Biophilic Design Strategies in Healthcare Buildings

Abstract

Evidence-based studies have shown the benefits of including nature and its elements in the built environment suggesting that they could have a positive effect on healing and health. The innate emotional attachment of human to nature and the living things in nature is known as “biophilia”. Biophilic design is an approach that integrates nature into the buildings in which people live to foster human-nature relationship. Extensive literature review gives a clear understanding of Biophilic design and confirms a link between patient’s recovery and building with nature. The study is aimed at assessing the extent to which biophilic design strategies is adopted in hospital buildings in Nigeria. Case study methodology was adopted to give critical analysis of existing health facilities and Biophilic design strategy adopted. The selected hospitals have been evaluated through the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design strategies defined by Browning et al., 2014 and the results presented descriptively with the use of tables. The findings showed low consideration of these principles in health facilities of Nigeria and further gives pointers on how Biophilic design strategies could be applied in design for positive outcomes.