Stuff You Should Know - What is biophilic design?

Episode Date: March 23, 2021

Biophilic design is all about bringing the outside in. But it's also much more than that. Open your windows and have a listen! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there. And you put the two of us together, put a lid on the jar, maybe poke some holes in the top for air, put a blade of grass in there. Yeah, maybe some cotton balls. Yep, cotton balls with, what did they use to knock things out with cotton balls? I don't know, formaldehyde? Sure. And you've got Stuff You Should Know. I'm thinking of that scene from E.T. Where he brings the frogs back to life. Yeah, he liberates the frogs, right? Yeah, yeah. And I think he like kisses a girl because E.T. is watching like a soap opera or an old romance movie, I can't remember. But great. It is a good movie. I saw it not too long ago, and I'm like, wow,

this is really good. They also like the whole free range kids thing, man. Those were the days, huh? Yeah, I mean, we're on the border of showing that to my daughter who's, you know, like five and a half. And Emily was like, you think she's ready for E.T.? I said, well, I mean, when do we want her to see the saddest movie ever? I mean, that's kind of the question. It's just rather heart breaking. Yeah, you should show her E.T. the first few minutes of Bambi, the first 20 minutes of Up, just all right, all one after each other in some horrible marathon session. Oh, if she can handle the first part of Up, she can handle E.T., I'll bet. I can't handle it. I know that's what I'm saying. I think the older you get, the harder it is, you know? Agreed. So I got a little update

on something, by the way. Okay, let's hear it. And I posted this to the Stuff You Should Know Army page as breaking news yesterday, but I figured the world at large should know that as of yesterday, my friend, I'm no longer a squatter. Oh, congratulations. Wow. It's over. Wow. The long national nightmare has come doing it. Yep. I walked a check up to my county of residence and buzzed a lady. She came down to the lobby and picked it up. Are you sure it was the lady who needed it? Well, no, but she was going to give it to the person who did need it. Okay. But they're just not allowing people in the county buildings, but that was it. It's done. I mean, all this came from the squatting, started in the squatting episode, which was like 10 years old at least,

where you talked about like that. Yeah, we've been in this house for 15 years. Yeah. And you had like a little plot of land that you had been using. And as we demonstrated in the episode, like you technically had some sort of weird legal claim to it. Now, Chuck, I mean, I think I remember saying like, it's not entirely clear that that technique even works. It's just if there is a legal... Like squatters, right? Yeah. If there is a legal technique that might work, it's that. And you proved it right, man. That's some serious long-term dedication to that episode. Well, I just slight correction. I didn't get it through squatters rights though, that really had nothing to do with it. Oh, what did it have to do with?

It had to do with county red tape and mumbo jumbo and some back taxes. And you know, it just takes... I mean, it took... It probably took five years from the point where we engaged a real estate lawyer to help us out with it. Like that's how long it took to cut through that red tape. Wow. That's a lot of red tape. When you bring a lawyer in to get a piece of land you're squatting on, there's a lot of red tape around it. Yeah. But the lawyer, it wasn't like a ton of work. So that didn't cost that much money. And the back taxes was not that much money. So it wasn't like a very expensive affair. But we got it in a nick of time too, because I just found out that Georgia Power is... They're bearing power lines in our neighborhood. And they had

contacted the county about that piece of land to like put a bunch of equipment on like last week. Oh, wow. Wow. That is the nick of time. Yeah. Amazing. So no longer a squatter. Wow. Everything's coming up, Chuck. Today it is. No longer a squatter. And as of coming up very soon, but by the time this comes out, you will be half a century old as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. So yeah, happy birthday, Chuck. Thank you, man. The Ides of March. Gee, is that crazy? Yeah, the big five zero. That only comes once, twice, three times in a person's life, you know? Yeah, 40 was kind of like, all right, middle age, but 50 is like, oh boy, I'm going downhill. How does it feel? I mean, I don't really care. I'm the same person, but it's definitely a number to be reckoned

with in some ways, mentally, you know? Yeah. I'll ask you in a few years and we'll see what you say. Okay, that's fine. I should probably just, I should probably just fill in the joke grave that I dug for you in that squatted land as a surprise for your birthday. Now that you say that, I didn't realize you were having any kind of struggle with 50, but. No, I'm not. It's fine. It's just, when you see it on paper, it's like, oh boy. Okay. Who's that? Well, that's good because I really didn't feel like going into the trouble of filling it back in. And when I say see it on paper, I've just, I've been writing the number 50 everywhere. All right. Well, I'm glad we had all these talks because it turns out that our episode on biophilic design could have been a little thin otherwise,

