I had to spend some time in our local hospital today, so I took the time to assess the amenities from the standpoint of biophilic design. This is the idea, supported by pretty good evidence, that contact with the natural world, even in the form of pictures, windows, and indoor plants, has all kinds of good effects. It can even speed up healing and reduce the need for pain medication in hospital patients. The assessment? Not so great. In fairness, the wing that I was in was beneath ground, so windows would be tricky unless views of earthworms would be helpful. But still there is much that could be done with this space to change the way people feel in situations where anxiety would be common. In a conversation with a member of the audience at a talk I gave recently on how we can use virtual reality to study biophilic design, she told me (and I think correctly) that if our health care buildings can't get this stuff right, then what hope for the rest of the built world?
While I was in the waiting room, I passed some time reading a book called, coincidentally enough, Biophilic Design. In a marginal way, I'm involved in some work that relates to the impact of urban planning decisions on the lives of children, especially in how they can find contact with nature. I learned one or two new and fairly surprising facts from the book today. Did you know that 80-90% of the Ritalin that is manufactured world wide is used to treat attention deficit disorder in the United States? Did you know that many US schools are stopping recess because it disrupts the school's academic program? Contrast this to some forms of schooling in Europe--forest kindergartens for instance-- where children are outside all day long.
We have no clear idea how much the placement of walls, doors, and windows might be affecting the affecting the ways our children's brains get put together, but what we do know suggests a failing report card.
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