Design Gardens to be “People Friendly”
Determine ways to make a landscape more biophilic or tolerant of people by assessing how it affects the physical and emotional health of those who live there.
Professionals who care about human health or the environment, such as architects, planners, engineers, and builders, as well as landscapers, should take this course.
Anyone working with the following will complement this course well.
- Creating or designing a landscape
- gardening therapy
- Green roofs and walls
- park administration
- Tree maintenance on streets
- management of the environment
- Construction, health, and a lot more
By incorporating natural materials and processes into the built environment, biophilic design takes into account our need to be in and around nature. The fundamental tenet is that our health and wellbeing are significantly impacted when natural elements are included into both built environments and landscapes. Because it involves natural systems and processes, biophilic design goes beyond merely using plants everywhere.
As our understanding of the environment and potential methods for constructing more biophilic landscapes improves, so does our power to create better places and the maturity of our approach to doing so.
Lesson Structure
There are 10 lessons in this course:
- Relationship between Outdoor Environments and Human Well-being
- What is Biophilia?
- Understanding Biophobia
- Health Problems of Biophilic Design
- Urban Heat Island Effect
- Psychological and Physiological Street
- Breakdown of Ecosystems
- Environmental Degradation.
- Health Benefits of Biophilic Design
- Theories of Stress Recovery -attention restoration, stress recovery
- The Value of Green Space
- Terminology -biophilia, biomimicry, cityscapes, urban landscaping, built environment, etc
- Design Considerations
- Evolution of Design Considerations.
- Not Designing for Use
- Do not Fail to Involve the Local Community
- Avoid Isolation from Nature
- Avoid Poor Accessibility.
- Connect with Nature
- Develop a Sense of Place
- Achieve Long-Term Sustainability
- Develop Sensory Stimulation
- Achieve Beneficial User Experience.
- Practical Considerations – Multidisciplinary Approach, Town Planning, Consideration of Outcomes.
- Looking at the Future – Further Research, Amendments to National Standards.
- Patterns and Principles in Urban Design
- Introduction.
- Design Principles.
- Design Patterns.
- Terrapin Bright Criteria
- Nature and Space Patterns
- Natural Analogue Patterns
- Nature of the Space Patterns
- Relationship to Health
- Application of Patterns
- Components of the Landscape
- Introduction – Biophilic Components.
- Hard Landscape Components – Surfaces, Stone and Brick, Timber, Metal.
- Soft Landscape Components – Turf, Plants.
- The Relationship Between Health and Design Components
- Direct Experience of Nature -light, air, water, plants, animals, weather, natural landscapes, fire
- Indirect Experience of Nature -nature images, natural materials, natural colour, information richness, biomimicry, etc
- Experience of Space and Place -prospect and refuge, organised complexity, transitional spaces, mobility and way finding, etc
- Some Natural Components in More Detail – Trees, Vegetation, Animals, Water.
- Water quality issues
- Providing Services to People
- Introduction.
- Five Principles of Healthy Places
- Healthy places improve air, water and soil quality
- Healthy places help overcome health inequalities
- Healthy places make people feel comfortable
- Healthy places optimise opportunities
- Healthy places are restorative
- Water Harvesting, Retention, and Re-use – Storm water, Rainwater, Urban Runoff, Integrated Urban Water Management.
- Affecting the Individual
- Biophilia in different Environments
- Environmental stress
- General Adaptation Syndrome
- Physiological effects of stress -gastric ulcers, immune system, heart disease
- Biophilia in the workplace
- Noise levels
- Temperature
- What biophilia can and cannot do
- Affecting Environmental and Climatic Conditions
- Water contaminants
- Chlorination
- Microbiological Problems
- Water quality in aquaria and ponds
- Legionnaires Disease in Soil and Potting Media
- Using Plants to Extract Contaminants
- Growing Plants in Contaminated Soils
- Biological Filters for polluted and waste water
- Air Quality
- Roof and Wall Gardens to Improve Air Quality and Aesthetics
- Roof Garden accessibility and safety
- What is a Vertical Garden -advantages and disadvantages
- Pruning to prevent problems
- Decorative Plant Supports
- Temporary Props
- Types of Roof Garden Installations
- Types of Wall Gardens
- Narrow Profile Green lines
- Plant Selection – considering climate, structure, aesthetics, etc
- Construction of Roof and Vertical Gardens
- Sealing with weight, water, leaks, heights, etc
- Waterproofing
- Plant damage
- Plant knowledge -epiphytes, ground covers, etc.
