In Part I of “Save Our Cities,” we highlighted two philosophical schools - traditionalists and progressives - that differ in premises but reach the same conclusions about the current ugliness of our built environment and how corrosive that is to human flourishing.
But we also highlighted that even though they come to the same conclusion, their differences could limit their willingness to work together toward their mutual goal.
So if different philosophical first premises can’t provide common ground for the similar conclusions of traditionalists and progressives, then maybe science can help.
In recent years, scientists have discovered that exposure to nature reduces physiological stress in humans, and specifically – that “human’s views of fractal patterns tend to reduce physiological stress.” (R. Taylor, Reduction of Physiological Stress Using Fractal Art and Architecture, Leonardo 39 (3) (2006) pp. 245-251).
The Harvard professor and scientist Edward O. Wilson hypothesized that these tests that showed human preferences for fractal views indicated an “"innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes” and “"the rich, natural pleasure that comes from being surrounded by living organisms." He called that tendency biophilia – literally “love for life.”
Biophilia has since become an increasingly common topic in architectural and urban planning circles. This article in Metropolis Magazine provides a definition and lists five characteristics of biophilic design:
Biophilic design seeks to connect our inherent need to affiliate with nature in the modern built environment. An extension of the theory of biophilia, biophilic design recognizes that our species has evolved for more than 99% of its history in adaptive response to the natural world and not to human created or artificial forces. We became biologically encoded to associate with natural features and processes. Rather than being vestigial – or relevant to a world that no longer exists – this need is thought to remain instrumental to people’s physical and mental health, fitness, and wellbeing.
Since today’s “natural habitat” is largely the built environment, where we now spend 90% of our time, biophilic design seeks to satisfy our innate need to affiliate with nature in modern buildings and cities. Thus, the fundamental goal of biophilic design is to create good habitat for people as biological organisms inhabiting modern structures, landscapes, and communities. Accomplishing this objective depends on meeting certain conditions. First, because biophilia is essentially about evolved human tendencies, biophilic design focuses on those aspects of nature that, over evolutionary time, have contributed to our health and wellbeing.
These distinctive characteristics yield a set of five conditions for the effective practice of biophilic design. Each underscores what is and IS NOT biophilic design:
Biophilic design emphasizes human adaptations to the natural world that over evolutionary time have proven instrumental in advancing people’s health, fitness, and wellbeing. Exposures to nature irrelevant to human productivity and survival exert little impact on human wellbeing and are not effective instances of biophilic design.
Biophilic design depends on repeated and sustained engagement with nature. An occasional, transient, or isolated experience of nature exerts only superficial and fleeting effects on people, and can even, at times, be at variance with fostering beneficial outcomes.
Biophilic design requires reinforcing and integrating design interventions that connect with the overall setting or space. The optimal functioning of all organisms depends on immersion within habitats where the various elements comprise a complementary, reinforcing, and interconnected whole. Exposures to nature within a disconnected space – such as an isolated plant or an out of context picture or a natural material at variance with other dominant spatial features – is NOT effective biophilic design.
Biophilic design fosters emotional attachments to settings and places. By satisfying our inherent inclination to affiliate with nature, biophilic design engenders an emotional attachment to particular spaces and places. These emotional attachments motivate people’s performance and productivity, and prompt us to identify with and sustain the places we inhabit.
Biophilic design fosters positive and sustained interactions and relationships among people and the natural environment. Humans are a deeply social species whose security and productivity depends on positive interactions within a spatial context. Effective biophilic design fosters connections between people and their environment, enhancing feelings of relationship, and a sense of membership in a meaningful community.
Philosophical or even scientific reasons for building more beautifully is not enough. We need pragmatists – developers, builders, activists, and more to actually turn these dreams into reality. Here are a few:
The organization Biophilic Cities at the University of Virginia’s architectural department is one such organization. It “partners with cities, scholars and advocates from across the globe to build an understanding of the value and contribution of nature in cities to the lives of urban residents.” The Biophilic Cities Network is comprised of cities from around the globe dedicated to improving the connection between residents and urban nature.” So far, 24 cities around the world have signed up.
Timothy Beatley is the founder of Biophilic Cities, and previously wrote a book called Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities. He researched urban sustainable development initiatives in Vienna, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Zurich, Amsterdam, London, and Berlin, and the book “provides concrete examples and detailed discussions of innovative and practical sustainable planning ideas.”
Charles Marohn is the founder of Strong Towns, an organization that advocates for better-designed US towns and transportation systems. He recently released a book called Confessions of a Recovering Engineer that “explains why the conventional approach to traffic engineering is making people less safe, bankrupting towns and cities, destroying the fabric of communities, and actually worsening the problems (like congestion) engineers set out to solve. He also talks about how transportation can be fixed—and why fixing it will involve not just engineers, but local residents and officials who have become effective and empowered advocates, connected with others to make real change.”
Husband and wife team Melissa and Chris Bruntlett advocate for more cyclable cities, using Dutch cities as their muse following a move from Canada to the Netherlands in 2019. Their book “Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in our Lives” will be released in June 2021.
Paris, France Deputy Mayor Christopher Najdovski is a fun follow on Twitter due to his beautiful pictures of beautification initiatives in the City of Lights.
The “Create Streets Foundation” in London runs workshops to train urban planners to create “happy places.” A short YouTube video describes their work and advocates for “gentle density,” with 40-50% of available land occupied by buildings, 5-15% by public gardens, and they explicitly advocate for creating beauty precisely as a solution to social and environmental problems. A longer document highlights their findings, and they conclude “Beauty makes us feel at home; home makes us feel safe, and safe makes us feel happy.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
In future editions, we will continue to look for and highlight people and projects who are helping to revive cities and towns or build more beautiful new ones.
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