Chuck. Yeah, I mean, it's not the most robust episode, but it was kind of fell between shorty and full length, I think. Yeah, no, we'll make some hay out of it. And it's actually one of those things like, we talked, we touched on it a little bit in our how environmental psychology works episode from October of 2019, not too long ago, because they definitely, definitely tie together. But biophilic design is certainly its own thing. And if you've been to like a restaurant or a hotel or something, pre-pandemic, I should say, and you saw that they have like some vines growing on a wall or some succulents growing on a wall, or there's, you know, a lot more natural lighting than there used to be or anything like that. You have been in an area

where there is some biophilic design going on. Exactly. And we should point out that a lot of this material comes from a gentleman. I mean, they're a handful of people that sort of helped pioneer this idea. And one of them is Stephen R. Kellert, who is a very much a revered professor at Yale of social ecology at the Yale School of Forestry, which I didn't even know existed. Yale? Yeah, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. And I'm trying to see, I think he just passed away a few years ago. But November 27th, I'm not sure the year though. Yeah, that's what I was looking for. He was definitely one of the champions of biophilic design. Yeah. So I think I get the impression that he was one of the ones who really tried to

connect science to that type of design. Because there is like, you know, it is extremely trendy right now, like I was saying, but there's a real push toward, you know, backing up the assertions that this is actually good for us, this type of design is good for us with peer-reviewed studies. So, you know, hats off to them for doing that too. Yeah, I think he passed away four years ago. But that's a good point. It's one thing to say, plants are nice in a house. And it's another thing to say a design concept can actually improve your health and well-being, which is what we're talking about. I guess we should say what it is, right? Yeah. Yeah, biophilic design is based on this idea that we humans have evolved, have millions and millions of years of evolution

behind us and that most of that evolution took place in the outdoors or at least in deep connection with nature. And it was only recently, some people mark the first industrial revolution in Manchester as the real dividing line, but it was only recently that we kind of transitioned away from that deep connection with nature that took place on like a daily basis. And that as a result, we've kind of suffered and that biophilic design seems to kind of say, well, we're already kind of stuck in our buildings. We're stuck in our work life, but let's figure out how to incorporate nature into that way of living so that we can reconnect with it because we really do need it. Yeah, I think I've seen a couple of studies that verify this that say that humans generally spend

about 90% of their time indoors now. And like you said, that there was, as far as that statistic goes, that is very, very recent. If you look at it relative to how long humans have been around, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so there's this idea that if we have literally evolved to gain sustenance and an ability to thrive from being connected with nature, the converse of that is that if you take people away from that and stick them into highly artificial built environments like an office building, eight or 10 hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, they're going to start to suffer and deteriorate mentally and physically. And that's kind of the basis of this concept is like, okay, if we've got to work like that, let's work more in conjunction with nature.

Yeah. And there's a couple of cool quotes here from, you know, it's nothing new that people understand that being among nature is, you know, a generally sort of more pleasing way to live. But if you could read from the great Ralph Waldo Emerson, almost said Thoreau. You could, they were a weird pair, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Which reminds me, I think we have a literary correction on today's episode. Oh boy, wow, everything's just coming together. It is. But he wrote in 1844, second series essays. And this is in, you know, the mid 1800s, only as far as the masters of the world have called in nature to their aid, can they reach the height of magnificence. This is the meaning of their

hanging gardens, villas, garden houses, island, islands, parks and preserves. So, I mean, he was kind of straight up saying it in the mid 1800s that like, we can only peak as people when we are surrounded by nature as much as we can be. And that's why even back then, I guess, they were trying to bring the outside in. Right. And Emerson was like, right guys. And for a long time people were like, yeah, of course, why would you even say that, you weirdo. And then by about the mid 20th century, the captains of industry at the time said, you know what, said Ralph who? Yeah. They said nuts to the transcendentalists. We're going in a completely opposite direction. And we're going to show just how much we've conquered nature. We're going to do nothing,

but like straight lines and right angles. And, you know, when the oil embargo comes along in the 70s, we're going to decree by government mandate that buildings have to be so tightly sealed that not a drop of air can possibly escape them. And everything's going to be totally artificial and controlled, including the lighting and everything. And we're going to show that we've conquered nature. We don't even need nature. And then in very short order, within just a few decades, people started to be like, I can't, I can't live like this. I didn't see anything directly connected to it. But I would hazard a really, you know, armchair anecdotal guess that you can trace a lot of the weird things that people do, like mass shootings in office spaces and workplaces and

things like that to the environment a lot more than people have directly, have traced directly. I'll bet you could. I agree. It's a total guess. But from what I can tell, that seems to be largely in conjunction with a lot of the depth that people have lent to biophilic design investigations. So that's fine. Yeah, I think it could be a factor for sure. There was another gentleman in the 60s named Eric Fromm that sort of introduced in the 20th century this idea of biophilia. But I think it was Edward O. Wilson, who he's kind of known as the 21st century Darwin. He's a biologist and a writer and a philosopher and an ant specialist. But he wrote a book in 1984 called Biophila. Philia. And I think that was where, huh? I think it's Biophilia. Oh, I didn't see an

