Month: September 2021

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Working with Planted at Planted Cities Event

Last week I assisted in running Planted, which was London’s first zero-waste event. The event exhibited a multitude of ways to connect people to nature, from everything surrounding natural living in sustainable textiles, furniture and even office working pods to panel discussions giving knowledge around biophilia and sustainability; and how to implement them in your lives. The event also showcased a ‘sleeping with nature installation’ which demonstrated sustainable cabins with natural mattresses to demonstrate the benefits of sleeping among biophilic design.

The event was a huge success having over 6000 visitors across the 4 days (Thursday 23rd – Sunday 26th September). Subsequently, showcasing a huge market and commercial case for connecting people with nature and the need for sustainability in design. The growing trend and rise in consumer appetite for this movements fit seamlessly in the efforts of my project trying to connect people to nature through hospitality settings.

Personally, helping at this event offered a unique opportunity to meet some of the key experts in my stakeholder groups and even some experts I didn’t know existed prior to the event. For instance, I met people from Strobilo which is a company that measures brainwave patterns resultant from interacting with natural designs and environments. This is a company I am now looking to involve in my immerisve event at Chelsea College of Arts to measure brain wave patterns resultant form interacting with my natural event. The brain waves could demonstrate the quantifiable case for including nature in spaces. This is a big company who have ran events with the likes of Heston Blumenthal to test the impacts of the food experiences on brian waves. Due to the scope of the company I am in discussions as to whether they are able to get involved in my event as it is a lot smaller scale than their normal standard.

Other key companies I met during this event include Plant Designs which design, supply and maintain plants in work places but also in events. Plants Designs are a very exciting company and I am getting in contact regarding possible ways to work with them in the future.

There were many other exciting exhibitors at the event such as smile plastics creating furniture from recycled goods or the Yarn Collective showcasing sustainable and recycled textiles. All of the contacts I made here with the exhibitors will prove invaluable moving forward with my work and even past the scope of my masters.

The team at Planted behind the event are also very interesting and have many future plans for expansion and growth over the next year, as this was their first full-scale event due to covid restorations. I am also in talks with the Planted team on how to progress our working relationship.

Reflection

Being a part of such a large and influential event was truly an amazing experience. I was able to meet so many experts in my field that I have only been able to converse with online via places such as LinkedIn and many I had never spoken with before. It was particularly nice to meet Vanessa Champion in person, who is the editor of the Journal of Biophilic Design, which I recently wrote my article for. Vanessa was an invited panelists speaking on ‘what is biophilic deign?’.

The event was also an amazing experience in reflecting on how far I have come through the progress of my masters journey. Being at the start of my masters I was simply someone who was interested in the subjects of sustainability and biophilia, but being invited to assist in this event signified a change and growth in my position within the field. I felt that now I was an accepted part of the community with everyone striving towards the same goal, as a collective unit – to connect people to nature. It was amazing to be among so many likeminded people and for my work to be robust enough to stand up against the experts in the field to be discussed and respected. This solidified status among biophilic designers and the sustainability movement has allowed me to consider how I can continue to push my ideas further and that my work is something that is both academically significant but also desired by customers and the wider world to provide the benefits of nature through hospitality settings.

Photos

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Soundscapes for Immersive Event at Chelsea

I recently reached out to the British Library and Radio Lento in regards to collaborating to develop unique natural soundscapes for my immersive event at Chelsea on the 7th and 8th October. I am happy to say I have received responses from both parties.

Radio Lento

Radio lento is an independent producer of environmental soundscapes and 3D sounds. At present their sounds are distributed via a podcast and as a start-up, they are currently in the process of acquiring licences to release their sounds to third parties. Therefore, they are sadly unable to offer any sounds out for probono events at the presnet time.

However, I would love to work with them in the future and utilise their sounds when they are available, as they capture some incredible audio from very remote locations; and so they are a great contact to have.

