOMA PS1 courtyard (The Living, 2014)

Figure 9 ‘Bioengineered Brick’ (Ginger Krieg Dosier, 2011)

In recent years, the growing demands from the public for natural material’s beauty and complexity has pushed designers to investigate innovative biomaterials, processes and forms. Since 2005, Slovak designer Thomas Libertiny (Studio Libertiny) explores the creative possibilities of objects designed by man but built by bees. He has been working in close collaboration with beekeepers in order to understand and develop the natural and industrial process of beeswax as a building material. His experimentations led him to uncover techniques, respectful of the bees, for creating honeycomb objects. One of his most striking creations, ‘The Honeycomb Vase’ (Figure 10) which was made by 40,000 bees over the course of one week has now become an iconic object that has captured the attention of a wide audience. Such creative endeavors may announces a new direction towards what its creator wittingly calls “slow prototyping”, where one can not only admire the aesthetically qualities of an object but also appreciate the natural process of bio-manufacture.

More recently, a group of researchers at MIT Mediated Matter lab, unveiled the ‘Silk Pavilion’ (Figure 11a), a large dome covered with the silk produced on site by 6,500 silkworms (Figure 11b). Although non-functional at this stage, such projects are representative of a change of attitude of the design community, towards an increasing convergence of biology and design.

Figure 10 ‘The Honeycomb Vase’ (Libertiny, 2006)

Figure 11a ‘Silk Pavilion’ (MIT Mediated Matter lab, 2013)

Figure 11b Details of ‘Silk Pavilion’

One of the greatest global challenges we face is the production and distribution of ever more sustainable energy to the entire population of our planet (Vera & Langlois, 2007), and in recent years we have seen a dramatic increase in investment and installation of green alternative energy production units such as photovoltaic and wind power. While wind and solar power undeniably will help us to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and pollutants we release in the atmosphere, those technologies at their current stage of development are unfortunately not without impact on the environment; the production and recycling of solar panels are still far from sustainable and still requires the extensive use of resources and toxic materials (Tsoutsos, Frantzeskaki, & Gekas, 2005), while various reports have uncovered the fact that wind farms are responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of bird death each year (Saidur, Rahim, Islam, & Solangi, 2011). If, no doubt, solutions will be found to improve those technologies, their shortcomings also invite us to continue looking for other alternatives to fossil fuel.

‘Latro lamp’ (Figure 12), a speculative design concept by Mike Thompson, harvests the small electric charge produced by algae during photosynthesis and transforms it into light, developed with the help of Plant Physiology specialist, Professor Vredenberg of Wageningen University. The design was inspired by the discovery of scientist from Yonsei and Stanford University who managed to draw a small electrical current from mixotropic algae during photosynthesis. During the day, the lamp is placed in direct sunlight for the algae to photosynthesize CO2, and at night the lamp uses the energy collected to produce light. At the moment the project still poses significant challenges in terms of efficiency and economy, as the gold electrodes, just 30 nm wide, are expensive to produce and the algae cells are only capable of producing very small amount of current; however, current development in Nanotechnology, such as the production of carbon nanotubes, may soon allow for more efficient and affordable devices.

Figure 12 ‘Latro Lamp’(Thompson, 2010)

Figure 13a ‘Moss FM’(Felder, Bombelli, & Dennis, 2013)

Figure 13b ‘Moss Table’(Driver, Peralta, Bombelli, & Dennis, 2011)

‘Moss FM’ (Figure 13a), a project developed by Swiss designer Fabienne Felder, biochemist Paolo Bombelli and plant scientist Ross Dennis, combine Photo Microbial Fuel Cells (Photo-MFCs) with a radio. Dr. Bombelli and Ross Dennis, from the University of Cambridge, have been researching Bio-photovoltaic systems and developing Photo-MFCs for years. They had previously collaborated with designers Alex Driver and Carlos Peralta to showcase the technology in the ‘Moss Table’ that used Photo-MFC to power a light (Figure 13b). This new system, in a similar fashion, harnesses and converts electrons produced by moss during photosynthesis to power the electric device. Moss is used because its photosynthetic process makes the plants particularly efficient for generating electricity. At the moment, the technology used in the radio can only capture 0.1% of the electrons the mosses produce but the team hopes that in the coming years they will be able to find the optimal conductive materials, the right plants, watering and maintenance systems that will improve the efficiency of the system, guarantee stable flow of electricity and offer a sustainable and biological alternative to conventional solar panels.

The ‘Microbial Home’ concept (Figure 14a) was developed by the Phillips probe project design team under the supervision of creative director Jack Mama, and was awarded the red dot luminary award in 2011. This investigative project strives to create cyclical ecosystems within the home. Using proven technology and employing various biological processes, this interdependent system makes optimal use of resources and attempts to challenge the idea of waste by up-cycling the output of individual systems as source of energy for adjacent units. The ‘Microbial Home’ is composed of devices including: the Bio-digester kitchen island that converts bathroom waste solids and food waste into methane gas that can be used to power other devices in the home and the dehydrated sludge from the digester can be removed and used as compost; the Larder, a system designed to keep food fresh longer by using an evaporative cooling processes; the Filtering Squatting Toilet that separates effluent and channels excreta to the Bio-digester; the Bio-light which uses bioluminescent bacteria fed with methane and composted material drawn from the Bio-digester; as well as the Paternoster waste up-cycler that utilizes the properties of fungi that have powerful enzyme to decomposed plastic over the course of several weeks. The most innovative aspect of this project is that while it was entirely inspired by existing technology like the methane digester that has been in use for centuries, it manages for the first time to combine them within an elegant interdependent system optimized by design and adapted to an urban habitat (Figure 14b).

Figure 14a ‘Microbial Home’ concept (Phillips Design, 2011)

Figure 14b ‘Microbial Home’ interdependent ecosystem

(1) Bio-collaboration on an aesthetical level: Is the living organism essential to the uniqueness of the design or does it elicit greater appreciation or acceptance of the design?

(2) Bio-collaboration on a functional level: Does the design integrate a living organism in order to provide a practical alternative to a synthetic technique? Is the living organism primordial to the functionality of the design?

(3) Bio-collaboration on a structural level: Is the design primarily made by a living organism?

(1) Low-impact technology: Does this design offer a sustainable alternative to man-made technology during the production, usage or end-of-life of the product?

(2) Environmental credentials: Is the product Cradle-to-Cradle certified product program?

Marketability: Are the products already commercialized or are they still in their prototyping phase?