Images courtesy of Ambius.
It’s no stretch to say that people spend an overwhelming amount of their time indoors these days. Various studies have concluded that we spend about 90 percent of our time indoors, and a recent survey of 1,000 office workers commissioned by Ambius found that 35 percent don’t get more than 15 minutes of outdoor time during the typical workday. An additional 13 percent are able to stretch their daily time in outdoor environments to 30 minutes while only 26 percent manage to spend a full hour outside each day. This is a pretty low bar to clear when compared to the average prison inmate, who typically gets an hour of outdoor exposure each day. With many Americans putting in more than 40 hours at work each week, that adds up to a lot of time spent in the office and cut off from nature.
Human beings have an inherent need to connect with nature and green spaces. The concept of biophilia, a term coined by American biologist and researcher Edward O. Wilson, describes this innate attraction to nature and natural processes. In response, biophilic design has emerged to lessen the impact of this separation by bringing natural elements indoors in a way that mimics outdoor environments. This trend has grown steadily in recent years, and many signs indicate that we’re on the verge of reaching the tipping point where elements of biophilic design are the norm for the modern office, rather than a curiosity implemented by only the most forwarded thinking office designers.
Major employers like Amazon have bought into the concept in a big way, adding dramatic features like glass-domed green houses to their company headquarters. That said, the average company can achieve the benefits of biophilic design as well through simpler means. Research published in 2014 by the “Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied” found that the presence of plants inside a building increases occupants’ feelings of well-being by 40 percent. Studies have revealed that adding biophilic elements to offices can increase productivity and reduce absenteeism, two factors that impact the bottom line due to the large portion of a company’s operating costs represented by human resources.