Homes That Heal
Biophilic design, a concept that connects people with nature, blurs the boundaries of indoor and outdoor for a healthier mind and body.
Biophilic design, a concept that connects people with nature, blurs the boundaries of indoor and outdoor for a healthier mind and body.
When Fred Wilson and his wife Elissa Morgante, co-founders of Morgante WilsonArchitects in Chicago, look out their window, they see far more than a glimpse of Lake Michigan. Their vista isn’t just a pretty scene; it brings them psychological and physical benefits.
“At our home on Lake Michigan and in the homes we design for our clients, we don’t just frame the view. We create a way to look across the view into the distance,” Mr. Wilson says. “We bring glass windows and doors all the way to the floor, so in the foreground, you see our garden, in the middle you see the lawn, and in the distance, you see the water.”
Custom-home architects nearly always design site-specific residences that connect with their natural surroundings. For many, the term “biophilic design” simply puts a name to something they have done for their entire careers: embracing nature as part of the design process.
Simply put, biophilic design “makes people feel good,” says Rick Cook, a founding partner of CookFox Architects in New York.
“We’ve known that anecdotally throughout history, but now researchers help us understand the importance of connecting with nature and how we can design buildings to enhance that relationship,” Mr. Cook says.
While biophilic design might seem to fit best in an area with spectacular natural views, such as mountains, water, or desert, the design aesthetic can be found everywhere, including single-family homes and condos.
According to 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design, a 2014report by Terrapin Bright Green, a sustainability consulting firm, numerous studies show that connecting with nature reduces stress, improves concentration, lowers blood pressure, increases productivity, improves moods, and makes people feel safer.
“Biophilic design means more than adding a green wall to a lobby,” says Josh Kassing, vice president of design and development for Mary Cook Associates, an interior design firm based in Chicago. “Designers have done a good job of bringing in the visual elements of biophilic design, such as views of ponds and trees, but in the future, I think we’ll see more integration of all five senses. It’s about lighting, sound, smells, and textures, too.”
Building with wood, stone, and natural materials can be part of biophilic design, along with using fabrics that mimic nature, he says.
“At its core, biophilic design is less about what applied to a house and more about the layout and the visual connection to the outdoors that makes people comfortable,” Mr. Kassing says. “It’s important for biophilic design to be a priority from the beginning, to be site-specific first, then for architects and designers to layer in space-planning and decor.”
Connecting Homes With Nature
Tyler Jones, founder of Blue Heron Homes in Las Vegas, designing a house is about creating an emotional experience for residents and their guests.
“We want to design homes that make you feel good physically and emotionally,” Mr. Jones says. “People are wired to feel good with a wide vantage point where they can feel safe and protected in a cozy space with a view.”
Mr. Jones integrates water into his home designs for its calming effect, and carefully considers air flow and cross ventilation. He adds fire pits and fireplaces to satisfy the innate need for warmth and integrates natural living plants wherever possible.
“At our ‘Vegas Modern 001’ showcase home in Las Vegas, we designed the home with an intentional journey, from a portal of locally sourced stone at the entrance that feels like a natural canyon, then past desert landscaping that has a water feature that trickles into the home,” Mr Jones says. “Throughout the home, we have glass pocket doors, so you don’t always know whether you’re inside or outside.” Even the primary bedroom has an indoor-outdoor bathroom with pocket doors leading to a private outdoor shower and an outdoor tub with a long view across the desert to the Las Vegas Strip, he adds.
Jim Rill, founder of Rill Architects in Bethesda, Maryland, makes nature part of every home he designs.
“I start with the sight lines and the flow of a house to create an ease of movement between the controlled environment inside the house and nature,” Mr. Rill says. “The best rooms in your house are outside, so we design homes so that you don’t feel the difference between being inside or outside.”
For example, Mr. Rill created an outdoor living room when he renovated a house on a lake in Reston, Virginia, and added walls of glass to connect the interior living space with the outdoors. Materials such as stone and wood link the rooms to the surrounding trees and shoreline. Rill designed a new home on Little Assawoman Bay in Delaware with a wood interior that resembles a ship.
“The owners wanted two separate houses connected by a breezeway, so they could entertain guests but have their privacy,” Mr. Rillsays. “The most important part of the house is the bay itself, so we designed the houses on either side of a pointed deck that leads your eyes to the horizon across the bay.”
The flow of space in a home, also part of biophilic design, can help residents relax.
“We designed one home with a courtyard in the centre that’s completely open-air yet enclosed so that during a snowstorm it seems like it’s snowing inside the house,” Mr. Wilson says. “We ran a stone wall from outside the front door through the courtyard and the family room and out to the backyard, to pull your eyes through the entire house.”
Floor-to-ceiling glass pocket or bifold doors offer opportunities for a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor rooms. Mr.Wilson designed a home with an indoor swimming pool with a 50-foot-wide glasswall on one side that could be opened during pleasant weather.
Biophilic Design in Urban Locations
Urbansite constraints challenge architects’ and developers’ ability to increase residents exposure to nature. For example, at 25 Park Row, a 50-storey condo in manhattan designed by CookFox Architects, every apartment faces City Hall Parkand includes railings with botanical patterns that filter light as if its coming through the trees in the park, Mr. Cook says. 25 Park Row opened to residents in summer 2020.
The upper floors of the building include views of theEast River, the Hudson River, and New York Harbor. CookFox’s condo at 378 WestEnd Avenue on the Upper West Side overlooks the historic Collegiate Church.