I in that case. But I'm pretty sure. Is it okay? Sorry, go ahead. I didn't mean to correct him necessarily. I know that. No, it may be. But either way, that was, I think he was the person who coined the term. That's the first use of it I actually saw of that word. Yeah, it's biophilia, like for love of life or love of living things, basically. And I think Edward O. Wilson deserves his own episode. He was an interesting dude. Totally. As a boy, Chuck, I read an anecdote about him. As a boy, he happened to be living in like, I think around New Orleans when the first fire ants showed up to North America. They washed ashore somehow, I think from ballast or something like that from a ship's ballast. And as like an 11 year old boy, he was smart enough to recognize

that they were something new or different and describe them scientifically. I think he was the first person to describe fire ants in North America as an 11 year old kid. I mean, if your specialty in your life, I mean, he had a lot of passions, but if your main life passion is ants, then you're pretty cool in my book. Yeah. So this whole theory of biophilia basically says what we were saying, what biophilic design is based on that, that humans evolved to get their cues and their happiness and their well-being and our ability to thrive from our natural settings. And that we just have like a deep need to connect with nature and that when we don't, bad things can happen basically to our well-being. Even things we don't necessarily put our finger on

as being the result of not being connected to nature, but it still is. That's still what the underlying thing is. And apparently biophilic design, as far as architecture and interior design go, it finds its roots a little more even more recently than Edward O. Wilson. It actually comes out of the 90s when there was a movement to change zoo enclosures to make them more naturally. That's where this whole movement of living plant walls at your local Hyatt Hotel lobby comes from. Zoo enclosures, which is really kind of eye-opening when you realize that's the basis of it. I think that's a great place for a medium cliffhanger. Okay. I'll take medium today. All right. We'll be right back after this.

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All right. So medium cliffhanger, you introduced the idea that it was really in the 90s when they started to redo zoo enclosures where this idea for humans sprung up. And I guess the only cliffhanger is who kind of helped lead that charge. And it's a psychologist named Judith Hirwagen. I would say Hirwagen, but in America it's probably Hirwagen. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. It's a Seattle Zoo, right? Yeah. She was a graduate student and this was, I can't believe this was the 90s. I know. And not the sixties, but I guess it took a while before we started saying, and this wasn't every zoo, but there were still a lot of zoos then that, you know, would keep a gorilla and a monkey and a cage. And they sat up and people like Judith said, you know what, why don't we make this more like

their habitat? Because they're experiencing zoocosis, they're fighting, they're not social, they're not reproducing, that's a big problem. And out of that was born this same idea for humans, which is funny that it took so long from the 90s to kind of really take hold more with humans, because we called it inhumane for animals. But for us, I guess it was just fine. Maybe they just didn't see the connection. Yeah, I suppose they didn't because the way that they changed the zoo animals enclosures for the better was to make them much more like their natural habitat. And, you know, the animals that live at the zoo are far more recently removed from their natural habitat. So we can imagine them in a grassland with some trees like a savanna or living among antelope

or something like that. All of these techniques that they brought together to make their, their, the places where they lived at zoos a lot more like the ecosystems that they lived in back home. When you, when you think of humans, you don't think of us living on savannas or grasslands. But that's the very basis of this idea, this theory of biophilia is that that's where we evolved on the savanna, these big open grassy meadows with lots of trees and probably some water, somewhere trickling by just basically everything that any human alive thinks of as an idyllic outdoor place, that that's the kind of setting that we evolved in and that that's the kind of habitat that we need to interact with too, just as much as zoo animals does. And it's like our

technology made us forget that we're animals. That's what happened. You know what I'm saying? Like we lost that memory. And so I think that's why it wasn't the opposite. Like, oh, we need to make a better habitat for humans and then make it for zoo animals. It was the opposite way around because we don't think of ourselves as, as animals any longer. Yeah, I think we thought our natural habitat is the building. Yeah, exactly. So it goes a step further though, like it's much more than just put in some plants or a fountain that makes a nice trickling sound. They really want to get into sort of the evolutionary aspect of the whole thing and that if it was a benefit evolutionarily over time over the millennia, then that's what's going to contribute to the actual health and