- Assessing and Analysing Existing Landscapes
- Assessing Component Attributes of a biophilic experience
- Using a checklist
- Problems of Assessment
- Measuring Pollutants – air, water, noise
- Creating Buffer Zones for Pollution.
- Using Windbreaks, Hedges, Screens
- Creating Shaded Areas
- Designing a New Home Garden using Biophilic Design Principles
- Creating a Natural Approach to Gardening
- Avoiding Problem Materials
- Disposing of Waste
- Work with Nature
- Simple Design Procedure
- Integrating Biophilic Design into Existing Landscape
- Introduction.
- Retrofitting Green walls and Roofs.
- Using hydroponics for a Vertical NFT Wall
- Redevelopment of Public Institutions – adding biophilic elements
- Redesign considerations
- Water Chemistry of Runoff – urban runoff quality, pollutant loadings, etc
- Improving water runoff and recycling – storm water management, biofiltration
- Reducing the Use of Pest Control Chemicals in the Garden
- Natural Pest and Weed Control
- Biocontrol
- Working in/ Improving Urban Development
- Introduction and Population Growth
- Challenges for Design – Green walls and Roofs, Permaculture, Hydroponics, Swales for Water Retention, etc.
- Working in Urban Development -Beatley’s Biophilic City Qualities.
- Case Studies.
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school’s tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
- Examine the connection between physical and mental health, as well as outside surroundings.
- Identify the key biophilic elements that should be taken into account while creating or remodelling an outdoor area.
- Describe the various guiding concepts and patterns that have been found to support biophilic landscape design.
- Explain the ways in which certain aspects of an urban landscape can enhance human wellbeing.
- Explain how a variety of landscaping techniques and methodologies can be used to promote public space use and improve human wellbeing.
- Analyze the connection between a person’s health and their environment, and consider how biophilic design might improve wellness.
- Determine what can be done to improve the environment for people in specific locations by evaluating the landscapes.
- Know how to evaluate and analyse current landscapes.
- While redesigning an existing landscape, consider biophilic design principles.
- Make a design that demonstrates how a town or metropolitan setting could be enhanced to satisfy biophilic standards.
Environmental cues are only potential stressors, according to research. Until someone perceives them as stressful, they don’t actually make them stressful for them. So, when designing a biophilic environment, keep in mind that not all possible stressors need to be eliminated but rather that there should be ways to cope with them. You can’t completely eliminate the noise from traffic below if you’re constructing a roof top garden in the heart of a city, but you might be able to muffle it with screening of dense plants or cover it up with a pleasing alternative, like the trickling water from a fountain.
Accidents are another element of the environment. Accidents are frequently categorised as “contingency stressors” because, despite the fact that they happen in the environment, they are not typical occurrences there. Accident-related trauma can influence a person’s stress response. Although accidents cannot be predicted, there are things that can be done to change the environment to reduce risk.
What is the limit of biophilic design?
Health and wellness are impacted by the environment. Of course, changes to the environment won’t affect other factors that influence health and happiness. Social variables, for instance, might make stress and disease worse. Location, socioeconomic standing, accessibility to local health services, education, and other factors are foremost among these. Also, a person’s decisions in life have an impact on their health. This covers the foods they consume, as well as prescription pharmaceuticals, illegal substances, caffeine, alcohol, and diet. Their age, gender, amount of sleep, and level of exercise are also included. The coping strategies and social support systems of the person are also involved. For instance, someone who uses alcohol, drugs, smoking, or overeating as a coping mechanism for frustration or stress is making a bad decision in life.
So, one factor that can have an impact on our health is a healthy atmosphere. Health issues are typically brought on by the combined effects of several contributing factors. Yet, a setting that fosters happy emotions and encourages us to re-connect with nature might help mitigate the effects of other unfavourable factors on our wellness.
Increase the number of sociable landscapes:
- Home Gardens
- Urban streetscapes
- Parks
- Cityscapes
- Industrial landscapes
- Rural landscapes
- Shopping Centres
- or anywhere else.