“We try to replicate that feeling of being on your front porch looking out at the world with the refuge of your home behind you,” Mr. Cook says. “In a high-rise, that can mean a loggia where you feel a sense of enclosure while you’re outside, or a Juliet balcony, so you feel the fresh air while you’re still inside.”
Exposure to seasonal and daily changes in light patterns help people feel better, Mr. Cook says.
Views of water and greenery can be especially important in urban environments like New York and Chicago.
“Every residence will have a view into a one-acre park, Lake Michigan, or the Chicago River at the Cirrus condos and Cascadeapartments in Lakeshore East in Chicago,” says Linda Kozloski, creative design director of LendLease, a property and investments group headquartered in Chicago. The residences are designed with floor-to-ceiling glass for full exposure to the views.
“We designed the conservatory, an interior courtyard that faces south into the park, with natural wood floors and pebbles and big tropical plants, so that residents can take advantage of the sunlight and warm environment even when it’s cold outside,” Ms. Kozloski says.
Back in New York, in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighbourhood, Tankhouse developers and SO-IL architects created 450 Warren, an 18-unit condo building where every apartment has an exterior entrance.
“Instead of designing one big block, we designed three towers with three courtyards,” says Florian Idenburg, an architect and partner with SO-IL in Brooklyn. “We pulled all the connections between the units outside, so the homes are linked with exterior corridors, bridges, and stairs. Every home has private outdoor space and at least three orientations to the outside, so they can trace the sunlight throughout the day.”
Incorporating Biophilic Design IntoExisting Homes
The benefits of biophilic design can be achieved on a smaller scale in existing homes.
“Even if you don’t have a big view, you can use natural materials like wood and stone and bring in inspirational artwork to give the illusion of blue sky,” Ms. Kozloski says. “Potted plants can bring greenery inside and filter the air.”
Something as simple as opening your windows in all kinds of weather and seeking out even the smallest view of nature, such as a pot of flowers, can bring some of the mental benefits of biophilic design, Mr. Wilson says.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2021 issue of Mansion Global Experience Luxury.
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
The Republican nominee says it would help bring down home prices, though these buyers account for a fraction of U.S. home sales
Former President Donald Trump said he would ban undocumented immigrants from obtaining home mortgages, a move he indicated would help ease home prices even though these buyers account for a tiny fraction of U.S. home sales.
Home loans to undocumented people living in the U.S. are legal but they aren’t especially common. Between 5,000 and 6,000 mortgages of this kind were issued last year, according to estimates from researchers at the Urban Institute in Washington.
Overall, lenders issued more than 3.4 million mortgages to all home purchasers in 2023, federal government data show.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, made his comments Thursday during a policy speech to the Economic Club of New York in Manhattan.
Housing remains a top economic issue for voters during this presidential election. Rent and home prices grew at historic rates during the pandemic and mortgage rates climbed to levels not seen in more than two decades. A July Wall Street Journal poll showed that voters rank housing as their second-biggest inflation concern after groceries.
Both major candidates for the 2024 presidential election have made appeals to voters on housing during recent campaign stops, though the issue has so far featured more prominently in Vice President Kamala Harris ’s campaign.
Trump has blamed immigrants for many of the nation’s woes, including crime and unemployment. Now, he is pointing to immigrants as a cause of the nation’s housing-affordability crisis. Yet some affordable-housing advocates and real-estate professionals said Trump’s mortgage proposal would fail to bring relief to priced-out home buyers.
“It’s unfortunate that given the significant housing affordability crisis that is widely acknowledged across most partisan lines, we are arguing about a minuscule segment of the market,” said David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, an affordable-housing advocacy group.
Gary Acosta, chief executive of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, a trade organization, said, “It’s just another effort to vilify immigrants and to continue to scapegoat them for any issues that we have here in the United States.”
A Trump campaign spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. can obtain an obscure type of mortgage designed for taxpayers without Social Security numbers, most of whom are Hispanic. The passage of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 allowed banks to use identification numbers from the Internal Revenue Service as an alternative to Social Security, extending a number of financial services to people without legal status for the first time.
Mortgage loans for undocumented immigrants are typically higher interest and borrowers include legal residents who have undocumented spouses, Acosta said. Lenders include regional credit unions and community-development financial institutions.
In his speech, Trump said that “the flood” of undocumented immigrants is driving up housing costs. “That’s why my plan will ban mortgages for illegal aliens,” he said.
Trump didn’t elaborate on how he would enact a ban on such loans.
Though mortgages for undocumented people living in the U.S. are relatively rare, residential real-estate purchases by foreign nationals are big business , especially in expensive coastal cities such as New York and Los Angeles. These sales have declined in recent years, however.
Close to half of foreign purchases are made by people residing abroad, while the other half are made by recent immigrants or residents on nonimmigrant visas, according to an annual survey by the National Association of Realtors. Many affluent foreigners buy U.S. homes with cash instead of obtaining mortgage financing.
In his Thursday speech, which focused mostly on other economic matters such as energy and taxation, Trump proposed other measures to bring down housing costs, including cutting regulations for builders and allowing more building on federal land. Similar ideas appeared in the housing policy outline Harris released in August .
The former president has spoken on housing-related issues in speeches at other recent campaign stops, including in Michigan last month, where he touted his administration’s 2020 overturn of a policy that had encouraged cities to reduce racial segregation .
“I keep the suburbs safe,” Trump said. “I stopped low-income towers from rising right alongside of their house. And I’m keeping the illegal aliens away from the suburbs.”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.