well-being. So it can't be, it had to be an actual thing that really improved us for, you know, thousands or millions of years, not just something that maybe went away like, or like a desert habitat or something like that. It had to be something in order to, you know, for the science to work, and we'll get to that. Something that really contributed as we evolved to our well-being. Yeah. So like, again, we come back to that savanna hypothesis, which, which means that if you're designing something that kind of seeks to emulate a savanna, well, there's lots of high open spaces. So you might have like a really soaring atrium, lots of trees that you can just put some trees into that atrium. Again, a little bit of a water feature. One of the other big things that's kind

of like a foundation of biophilic design is it's like you're saying you can't just put a water feature in and put a tree in and call it a day. Like there actually needs to be thought into how these things interact and form a cohesive whole. You know, you don't, you want to see the forest, not the trees, when you're creating biophilic design and that, that they kind of have to, to fit together correctly in an intuitive way. Or else that innate sense that evolved in the savanna that's lodged in all of our brains will know like this is fake and it probably won't have a benefit for us. And it might even have a negative benefit if it's not done correctly. Yeah. Like the idea is to create an indoor ecosystem that sort of mimics the outdoors in a lot of

ways. Like the, the, it's bigger, the hole is bigger than the sum of its part. If you really want the individual to have a genuine, you know, improvement in their health and well-being. And like I said, not just, hey, this bank put a palm tree in the corner. Right. Isn't it nice to look at? Yeah. But I mean, that's something, it's better than nothing. But I think that the fact that seeing a potted plant in a place like a bank even back in the mid-century was not weird or jarring. Like it just looked like, yeah, of course you would do that there. Is this kind of like early trace evidence of like this kind of like a cry for help. Like, hey, we need something. We need something natural in here. Even a fake potted plant to fool us into thinking that, that there's

some sort of nature here. But yeah, biophilic design basically says, forget your potted plant. Like we need like a whole planting, a whole cropping, a whole little, like a garden, like a glade, something that, that looks natural, not just a single plant in a pot in a corner. That's not good enough. Yeah. And sort of one of the third tenants is that you have to kind of engage and interact with this. There's the idea that biophilia is what's known as a weak biological tendency instead of a hardwired one. And that means, if it's a weak one, that means that you got to work on it and it has to be nurtured. And, you know, maybe this could be employed like instead of, you know, a plant wall is very nice. But what's even better is a hallway lined with plants that

you have to literally walk through and interact with. Yeah. Like the idea behind this kind of foundational concept is that if you're really creating a biophilically designed workplace for your employees, putting, you know, everything you got into the foyer or the atrium or where the reception desk is, it's going to wow the people who come through the doors. But when they pass through, they're entering just a normal office and it loses all of its impact. Like that receptionist is going to be working like gangbusters and probably have the best life they possibly could. But everybody else who works there who just passes through the lobby is not going to really benefit from it. It needs to be kind of constant. And it can be ephemeral. Like it can be kind of fleeting

or passing. But there needs to be like the constant possibility of fleeting and ephemeral contact with nature so that over the course of an entire day, it was virtually constant. It just came in different forms that were kind of fleeting. A good example of this is like the shadows of something changing in the office space as the day progresses. That's ephemeral. That's fleeting. But there's still shadows, even though they're in different places in different sizes and shapes and angles throughout the day, the shadows are still there all day. But they change and that we feed on that is kind of the basis of biophilic design, that that has an effect on us, a positive one, to be able to see that during the day. Yeah. And I think the idea too is there's also, you know, if you are

surrounded by or in a building that employs biophilic design, you're developing an emotional attachment to a place you might not ordinarily develop an attachment to. And I think anyone who's ever walked through just a sort of a standard gross office like we used to work in, like our office, we haven't been in it for a while, but it's kind of cool because we have this huge, huge bank of windows, which is nice. And a lot of people have plants, which is nice. But we've been some bad offices over the years. So bad. Like just straight nothing but marble, like barely any plants. It's just bad news. And then like the actual offices were just divided up with like high, high sight lines that you had to like kind of stand on your tiptoes,

just bad news for sure, for sure. So walking through something like that, and then the experience you have emotionally of when you're like at a botanical garden and you're walking through a greenhouse, it's just, I mean, I don't, maybe there are people that don't like things like that, but it's hard to imagine somebody walking through one of these lush sort of humid greenhouses that's just got, you know, the good ones, it's, it's just packed with stuff everywhere. And you hear water running and like plants are brushing up against you as you move. I don't know many people would just be like, no, thanks. Like get me out of there. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm sure there are people out there. I know there's plenty of people that don't like to go camping or be in

