“The Passionate Love Of Life And All That Is Alive” (Fromm,

Being environmentally friendly isn’t merely a trend. After thousands of years of using the earth’s resources, we have finally come to realize that we are destroying this beautiful gift we were honored with. Architects play an influential role in trying to preserve this gift by encouraging a multitude of strategies that can be more cost efficient in the long run, be more comfortable for its users, and most importantly, have a lower carbon footprint. Strategies can include drastic changes to heat and air systems, construction material selections, or even specific design details to the architecture of a building that would reduce the amount of energy it consumes.

While reading different essays addressing the topic of nature, I came to the conclusion that they all shared the idea that being outside can make an impact in everyone no matter if you believe you only belong in a city or forest because it can bring you serenity and show you all the amazing things you wouldn't be able to see anywhere else. In Wendell Berry’s essay “An Entrance to the Woods,” he states that people can use the quiet of the woods to forget all their problems. Berry wrote “One is that, though I am here in body, my mind and my nerves too are not yet altogether here. We seem to grant to our high-speed roads and our airlines the rather thoughtless assumption that people can change places as rapidly as their bodies can be transported.” Nature has a way to transport ones mind and spirit elsewhere while the body is left behind on earth as we travel deep into thought. Adding on to that idea, the essay “A City Person Encountering Nature” by Maxine Hong Kingston the author explains that nature is a giver of peace and patience with its slow cycles that may frustrate people, but help keep a sane mind. Society is fast paced, making everyone feel that they need to keep the same pace in order to get things done, but we don't realize that although our bodies are moving and pushing, our minds are exhausted and cannot keep up with the fast pace. Kingston wrote “Preferring the city myself, I can better discern natural phenomena when books point them out; I also need to verify

Humans are animals. Even as developed, personalized, and intelligent as we are, we share a deep connection with every living thing. However, many of the problems in the world result from the human belief that technology is more powerful and can replace the serene, perfect essence of nature. I believe that a connection with nature can heal wounds and help humans find balance in their lives.

Nature in its tranquility provides a calming sensation away from the buzzing city life. The ability

Artificial structures have an ecotonal relationship with nature because the relationship consists of a mergence between the two communities. This is important because humans must create artificial structures in a way that will not harm nature. In the writing, “In the Ecotone” by Jim Clifford, Clifford argues that the “composite environment is always being assembled and reassembled— with friction and difficulty”(Clifford 7). In other words, the intersection between human made structures is a natural event of nature because nature continually consists of rearrangement of members. Gathering from Clifford, artificial structures, such as buildings, do not disturb nature but are a part of the natural ecotone. This view is important today because many have a one sided, negative view of construction of buildings. In San Francisco protest that the new skyscraper destroys the beauty of the city by blocking the sun. However, the skyscraper is part of the developing city and creates many habitats for eagles

Over the past few decades a small number of designers and design professionals have begun to realize their influence on the natural world and have decided to change the way they think of design and designing. This new approach has become known as sustainable design. Sustainable Design is a design philosophy that seeks to maximize the quality of the built environment, while minimizing or eliminating negative impact to the natural environment. In others words designing physical objects with the idea of creating under the principles of ecological sustainable compositions. This type of design is being having great advance and advertising during the last couple of years, therefore is becoming a new alternative in terms of designing and

Non-Contextual designs have abundant amounts of thought put into the design. The architects gather information from all around them. They take in the nature, the culture, and the

Natural shapes and forms, including animal motifs and spirals also evoke a sense of nature. A sense of light and space can be reached through filtered and diffused light, which lead to a sense of spatial harmony and a natural flow of circulation. There is also a vernacular dimension to biophilic design, as place-based relationships can come from landscaping features that define the form of a building. These all work together to further evolve the human-nature relationship and lead to the incredible benefits of biophilic

Just by the sound of it, it seems so easy to understand that a population that is of diverse nature definitely requires a corresponding diverse environment upon which it can thrive and succeed. This philosophy rules out the whole idea as to why architects are continuing to come up with one size fits all design environments. The question is as to whether their main intention is to create and or trying to ensure equality. But as already set, the society is composed of a diverse population, which is a reason enough as to why diverse architectural designs are important for the masses. Critics may attribute this trend to the notion that methods of construction as well as the costs associated with diverse designs, alongside the respective site restrictions tend to make the diverse environment to become infeasible both economically as well as physically. On the contrary in this view, this way of thinking only makes it difficult for the designers to understand the manner in which the diverse populations are affected by the buildings.

“Biophilic design offers a positive vision of how we can achieve lives of meaning and satisfaction through our experience of the natural world.” Biophilia addresses the human need for nature, many findings are in line with green design and sustainability. It is the study of a ‘humans inherent tendency to affiliate with the natural environment.’

Sustainability, today’s buzz word that has gained popularity as more people have become aware of its importance, can be seen in the designed sites that function in harmony with the landscape and natural systems. The rise of sustainable design can be contributed to the advocacy of environmentalism through organizations and increase of designers with environmental philosophies. Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss are examples of such designers, bringing sustainable design to the public realm. Influenced by their social and cultural experiences, Weiss and Manfredi bring together the architectural and the natural. One of their best examples of this is Brooklyn’s Botanical Garden Visitor Center, which serves as “an interface between

Architects are now called upon to create designs that provide social change, improve the health of a building’s inhabitants, increase equality and in general improve social life (Dutton and Mann 1996 in Woodward 2007, 3). Bioclimatic design falls within this brief as it priviledges designs that are at one with the surrounding climate and produce a harmonious microclimate for the inhabitants, thus improving health and providing social change. However, until recently technical aspects of producing bioclimatic designs were ceded to specialist-trained engineers in the field of Bioclimatics (Altomonte 2009, 13). Thus, keeping architectural education focused on its long-held traditions of culture, emotion and improving the landscape. This ensures that there is a continued gap between the traditional education of new architects and the education of principles of bioclimatic design. Which makes it difficult for architects to incorporate bioclimatic principles into their final designs.

Bio-mimicry stretches its horizon to architecture as well. Erin Rovalo from Biomimicry 3.8 says, “The natural world and ecological system are maybe the best picture for what a sustainable world looks and performs like, and if our built environment can function like these ecosystems, maybe that’s the pinnacle of what sustainable design can be.” (Poon, 2016) Guided by the same fundamentals and inspired by the structure of termite mounds, ‘The East Gate Building’, an office complex in Zimbabwe has an internal climate control system. In the

Ecological design is the sole responsibility of innovation and the creativity of products and objects that will sustain our society and future societies. It is critical that we change the way sustainable design is perceived and interpreted, by beginning to develop an understanding of the history and journey from ‘Green design’ into ‘Sustainable design’ as well as looking at the direction in which we would like it to progress to. This requires a comprehension of what these initial terms mean and how this relates to their cultural, social and economic context, all of

The architectural industry is facing another major challenge in the field of sustainability. Sustainable architecture must adhere to the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). This movement, also referred to as green building, focuses on utilizing sustainable resources to increase an overall better wellness of its inhabitants, while reducing harmful effects on the environment. In addition, the focus of green building has expanded to help prevent pollution, control waste, and conserve