Every day we learn more about the benefits of living in a natural environment. Seasonal rhythms, daily rhythms, variations and diversity help us to get energy, to relax and to make us feel healthy. Connection with nature enables people to be human. In the buildings of in the future, human needs will be given priority again. This projects investigates how experiencing nature can be integrated into buildings, how do we make inside into the better outside?
Today, buildings are built in such a way that the outside world becomes almost completely shielded away. Inside, an artificial climate is created using all sorts of technical equipment and digital control mechanisms to be it as constant as possible. The connection with nature is cut. This leads to buildings that contribute to stress, loss of concentration, low productivity and disease.
Every day we learn more about the benefits of living in a natural environment. Seasonal rhythms, daily rhythms, variations and diversity help us to get energy, to relax and to make us feel healthy. Connection with nature enables people to be human. In the buildings of in the future, human needs will be given priority again.
That is why for this project, we investigate how experiencing nature can be integrated into buildings, how do we make inside into the better outside?
The focus of the research is the Dutch healthcare sector. Within this sector people live, work and recreate. This makes it possible to extrapolate the results to buildings with one of these functions. Residents of care buildings have fewer options to go out independently. For example, they often have limited mobility and depend on care. This makes buildings in which they can still experience the benefits of nature and ‘being outdoors’ extra important.
In addition, healthcare will face a number of major challenges in the coming decades. The aging of our population for example, puts great pressure on the availability and affordability of healthcare while we at the same time make higher demands on our psychosocial environment. This means we should look for new and hybrid residential care solutions where the quality of life is as high as possible and the care needs are as low as possible.
Reconnecting people with nature is part of the solution. A literature study and conversations with environmental psychologists, ecologists, architects, health experts and pioneers show that the positive effects of nature experience in important degree depend on experiencing a natural biorhythm, thermal variation and sensory contact with nature.
Based on this, three design strategies are proposed that ensure a building that reconnecting people with nature.
The first design strategy is aimed at making the building part of its environment again (by nature – inclusive design) and enticing users to go outside. Creating in-between spaces (between inside and outside) is the core of the second strategy. These are (semi-open) spaces that possess a large part of the qualities of the outside, but where it’s possible to ensure a high level of comfort, safety and control. The last strategy comes down to stimulating the nature experience inside the buildings by using the ‘Biophilic Design’ principles, biodynamic lighting and passive ventilation, heating and cooling.
The next steps are aimed at elaborating the proposed design strategies, the developing a method for measuring and mapping experiences in practice of the customer journey.
The ultimate goal is to convince healthcare organizations of the benefits of integrating nature in care buildings and thus ensure that more of this type of building is developed become.