the woods and stuff like that. But I'd say even a lot of those people would enjoy a greenhouse experience, right? Yeah. Or no, or at the very least, would enjoy, prefer a lobby that has, that's well done and with biophilic design to one that's just sterile in, in, you know, Norwegian. Like I think they're kind of leaving the charge on a lot of this. Yeah, weirdly, they are for sure. But Chuck, so I mean, we kind of reach now the reason why a lot of the big tech companies are leading the way in working with architecture firms and design firms that are pushing biophilic design on them is that they're basically trying to subliminally trick you into liking work. Right. Like you're, you're like, they want you to form a place attachment to their

office so that you stay there more, you have fewer sick days, you do more while you're there, you just enjoy yourself there. And there's really kind of two ways of looking at big corporations getting into biophilic design. And one is that you're, you're being manipulated to increase your productivity, like you're deeply, deeply manipulated on an evolutionary, almost genetic level, or that you have to be at work anyway, and they're trying to make it as pleasant as possible for you. Right. I guess it just depends on whether you're like a glass half full or half empty kind of person, but those are the two interpretations of huge companies getting into biophilic design. And, and I'm, all of them have like Facebook's campus in Menlo Park, the Googleplex,

Microsoft's office in Redmond, Cupertino, Apple's big old Donut UFO, all of them have Amazon's offices. I think they're called Bezos's balls downtown in Seattle. That's what they call them that I read. Prove me wrong, Seattle. Prove me wrong. All of them are designed with biophilic design right now. Yeah, I think you'd have to be fairly cynical when an effort is made to bring a more calming, helpful environment to be like, yeah, see what they're doing here. They're just manipulating me. Oh, I see. Yeah, for real. Who would think of something like that? No, you're not like that. Who would think that way? You're not like that at all. Yeah, right. So some of the ways that you can, I mean, there's sort of indirect, indirect ways of doing this. Obviously, we talked

about plants. Light is a big, big one. And that first office we had years ago in Buckhead, I think that's what you're talking about. Our cubicle walls were so high, it was like, it was stifling. And no light, natural light would come in. I think there were, like, there were some offices on the outside. So if you had an office, maybe you had a window. But otherwise, you were just counting on fluorescent lights above your head, which are the worst. I think we should do a shorty on fluorescent lighting at some point. For sure. It'd be kind of cool. But water features are always great. The sounds of running water, the visual appeal of running water. I agree. But I feel like there could be too much.

Like, I think that the sound of water in particular is supposed to be something that we hear in passing or at a distance. Like, I think if you just heard water trickling all day long, kind of loudly, it might drive you a little bit crazy. You think? I think so. That's just my take on it. I would dig it. But you have to, you know, you might just have to pee too much. Right. No, that's definitely, that's definitely part of it. But no, I, like, I love the sound of water too. I find it extremely relaxing. I just think it could be overdone is what I mean. Okay. All right. I hear you. Like, these are sort of the obvious real natural things

that you can bring in, you know, open windows occasionally to get like real fresh air in there. Yeah. One of the things I saw, Chuck, was natural ventilation. And I'm sorry. Like, this is a bit of a thing to me. Like, I am totally fascinated by how this fits into this. What do you mean? So the idea that, you know, the buildings of yesteryear, unfortunately that a lot of us still work in, were sealed off purposely to make them more energy efficient, but that all of the air that passes through is very filtered and artificial. And there's nothing coming in from the outside. Biophilic design says, no, no, no. Don't do that. Like, go back to natural ventilation. Like, you're going to have lower energy costs.

You're going to have pleasant breezes blowing through. You're going to have changes in temperature that are much more natural, which sounds good. But in practice, it's like, well, what about your computer hardware? There's a lot of humidity in the air too, right? What effect is that going to have on all of your employees' computers or the servers in the basement or whatever? Or, you know, what about when it's cold out? Do you leave the doors open? Like, what do you do about it during the wintertime? And then also in the spring, what about your employees who have seasonal allergies? Yeah, good point. Like, I have, like I totally get the need for that, but that is the one part of biophilic design that I'm like, this is the thing that's most at odds with modern office

buildings. The air, like natural air versus, you know, artificially treated air. I don't know how they're figuring that out. And I couldn't find a lot on it, but I'm fascinated by that one. I wonder if it's more like it's not completely one or the other. Like, you have your HVAC system and everything still, but when the weather agrees, you can open your windows. Like, they're not hermetically sealed, like most offices. Yeah. Okay. I saw that there was a, it's called a mix system where you're using both. And yeah, it depends on when, but, but then, you know, if it's really cold out or whatever it is, everybody has to be like, it's super artificial inside for this next few months. And then maybe it'll get nice again. I'm just, there's got to be a way to conquer that,

