Since the onset of industrialization, nature and the built environment have never experienced what you would call a harmonious relationship. For the longest time, the first casualty in the march of human progress has been the natural world. We've all seen the pictures of polar bears floating on shrinking ice floes, of pelicans drenched in black oil. The industry of the built environment has had a similarly blackmarked history. As humans built upwards, downwards, and outwards, forests have been cleared, mountains have been defaced, and rivers have been polluted. The most recognizable icon of pollution is an architectural product--a factory with its smokestack belching noxious fumes.
Thankfully, recent architectural upheavals are answering the call to overhaul that image. For instance, Sustainable design seeks to reduce the environmental impact of the built environment, while improving the health and comfort of the occupants. This design philosophy has gained massive traction all over the world. There's also green architecture, a design direction that attempts to minimize a building carbon footprint by using eco-friendly building materials and and construction practices. Endorsed by local and international architecture organizations and coalitions, green architecture has been fully integrated into the construction and design of many newer buildings. Regenerative architecture, coined by Ar. Ronnie Yumang, moves past nature conservation to nature replenishment, weaving intricate natural biomes into the built environment to provide shelter and food for neighboring fauna.
Then there's biophilic design. Biophilic design appeals to man's affinity and biological connection to nature. The root word, "biophilia" is defined as a desire to commune with nature, and this desire is something embedded in the human psyche. If you've ever felt restored an afternoon stroll through a park, or felt awe at the majestic panorama on top of a mountain--that's biophilia.
Fostering this connection is one of the primary goals of biophilic design. An abundance of artificial structures--no matter how beautifully designed—can feel cold and impersonal. Biophilic design has a fundamental understanding of man's connection with nature, and fosters that connection through water features, scents, sounds, landscaping, among other techniques.
In this new world of lockdowns and at- home work, our outdoors time has been severely limited due to the necessity of social distancing. Biophilic design is becoming more and more essential, even as we sequester ourselves within the safety of our homes. This is the reason why hundreds of thousands of Filipinos have taken up gardening, not just as a mechanism against boredom, but as an unconscious way to tap into our primal desire to connect with the natural world.
One Montage Cebu by Cubesystem (Left) Image by Yumang Design Studio/Joya Properties (Right)
See Them Bloom
In the world of architecture and design, there are several titans leading the charge for biophilic design. One of which Cubesystem and its CEO, Ar. Rowland Agullana. Featured multiple times in the pages of D+C, Cubesystems credentials can be found in cities all over the Philippines. An artist at creating green walls--both natural and artificial--Cubesystem and Ar. Agullana have overhauled the concept of a building, opting instead to simply think of it like a tree. The addition of the green wall or vertical garden will allow the building to produce energy, create habitat, and cleanse and store rainwater in an environmentally and aesthetically pleasing manner.
Their sheer skill at creating vertical gardens and green walls allowed them to make their leafy mark on several malls around the Philippines. The Podium, for instance, has been given a complete floric makeover. What was once stone and glass is now an automatically-irrigated facade of varying shades of green. Opting for a slotted look, the One Montage is a viridian oasis in the otherwise gray metropolis of Cebu City.
Aside from the aesthetic value of such buildings, the greenwall also provides a massive reduction of the heat island effect. The average pedestrian will feel less of the stifling ambient heat of the city while breathing the clean air cycled by the green wall's plants. The canopy of green also lessens the operational costs of the building. With the green wall catching the heat and light of the sun, it significantly reduces cooling and air conditioning costs of the building. A seemingly simple addition to a building's facade, the greenwall captures the essence of biophilic design: connecting the space's residents to nature whilst providing long term benefits to physical and mental wellness.
The addition of the
green wall or vertical
garden will allow the
building to produce
energy, create habitat,
and cleanse and
store rainwater in an
environmentally and
aesthetically pleasing
manner.
Trees of Green
Biophilic design affects not just a building's outward appearance, but also its foundations. A relative newcomer in the building industry, cross-laminated timber is showing itself as a versatile and eco-friendly material in construction and design. Like other biophilic techniques, cross-laminated timber, or CLT, attempts to provide a simple solution to a pre-existing problem: deforestation. Wood has always been an effective and aesthetic building material, but old growth wood is now becoming more
difficult to source. And due to irresponsible deforestation, there are now serious ethical questions in using good wood in construction. Thankfully, CLT fills the need for wood-based building material while our country's forests stay pristine.
Cross-laminated timber is a wood panel
product made from gluing together layers of solid- sawn lumber, i.e., lumber cut from a single log.
The glue and the perpendicular orientation of the adjacent layers strengthen the wood, allowing it to achieve better structural integrity in bo