British Libary

I also received a response form Cheryl Tipp at the British Libary, who has been very helpful in directing me to their resources of natural soundscapes that I have been allowed to utilise in my immersive event! The British Libary has a huge range of differing soundscapes from animals to tress in the breeze and water so there is huge potential to apply these sounds in my event and events moving forward, so long as I credit the British Libary in them.

Therefore, over the next week I am going to combine a suitable range of the sounds provided by the British Libary to create a unique soundscape which will be incorporated into my immersive event as a part of my intervention. I may also look to test this soundscape and others I create in the future, in upcoming events at the Chelsea cafe space around the end of October.

Reflection

I am incredibly excited to be able to develop custom soundscapes form y event in collaboration with the british Libary. It is a fantastic resource of sounds that offers real depth in the realism of my immersive natural event.

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Contacting Collaborators for Chelsea Event

After speaking with Sue Thomas last week, she suggested that I get in contact with some sound experts to access the most suitable and effective natural soundscapes to implement in my upcoming immersive event at Chelsea College of Arts.

Natural Soundscapes:

Consequently, I have contacted Cheryl Tipps at the British Libary, as well as Radio Lento in regards to collaborating on curating natural soundscapes for the event. I am very hopeful one of these parties will respond, as Sue mentioned that the British Libary, in particular, is often keen to collaborate on these types of projects so that the soundscapes get utilised.

Body Metrics for Measuring Connection to Nature:

Additionally, raised in multiple meetings with experts over the coming weeks and my panel discussion was to explore measuring body metrics such as blood pressure, oxygen levels or plus to see the impacts of the natural events or experience on customers connection to nature.

Subsequently, I have contact medical supply companies and medical experts to see if any would be interested in supplying the medical technology to the vent or be interested in attending/ helping to run it and collaborating on it.

In my research on utilising body metrics to measure connections, I have found that studies that have done this so far are predominately US-based. Therefore, conducting a body metrics examination of interactions with nature in the UK could be of vast benefit.

Reflection:

I am really keen to utilise a different type of measure for connection to nature in my next event to create variety in the type of data and feedback gained from my interventions. Therefore, I feel it would be really interesting to gather body metric data that can empirically show the impact of natural design upon customers in hospitality spaces. However, measuring body metrics requires either buying or renting medical equiptment to measure these statistics or collaborating with a medical supply company or professional to obtain them. Ideally, I would like to collaborate with a medical professional so they could also attend the vent and be in charge of taking the measurements so that I can ensure they are all scientifically accurate. I realise it may be very difficult to get someone to fit this role and so I am flexible in either possibly taking the measurements myself or resorting to a different measuring method. I will explore possible different methods of measurement in upcoming posts.

In relation to soundscapes, I feel it will add a great depth and dimension to the event if I am able to collaborate to create unique soundscapes for the event. Also, if I am able to collaborate on soundscapes I could create another soundscape to utilise in a future cafe intervention to test of the responses to sound alone, or sound combined with scents.

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4917833/

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02942/full

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Action Plan – Moving into U3

As Unit 3 is now underway, I have devised an action plan to move forwards through the final stages of my master’s project. This plan involves streamlining my interventions into the most impactful and inventive ways to achieve the aims of my research question.

Focusing My Interventions:

Events

Events are my predominant intervention to re-connect people to nature through visiting hospitality spaces. The events aim to connect people to a natural environment whilst visiting a typically unnatural space. Consequently, they can feel the health benefits of interacting with nature as well as building their connection to nature, which will improve their care for the natural world and hopefully increase their uptake in sustainable practices.

Chelsea College of Arts have confirmed I can host more events in their spaces, and their canteen spaces is re-opening at the end of September. Consequently, I am hosting my immersive event in the canteen on the 7th and 8th of October.