I think. Yeah. So, I mean, to me, what fascinates me about this whole thing is I've always been a nature guy. So it's, it's obvious to bring in plants and water and stuff like that. I think the more indirect things are really fascinating. There's this place in Portugal. It's, I think there were a bunch of them. They're called second home. It's a co-working space. But this one in Portugal specifically is well known for having more than 2000 plants. So that's sort of the obvious one. But they also, just in their design, they don't have any straight lines in the office because there are no straight lines in nature, rarely. They don't have matching office chairs and desks and things like that because there's variety in nature. So they'll

just have like just different chairs everywhere and like actual, they call it fractal complexity that you find in nature and different shapes of things. And I don't think that's the kind of thing where someone would walk in and say, look at all these different office chairs. I feel so alive. Right. But I think it's just little things like that kind of contribute to the whole as working as a part of that, you know, emotional and I guess mental ecosystem. Yes. That's exactly the point. So like what is the dude's name who passed? Who's Kellert? Yeah. Dr. Kellert was kind of breaking it down into two things. One's direct experience of nature and then the stuff you're talking about falls under the umbrella of indirect experience of nature,

kind of like being worked on subliminally by things like curve shapes and fractal patterns or using like stone, stone flooring over like, you know, highly artificial carpet or something like that. Or granite countertops is a way of evoking nature because it is still granite. It's just that we've kind of carved it into this shape that isn't natural. There's lots of straight lines usually with a granite countertop, but it's still a natural material. It's still evokes nature. There's also like using artificial light that's designed to kind of change throughout the course of the day. That's another way to kind of indirectly experience nature. Just kind of using suggestions and tricks to stuff you wouldn't put your finger on to be like nature,

but it's still having that biophilic impact on you. Although a lot of what I saw as far as researching is that some of the leaders in this space kind of say like, you know, nuts to artificial light, get as much like real light into the space as you possibly can. From what I saw, that was like the number one thing is natural light, like lighting natural light in. The other thing that I think is really cool is wayfinding, like how a building is laid out as far as, you know, usually it's like you're walking down a straight hall, you turn left to go down another straight hall. But if they can mimic nature a little bit more and have hallways that are a little more meandering, I mean, you got to get where you need to go. But if it's done in a more

natural way, like meander to a central point, which might be the oasis or something like that, I think that's a really cool way to bring it out. Yeah, we talked a lot about that in the environmental psychology episode, but we talked about it from a different perspective where they would use tricks and techniques to keep you on a path rather than letting you wander off to places you weren't supposed to be. That was part of wayfinding for sure. But yeah, that's a fascinating topic period. Like whenever I go to a like a hospital that's really smartly laid out and you can really, hospitals are notorious for people getting lost and not be able to find where you need to go. And if you go to one that has done it right, it's really cool to think about how much

effort goes into that. Yeah, yeah, I love that too. That was one of my favorite parts of that episode. And I like this too, but it's just with biophilic design. It's like, you know, take a left by the mud pools and then, you know, when you run into the pack of wild boars, turn back around because you've gone too far. Yeah, go by the mud pools and say hi to Gary from accounting. He sits in those all day long. He is crazy for the mud pools. We can never get Gary out of there. Should we take a break and talk about the science? Yeah, I'm just trying to see if I had any more because there was a lot of indirect and direct experiences of nature. But yeah, I guess that's it. Okay, sure. In other words, let's do it.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be

thinking this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Oh, I did have one Chuck. Uh, now that we're back, um, it was, uh, one of the direct experiences of nature from Dr. Kellert's was weather. So my idea for a biophilic design would be to put, um, to paste cotton balls onto a piece of construction paper that's cut out in the shape of a cloud. Put those on the walls here or there. That's the thing that you were trying to think of? Yes. Yeah. That was the thing I decided was worth restating after the break.

