Biophilic Industry Experts
To gain a greater industry knowledge of the different applications of biophilic design, as well as the differing ways connections can be formed utilising nature, I reached out to biophilic deign experts.
Kristina Libby
She is an artist, innovator and technology executive. She has recently worked on projects looking to improve wellbeing and creativity in the workplace by applying biophilic design principles.
My conversation with Kristina, revealed the following:
- She feels strongly that as a society we should be moving towards making indoor spaces as attractive as outdoor spaces.
- She stated that people are 15-20% more likely to spend time in hospitality environments that have increased green spaces.
- She feels that many hospitality spaces almost feel dead at present, some even toxic. We should be aiming to make these spaces welcoming and spaces that make us feel good and alive.
- She advised that when looking at measuring topics such as wellbeing and social interactions, I should consider: How long people stay, whether group sizes expand over time and emotional self reports after visiting the spaces.
- She felt that in relation to hospitality businesses, they have been too harshly hit by the pandemic to look at large scale improvements. But, as the economy improves she expects there to be greater willingness to draw people to spaces using nature.
- This feeds into my smaller, manageable scale and approach
- She feels buildings are spaces that improve wellbeing and connect people with nature are essential to creating a better planet.
Rajalakshami Iyer
She is a landscape architect and interior landscaper, who is passionate about connecting people to nature.
In my conversation with Rajalakshmi, she provided great insights into alternative ways to apply biophilic design, that target the feeling of making a connection. For example, she explained how she tends to utilise biophilic design principles to touch peoples hearts and trigger childhood or good memories. This makes the spaces feel honest and people can form a very personal connection with the nature.
Hospitality Businesses
To better understand how hospitality businesses are currently approaching bringing nature into their spaces, I began to ask people involved in the industry for their take on things.
Simon Gardner
He is a general manager with 25 years experience in the hospitality industry.
The discussion with Simon provided an interesting angle on how nature could be applied to discourage certain types of unwanted, troublesome behaviours due to the calming restorative benefits of nature. Additionally, Simon’s input helped me to establish that hospitality businesses are welcome to the type of change that I am trying to make.
Ajit Nair
He is a manger of hospitality businesses.
Ajit also furthered that some hospitality businesses are open to biophilic design.
Reflection:
From engaging with stakeholders in the hospitality industry, I have had two very beneficial discussions with general managers of hospitality businesses. The first being with Simon and the second with Ajit. From these discussions I noted that introducing nature, specifically greenery into the hospitality spaces is an accepted idea in the field. But, that the introduction of differing parts of nature into hospitality spaces such as sound, water, pattern and in some cases (not Simon’s) light, are largely overlooked.
However, it must be noted that these two stakeholders reached out to a post I put in a large Facebook group for hospitality business owners which stated my intentions for biophilic design applications. Therefore, their accounts are representative of those who are interested in applying nature in spaces, as they engaged with my post. However, many others in the group did not engage with the post, possibly suggesting that they are less interested in brining nature into they spaces.
Hospitality Customers
In order to establish how customers may be attracted to hospitality businesses and how they develop their connections with nature, I reached out to my following on instagram. This following is of around 700 people from varying backgrounds, ages and areas.
From this stakeholder engagement I discovered that 93% of people who responded stated that they would be attracted to a hospitality business if it intrinsically incorporated nature. I reached out to the people in the 7% who responded NO but unfortunately I didn’t receive any replies as to why they responded that way.
I also learnt that feelings of relaxation, calm and peace are prominent effects of having string connections with nature, so they may be things I could attempt to measure to determine the quality of connection developed, alongside the academic scales of connection to nature.
Other highly beneficial feedback I gained stated that, people miss the natural world when they aren’t in it, so brining nature to people in hospitality businesses has a clear market.
Early Intervention
As an early intervention, I am looking to set up a focus group in the form of a virtual panel discussion, that aims to bring hospitality businesses and biophilia experts together to create change. I will explain the focus group more in a later blog post. So far, Kristina Libby, Rajalakshami Iyer, Leonardo Binetti (see previous stake holder engagement posts) have all agreed to take part in the discussion. Simon Gardner has potentially agreed to take part, depending upon work agreements.