The concept sounds strange, maybe overly scientific. Biophilia: Love for what lives. Yet it’s something as natural as life itself. An innate affinity that we have, as people, toward nature. A deep biological love intimately connecting us with plants, animals and natural environments, although we are still not really aware of it. Yet it makes us feel so good.
We were born into nature, we grew up with it and our brains and genes are programmed with it. It’s why we truly relax by a river, it calms us to walk through a forest, breathing deeply as we stroll along the beach. This is not poetry. It is biology, psychology and public health. The good news is that we are increasingly beginning to understand this. The bad news is that we continue to live too far away from what’s good for us.
What will I learn from this article?
The term “biophilia” was made popular by the biologist Edward O. Wilson in the 1980s, although Erich Fromm had already discussed this vital impulse that guides us back to what lives. It is based on the idea that our evolution has programmed us to relate and co-exist with nature, an essential connection for our psychological and emotional well-being We are programmed to seek the company of plants, animals and countryside because this connection has already protected us for thousands of generations. Our ancestors depended on their ability to recognize patterns in vegetation, read climate signals and allow themselves to be guided by topography. Our brains were formed within this continuous dialog with nature.
Biophilia is linked with numerous benefits for mental and emotional health. Contact with nature reduces stress by reducing the production of the hormone cortisol, simultaneously stimulating the release of serotonin and endorphins, which are associated with happiness and well-being. Diverse neuroscientific studies show how a view of nature activates cerebral regions associated with calm and emotional regulation. Spending time in natural environments increases our energy, strengthens psychological resilience, improves concentration, self-esteem and self-control, and can reduce anxiety and chronic stress.
Landscapes featuring moving water generate particularly positive responses from us. The presence of trees close to homes reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression. Even the sound of birds improves our perception of well-being. By feeling connected to life and natural spaces, positive emotions and internal equilibrium are awakened in us, contributing to our general well-being. In a world that is ever more urbanized and moving rapidly, biophilia acts as a therapeutic refuge, a source of health and happiness.
Such an intimate connection with nature is being increasingly taken into account in urban and architectural design. The use of nature-friendly environments breaks with the gray by introducing green, natural elements, promoting healthier and more sustainable buildings surrounded by parks and which integrate more wood, larger windows and fountains, the aquatic trickling of which make spaces more agreeable. This perspective fosters values of environmental conservation and cooperation with the ecosystem, contributing thus to the collective good. It also benefits companies which incorporate such design into their offices and increases productivity. It’s the new “biophilic architecture”.
In Milan, the famous Bosco Verticale, a complex of two residential skyscrapers, demonstrates how a building can function with a small, happy ecosystem that also acts as a climate refuge to help fight global warming. In Madrid, Barcelona and many other Spanish regional capitals, schools have re-naturalized their playgrounds by replacing asphalt with trees, allotments and parkland.
Teachers say pupils have better concentration as a result, fewer conflicts and play more creatively, while parents perceive their children to be calmer when they return home.
This connection with nature and well-being has increasing influence on contemporary architecture. A recent analysis reaffirmed that we spend around 90% of our time inside, making buildings a decisive factor in improving (or negatively affecting) our emotional well-being. Biophilic architecture, incorporating vegetation, natural light, cross ventilation and ‘warm’ materials such as wood, aims for spaces to function as friendly extensions of natural environments.
More sensorial design also explores this ancient connection to nature. The perfume industry, for example, has discovered that biophilia not only acts via sight or touch, but also through other deep associations with natural materials. Many brands have begun to incorporate wooden tops for flasks, packaging with visible grain, organic textures recalling artisanal crafts. These are not just aesthetic gestures. Diverse ‘neuro-marketing’ studies show that the olfactory experience improves when the flask transmits closeness to nature. Users describe these perfumes as being ‘authentic’ and ‘sympathetic’, even when the fragrance is exactly the same as that bottled conventionally. In a market saturated with stimuli, recovering materials that dialog with the living has become a profitable well-being strategy applied to design.
Health care is also advancing in the same direction. As far back as 1984, researcher Roger Ulrich showed without doubt that nature influences our recovery from illness. In a hospital in Pennsylvania, he compared the evolution of recently-operated gall bladder patients and verified that those who could see trees from their windows were released a day before and needed fewer painkillers than those whose rooms were purely walled. It was an early study, but very clear, of how the visual environment can also form part of the treatment.
In Japan, where forest bathing (shinrin-yoku) is an established practice, the authorities have for years funded studies showing the benefits of walking in woodland: reduction of cortisol, better immune response and more calm. You could say that the natural landscape functions as great ‘emotional physiotherapy’ too.
Biophilia also requires important ‘gestures’. Sometimes it’s simply enough to place a flower pot in the window or take a daily walk in the local park. Many people have rediscovered gardening as a tool for emotional equilibrium. Growing tomatoes, or plants like fern, awakens ancestral connections with the plant world. Contact with soil also generates a sensation of roots that psychologists are studying with ever more interest. Nature offers a slower, more stable rhythm that functions as a counterbalance against fast lifestyles.
Call it biophilia, call it green well-being, but enjoy it nevertheless.