No, man, I love little cotton ball clouds. Love them. Plus they're cotton too. So it's even more natural because it's a natural material evoking a different part of nature. It's, yeah, you want to make your employees head spin with productivity, make cotton ball clouds and put those on the wall. And you could use it as a little pillow during your break time. Very nice. So science, um, this is all well and good and can be kind of hippie-dippy if you think about it, but is there actual science behind this? And it appears that there is in most cases. There's, there've been a lot of studies. Um, I found a couple, a couple of different ones, not in this article, but one was, uh, in 2019 and Denmark, uh, kids who'd been exposed to greenery had 55% less mental health

problems later in life. Uh, there were a couple of studies in Norway that found that subjects who did reading and attention-based tasks around to buy plants and greenery improved their scores over time. And there's a lot of talk about, um, what's called attention restoration theory, which is if you're staring at a screen all day, even taking a minute to go stare out a window at a tree can restore you a little bit. I thought of a really good analogy for this. If I do say so myself, you know those grounding rods that we put into the ground outside of our houses and all of our, our electrical appliances are connected to it and it allows, we, we discharge the excess electricity into the ground where it dissipates. I think that's kind of what nature does to us, whether it's

gazing out a window or going out into nature. Um, we're like un, unburdening ourselves with all of the just crud that has gathered up and the tension that's gathered from staring at that screen or thinking or over-exerting ourselves. We like are able to disperse it into nature and nature's a big enough reservoir to accept it and we feel better afterward. I think that's kind of close to what we're doing. I wonder if we're ever going to find a mechanism for how that actually happens, or is it the opposite where we're actually depleted and then seeing nature recharges us? It's, you know, it's two different, two different versions. Well, I mean, I think the science does back it up. There was another study from Northwestern in 2013 that found that people

who were exposed to natural light and more during the work day got an additional 46 minutes of sleep at night. So it's not just like improved work productivity and happy feelings. It's like you're getting solid sleep at night. Yeah. And I mean, like there's just unequivocally, unequivocally, a lot of science to back it up, including on a physiological level, things like we have lower levels of cortisol, our heart rates are lowered. We just generally are physically better off when we have things like a good view of nature or where there's breezes or where, especially, I saw where we're exposed to even indirect sunlight throughout the day. That has an enormous impact on our sense of wellbeing as far as things like anxiety and depression go as well.

So there's a lot of science to back it up. What I saw kind of how Kellert put it is, there seems to be this like architecture and design wants to figure out how to take this idea and package it so that they can just sell it everywhere as easy as possible. That's just true with all industry and business. Whenever somebody comes up with a really good idea, they want to figure out how to mass produce it. It's the American way. And Kellert was basically saying like there's a real danger in basically laying this out and establishing exactly how to do this because people will just kind of commodify and package it and it will lose it. That's not how biophilic design actually works. Instead, here are the principles of it, figure out how to make

it work in harmony with a lot of what's called informational richness. So there's a lot going on, but not too much because if it's too busy or too noisy, then now you've got problems because you have a bunch of distracted employees or a bunch of distracted customers, whoever. There's a lot of balance, but these guys who kind of created this field and then again, backed it up with science, kind of laid out the foundation of it and said now it's up to you, the designer, to figure it out on each different case. Don't try to package it because you're going to lose this if we try to commodify it. Interesting. Yeah, I thought that was very hippie-dippy. It is, but at the same time, it's a really good... It was very wise of him to include

that. Yeah. There was one more study I wanted to mention because it's not just in the workplace, but recuperating in the hospital is actually... This is where it can really, really help people. In 1984, the National Institutes of Health published a study that found that people recuperating after surgery had shorter stays in the hospital overall and needed less pain meds even if just simply they had a garden view as opposed to some other credit view like a brick wall or a parking line. Yeah, Roger Ulrich. We talked about him in the environmental psychology episode too, I think, because that was... That basically laid the groundwork for the science backing up biophilic design was that first study. Yeah. Well, what can people do at home? There's a lot you can do at

home. You can get yourself a mud pool and some wild boars. That's a good first step. Let's look out for Gary. Get that really famous banana leaf print wallpaper. Put it everywhere you can. Get just some cotton balls and some construction paper. One thing that they figured out, there's this company called Bright Green or Terrapin Bright Green. They're kind of a leader in the field. They figured out that one of the things that is an element of biophilic design is something called a refuge where your back is covered or protected and then you have something overhead, kind of low overhead. Pretty cool. So think about how like when you're in a restaurant and you're at a high-backed booth that's up against a corner. It's the best. It is. It's the best seat in the

house. The mafia can't get you. Right. Or you're sitting with nothing but like a wall or some shrubs or something behind you and there's like an umbrella at a cafe overhead. Like a little place, a quiet spot for you. There's advice that you should set up a place like that at your home. It could be a high wingback chair or something by a fireplace. It's a place where you feel protected but also very cozy too. Yeah. I love that idea because I'm not crazy about it, but I always try and sit with my back against the wall if I can, but it's not like, you know, I have to or else I'll freak out. Well, you've got Georgia Power looking for you now. So I would definitely watch my back if I were you too. Another thing to do obviously is plants inside your home but not