  • Canteen Event 7/8th Oct
    • Immersive event implementing the positives from the herb event alongside the innovative ideas founded in technobiophilia
      • Ideas:
        • Implementing live stream waterfall and soundscapes
        • Incoprorate physical plants as they were well recived in herb event, as well as possibly scents as they were greatly enjoyed from the herbs
        • Look to measure connection through body metrics

In developing this immersive event I am also going to explore the avenues of creating responsive immersive projections through Microsoft Kinect software, or utilising AR to bring in natural elements to the space. I will evaluate the most effective of these methods, if any are appropriate and work on implementing them into the event.

I also have the opportunity to test smaller scales of ideas I wish to implement in the canteen in Chelsea’s cafe space, wish will be a very advantageous space once I have got a more precise view of my ideas for the event.

ClubHouse/ Podcast

To look to connect people to nature through hospitality even further, I am going to take the highly interesting and original conversations from my panel discussions and from the panels into talks on clubhouse or a podcast. The talks will be aimed at hospitality professionals as well as biophilic/ natural experts to learn how nature can be incorporated into hospitality spaces.

I am deciding between clubhouse as it is aimed at professionals and is a newly emerging platform over the past year which can help reach my intended audience on a wider scale, in a new and engaging way. However, discussions on clubhouse can’t be recorded and you have to be available at the moment to talk part and listen to the discussion, which restricts who can view and learn from the conversations. Therefore, I am also looking at whether a podcast may be a more suitable format as discussions can be kept forever and relistening to. But, guiding users to find your podcast can be very difficult and so it may be tricky to reach my intended audience. I will explore both methods in greater depth and make a decision.

Instagram

I will continue to run the Nature.In Instagram page in posting applications of nature in different hospitality spaces, as well as promoting the events for nature.in; but this is very much a sideline aim to accompany the key interventions.

The Instagram aims to connect people to nature through developing a type of online catalogue of hospitality venues that actively try to incorporate nature into their spaces; thus, encouraging people to visit them and develop their connections to nature.

Reflection

I’m very happy to have narrowed the focus of my work slightly and I will continue to narrow in more as I reflect further upon the outcomes of my previous interventions. I feel it is of great benefit to have done this for both the direction and clarity of my project, as well as for my personal focus to move away from constantly conjuring up new ideas. I am excited to deepen my focus on these interventions and create something that creates real change.

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Unit 2 Presentation

This week I completed my presentation to mark the end of U2. This was a great opportunity to provide some added insights into the interventions I have conducted over Unit 2 as well as some visual evidence. The presentation slides can be found below.

Feedback:

The majority of my feedback centred around now focusing my efforts on the most effective and suitable interventions out of the range I have conducted. Narrowing in my field of focus in this way will allow for added depth and reflection into the interventions rather than doing many to a slightly lesser depth. It was advised to conduct this narrowing in the process by considering which interventions most directly achieve my research question of connecting people to nature through hospitality venues

Reflections:

From the feedback on my presentation, I am now looking to single out the most promising avenues for enquiring to pursue in my future interventions. An action plan for these avenues will be available on my blog over the coming days.

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Article for the Journal of Biophilic Design

UPDATE (16TH SEPT 2021) – my article has now been published which you can view here: https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/journal-of-biophilic-design/why-the-hospitality-industry-needs-biophilic-design

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to write an article for the Journal of biophilic design, which will be shared on their website towards the end of the month. This was a brilliant chance to publicise my work and get more people engaged in my mission to connect people to nature through hospitality spaces. Being asked to write this article on my work demonstrated the traction my project is gaining among my stakeholders and the opportunity for creating real change that is being created.

I have included the text of the article below, but the article will also feature some pictures from my Chelsea Herb Event.

Article:

Nicole Parkes– Masters Student of Applied Imagination at Central Saint Martins, Founder of Nature.In 

Website – Blog documenting the journey of work:  https://nicoleparkes.myblog.arts.ac.uk

Instagram – @nature.i.n  and @nicole__parkes

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqNK8rZOlsj1UFpzT3pfuCQ

Email – nicoleparkes0@gmail.com

Call to action –Re-connecting people to nature through hospitality venues by incorporating the principles of biophilic design – bringing nature to the people 

What’s the aim?

