SUPER GREEN - the International Academy of Design and Health

Arts and CultureBiophilic Design:The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to LifeKellert S R, Heerwagen J H, Mador M LWiley Blackwell, 2008 Price: £39.99 / €50This well conceived and edited book is published at a time that requires a fundamental generationalrethink about the impact of buildings, both in terms of their environmental performance and theirimpact on human health and wellbeing.Paradigms are shifting, with a greater focus on the value of health and environmental capital as opposedto fi nancial wealth, calling into question current design and investment decisions, at both a micro andmacro level.Long-term or short-term investment: you decide, or the markets will decide for you. Without the easyintrinsic ‘off-plan’ growth of the last decade, clients and developers will be looking for a new language of value and performance, and differentforms of cost accounting that properly appraise the morphological and bio-diverse benefi ts of buildings that plan to reduce the running costs,maintenance and rehabilitation of our existing buildings.Biophilic design is not a mainstream phrase associated with the response and intuitive affi liation of human systems with nature. And somearchitects of certain generations (including this reviewer) raised on Erskine, Aalto, Asmussen, Cullinan, Christopher Alexander and othericonic European theorists and urban practitioners, all referenced here, might fi nd themselves scratching their geodesic domes.They would recognise the case being made for fundamental design qualities where nature is included in the built environment, not theseparateness of evidence and theory meshed together by technology – raising their eyes out of a ‘room with a view’ to rest on where theargument had been buried in the garden.This is the essence of the book. It is making the case for consideration, with extensive case studies, research papers with illustrations andan exposition that takes the subject way beyond abstract consideration. It is saying whatever environment you are planning, think of theseprinciples and sensibilities and if you need justifi cation for a more responsive design here it is.So leave this book on your client’s and your funder’s desk, or lift key sections out of the chaptersto green your business case. None of these chapter authors will mind. And if you have beenfeeling left out and old-fashioned in the past few years with the triumphant pall of procurementover planning, dust down your old post-occupancy evaluations that asked the cancer patient whatwas important – the immediate outside space, the bird at the table, the door for children to playoutside when visiting. When we are ill, we need the immediacy of a supporting safe environment.Tensions with technology – yes, let the argument commence, if they can hear you in Third Lifebehind the headphones. Get this publication a Facebook site now and plan the coolest party intown. Chapters address our neurological response to the stressors and inhibitors that are placedon our environments.It begins to inform how we become part of a building’s life cycle experience, reconnectingus to a new living architecture that can respond to intense change but without degrading coreinfrastructural elements. It is about how we might manage the end of things that previously madeour cities work and are familiar to our parents and to us.The application of the lower technologies into some of the most sophisticated buildings ofour time are illustrated: the Swiss Re Tower, SkyCeilings in surgology, green roofs over familiar citybanks, new places refl ecting aspects of scale, protective and variable. And there are places andspaces that we might look to beyond this now.We should explore how the Finnish utilise mobile phone technologies for better access tohealthcare professionals from the home. Every township has a mobile phone mast, so let us makethe case for health networks free at the point of access.Mental health therapies harnessed in a series of gardens in Stockholm, hurricane resilienceplanning and urban agriculture in Havana. As these levels of intervention illustrate, there is muchgood new practice out there by inspirational individuals. And so much design complacency toattack, as this fi ne publication encourages.Phil Astley is a senior lecturer at the Medical Architecture Research Unit (MARU),London South Bank University and course director of MSc Planning Buildings for Healthwww.lsbu.ac.uk/maruWORLD HEALTH DESIGN | October 2008 67