BIOFILIC DESIGN AND HEALING ARCHITECTURE: AN EVALUATION ON HEALTHCARE BUILDINGS

Abstract

The notion “biophilia” is described as the innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. Biophilia hypothesis suggests that the human beings have been connected to nature instinctively. The researchers have been arguing the hypothesis in the field of architecture like as in many others, and a new term, i.e., biophilic design, is proposed. Biophilic design proposes environments where the human-nature interacts, and beneficial effects of nature maintain. The buildings including some biophilic components such as natural lighting, natural ventilation and landscape provide user-friendly environments by increasing the performance of light, ventilation and heat inside the building envelope as well as make humans close to nature. In this paper, the application areas of biophilic design in the today’s healthcare architecture are questioned. In the study, firstly a conceptual background is formed in order to conclude the hypothesis “the healing performance of the places designed with the approach of biophilic design understanding is augmented” and the biophilic design applications from past to present is examined regarding the examples. After that, the examination with the selected projects from the data bank which were created by the Biophilic Design Initiative in the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) is made and used to illustrate the use of biophilic design principles during design. The selected projects (Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Malaysia and Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital, Australia) are considered valuable as a guide to understand how this design context can be used in the field of architecture. These projects are realized with the today’s knowledge and technology, and it’s expected that such conceptual ideas will shape the cities of the future as good practices producing solutions for settlement problems of this century.