just like think about like we said earlier about the ecosystem, how these plants work together and groupings of plants and form a little habitat if you can and do a little bit of research about what plants like each other and pair those little buddies together. Yeah. That's a big one. But yeah, even if it is just a couple of plants to start, you don't wait. Just start buying plants and bringing them into your house now and also learn how to take care of your plants because plants can be really easy to take care of if you just know what they need and you will save a lot of plant lives and a lot of time and trouble for yourself. Agreed. And then the view is another easy thing that people can do depending on where you live. If you have for some reason covered up your

outdoor windows with a bookcase, move the bookcase so that you can look out the window. One of the bases of that savanna hypothesis is that we evolve to relax or be relaxed by a long range view. Long, what's it called? The Thousand Gardens Stair. Yeah. That feels good to us. It's a little different but sure. But that's why when you're doing that, you are zoned out. You're kind of in a zen, trance-like state. That's what you're doing. Yeah. This is kind of like, well, when we're looking at our computers or our phones or something like that, we're doing the opposite of that. So having a nice view of what's called a prospect as far as biophilic designers are concerned, that can really have a refreshing

restorative effect on us, even physically on our eyeballs. I love it. Yeah. I mean, it's really, when you dig into it, you're like, oh, this is actually for real. It's hard to read about because the architecture and design fields are possibly the two most pretentious fields the Western world has ever come up with. So reading, writing about architecture and design is really kind of laborious. But when you dig into it, it is backed up and it does make a lot of sense. I just hope it's not just a passing trend that it's here to stay. Yeah. I think, you know, we redid our house a couple of years ago and one thing that we wanted to make sure we allotted enough money for was windows

and lots of windows. And unfortunately, windows are one of the more expensive things in a house. So my advice to people if you are redoing your home or something like that or renovating like cotton balls and try and set aside dough and don't skimp on the windows if you can. You know, even if it means maybe losing something else, because that natural light is huge. Right. Go from a one bathroom to a zero bathroom with more windows. Lots. I don't know about that, it's drastic, but yeah. Well, okay, Chuck, good advice to end the episode on. You got any other advice? Well, just one more little interesting thing. If you hear a plant company talk about

all these plants will purify the air in your home, that's kind of not true. That sounds familiar. Sadly. Yeah, I mean, plants are always good for the air, but apparently the Atlantic issued a report that said if you really want to clean the air in a 10 by 10 foot room, you would need like a thousand house plants in there to effectively clean it. I think I saw that. But hey, but it's still great. Get a thousand house plants in your 10 by 10 room, just learn to live among them. I agree. It's just once they start talking to you, then it's time to go outside. Right. You got anything else now?

Nothing else, I promise. Well, if you want to know more about biophilic design, go online and start looking at pictures and maybe go to a local embassy suites, because they've been doing it in their lobbies for years, and to good effect, if you ask me. And since I shouted out embassy suites, that means it's time for a listener mail. This is a literary correction, and I can't believe this snuck past me and you, but from your mouth. Okay. Guys, I want to preface by saying I'm very disappointed in myself for writing this email. I feel bad that the first time I've written to you is with a correction,

but my inner English major can't resist. On the episode on dragons, Josh made a reference to William Blake's epic poem, Paradise Lost. Oh, yeah. But that was John Milton. William Blake lived over a century later, but wrote a lot of poetry on biblical themes as well. Confusingly, Blake also wrote his own epic poem called Milton, which was inspired by the story of Milton's writing, Paradise Lost. Oh my gosh. It is a little confusing. And Jenna says, I'm sorry to nitpick, but also had to mention

that the fairy queen was written by Edmund Spencer rather than Spencer Edmund. I said comma, I think, in between that. I think I said Spencer comma Edmund. Uh, incidentally, I think Milton and Blake would both make great topics. Milton was an incredibly prolific writer who dealt with the onset of blindness as he wrote Paradise Lost. And Blake was a true Renaissance man who spearheaded the romantic movement. Spencer's life is maybe not quite so exciting, but you two would find a way to make it interesting as you do with everything. Thank you to you and Jerry for making such a great show. This kept me company over the past year, especially for handling both fun and difficult

topics in such a comprehensive and thoughtful way. Love, Jenna. That is a very lovely email. Yes. Lovely is a perfect word for that. Hopefully, Jenna agrees. She's the English major, so she would know. If you want to get in touch with us like Jenna did in a very nice way, we love that. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this

situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.