Biophilic design refers to the incorporation of natural elements into built environments where people can reconnect to nature. Biophilic design in the health care sector is becoming popular due to its proven influence on recovery rates among patients. Studies have demonstrated that natural light, plants, water features, and natural materials result in a stress-reducing effect, ease healing times, and help repair. Biophilic design provides environments that not only foster physical health but overall well-being, physical, emotional, and mental.
What Is Biophilic Design?
Biophilia, a term first coined in the 1980s by biologist Edward O. Wilson, is basically this “biophilic affinity of humans for nature.” Biophilic design uses that concept in order to ensure built environments are shaped in ways that restore and strengthen that connection. For health-care facilities, this means the integration into the design of large windows letting natural light into hospitals, indoor plants, green walls, and even outdoor gardens integrated with clinics.
Healthcare facilities using biophilic design are expected to open restorative and calming spaces, bringing the patient closer to nature. This space should reduce some of the supposed negative psychological impacts of hospitalization, such as stress and anxiety, while helping the patient recover physically.
Patient Recovery through Biophilic Design:
- Reduced Stress:
Stress, therefore, is one of the most important recovery process hindrances. For most patients, hospitals are stressful places by themselves due to the nature of the clinic, uncertainty of health, and discomfort of being ill. Biophilic design can work well to minimize stress and anxiety within the recovery process and has thus been proven by various studies.
Exposure to nature and its components, such as plants and water, has been observed to reduce blood pressure, slow down heart rates, and even lower cortisol levels, the fight-or-flight stress hormone. A patient exposed to natural light, greenery, or some form of natural view experiences an enormous decline in stress and anxiety; a requirement to get calm and then recover.
- Reduced Recovery Times and Hospital Stays:
Biophilic design is associated with faster recovery times. In 1984, Roger Ulrich published a seminal study, in which it was found that patients who received views of nature recovered faster than those who viewed a brick wall. The study revealed that patients receiving views of nature received fewer painkillers and stayed in the hospital for a shorter time.
Other research has since upheld these findings, showing that patients recover faster if they are exposed to, or enveloped in, nature or nature-like conditions. For example, a 2008 article in *Environment and Behavior* found that patients recovering from surgery received less pain medication and recovered faster when treated in rooms with natural light exposure or views of vegetation.
Nature has curative powers that speed up physical recovery and, in unison, help develop positive mental health as well. Exposing one’s self to nature promotes sleeping, reductions of anxiety, and the relaxation of the mind, hence aiding in recovery.
- Quality of Sleep and Mental Health Improvement:
Sleep is a key recovery factor, and unfortunately, hospitals oftentimes aren’t conducive to restful sleep. Biophilic design also promotes better sleep through some circadian rhythm regulation by natural light exposure. The quality of sleep will be improved in patients who sleep in healthy sleep-wake cycles resulting from their exposure to natural light during the daytime.
Biophilic design elements also support mental health through other means. A patient’s stay in the hospital can often be taxing to him or her, especially if it has been due to severe or a long-term illness. Use of natural elements in the design of hospitals is found to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, improve mood, and increase well-being. For example, research that has been conducted in 2015 in the journal of *Psychiatry Research* reveals that people who are often exposed to nature or who have been inspired by nature feel less negative emotion and more positive emotion.
- Reduce Pain:
Even though some pain is considered to be an inescapable part of recovery for most patients, biophilic design can reduce the perceived pain. In “Journal of Environmental Psychology” published work discovered that patients, after a surgery, who were exposed to natural views revealed that they had lower pain levels than the control group in rooms without access to natural views. This concept is partly because nature turns out to be a source of distraction for the perception of pain and the declining usage of pain medication by its healing balm with natural light and greenery.
Positive psycho-emotional effects of biophilic design also help in the management of pain with relaxation and improvement in mood. Therefore, patients can be calmer and at ease with themselves even when they are in pain, so that they can gain back faster.
- Enhanced Human Interactions and Caring:
By their very nature, hospitals are some of the most isolating locations, especially since the patient is there for such an extended period in a sterile clinical environment. Inculcation of biophilic design elements such as outdoor gardens, green spaces, and open inviting areas encourages interaction besides an environment that is less intimidating to patients and their visitors.
It makes a very big difference to the psychological patient’s recovery with the provision of good spaces to congregate in for family and friends. Biophilic design encourages social relations and connected relationships, which is an important healing factor. Where patients have support from their families and friends, mental recovery is faster, which will consequently hasten the general physical recovery.
Practical Examples of Biophilic Design in Healthcare:
In many hospitals and health care settings, especially across the globe, many have reported that current incorporation of biophilic design elements can benefit patients during their recovery. Some of which are:
– Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (Singapore): This is one example of the leader in biophilic design: greenery and water features throughout the campus of this hospital, and ultimately natural materials. Patients are benefiting from having lush rooftop gardens , courtyards , and floor-to-ceiling windows offering views of nature. Results show design improves patient recovery times as well as overall satisfaction.
– The Maggie’s Centers (UK): Through the use of natural light, gardens, and restful, natural surroundings, cancer support centers create a total space in Maggie’s Centres. Based on studies, biophilic features in Maggie’s Centers help reduce the levels of stress and anxiety among cancer patients so they can be comfortable and healthy in order to keep their minds at peace.
– Cleveland Clinic (USA): This can also be observed at the Cleveland Clinic. For example, the hospital uses application of natural light, indoor plants and even outdoor areas to help calm a patient. These investigations have contradicted such claims from which recovery rates of patients are optimized with high recovery speed.
Biophilic design is a robust, evidence-based practice in enhancing patient recovery rates. Involving natural elements in designing hospitals and other health care institutions helps health service providers design spaces that reduce stress, elicit a sense of relaxation, and speed recovery. Some supporting evidence shows that reception of natural light , exposure to plants, increased availability of natural spaces, and access to water features improve sleep, reduce pain, mental health, and foster social connections. Increase in the health service facilities towards biophilic principles is bound to growing evidence that supports its effectiveness in the patient outcome, through which it becomes a vital tool for healing and improvement of the healing process.