Nature.In aims to re-connect people to nature by bringing the outside indoors, focusing on hospitality venues. Nature.In is the entity created to unite the work of this venture. Our work challenges convention through developing natural events, experiences and designs that develop 1-1 personal connections to nature by evoking the senses and allowing individuals to experience the health benefits of interacting with nature. These benefits include reduced stress and anxiety, creating clarity of mind and increased creativity to name but a few. We are passionate about creating that gut reaction and instinctive connection to nature achieved from organic interaction with nature in the wild, offering a customer-centric approach rather than commercial holistic design schemes. The ideologies in our work play off the concept of emotional design, in thinking that customers are far more likely to act in the interest of nature and participate in sustainable practice in their lives, if they develop some form of emotional and personal connection to nature. In essence, if they connect to it, they will care for it.

Hospitality is the focus due to the popularity of the spaces, the rise in sustainably conscious venues and the lifting of covid restrictions offering a unique opportunity to reattract customers to hospitality spaces in innovative and engaging ways. Additionally, there is a current lack of customer-centric and easily appliable biophilic design for hospitality venues, that do not require full-scale refurbishment of spaces. Subsequently, Nature.In aims to develop original and dynamic biophilic events, experiences, and designs to implement in hospitality venues. 

Why is it Important?

The events, experiences and designs created by Nature.In are targeted at the customers to produce approachable forms of biophilic designs that connect people to nature. The connections formed to nature within hospitality settings are hoped to lead to a heightened awareness for nature into the lives of the individual, so that they make conscious efforts to interact with and act in the best interests of nature in the future. Subsequently, leading to individuals leading more sustainably conscious lives which is more important than ever amidst the ongoing climate crisis.

How Are We Connecting People to Nature?

A variety of methods have been deployed to aid the mission of reconnecting people to nature within the hospitality setting. These include hosting a Herb event at the Chelsea College of Arts, panel discussions with biophilic experts, and social media groups which raises awareness for venues showcasing nature within hospitality spaces. Essentially, the mission of Nature.In is split into two sectors; actions and outreach. Actions include the events and experiences ran in hospitality spaces to re-connect customers to nature and attract them into the spaces through experiencing the benefits of interacting with nature. Outreach involves spreading the word of what biophilia is, its importance and how to utilise it.

Actions

The first action, or event, hosted by Nature.In was a Herb Event, which took place at Chelsea College of Arts across 20th – 21st July. The event involved an array of herbs being presented for customers to come and pick to go with their food or to take home with them. Upon arrival I asked customers to complete a series of 4 questions based upon the measure of Inclusion of Nature in Self to rate their connection to nature. Before participants left, I asked the 4 questions again to assess if there had been any change in their connection to nature following their engagement in the event. I provided customers with herb cuttings of their choice to take home and a card explaining different ways to utilise the herbs, alongside a QR code to an online survey form for added feedback.

The results determined that there was a 2.5% increase in connection to nature from this event, although this could be increased if participants had longer to engage with the herbs. A stunning 85% of participants stated that they would actively visit a hospitality venue if it was offering a natural event or experience, suggesting a large market for this work. Throughout the event many customers stated they felt disconnected from nature living in London, without access to a garden or immediate green space. This demonstrates the potential impact of Nature.In’s goal to bring nature to the people in hospitality spaces, as many people lack but are ready to receive nature; especially in large cities like London.

Over the coming months, more events are to be held at Chelsea College of Arts, building upon the success of the Herb Event. The future events aim to test the impact of different ways to re-connect with nature, such as targeting the senses through aspects of smell and sounds. Additionally, ways to utilise technology to aid connections to nature will be explored through developing immersive events and ways to harness augmented reality technology to bring items such as menus to life. 

Outreach: 

Through the outreach portion of Nature.In work, we aim to connect people to nature through spreading the word of the benefits and possible uses of biophilic designs, as well as making biophilia approachable by unpacking some of the academic intricacies.

One aspect we found throughout our exploration into biophilic design is that it is a concept largely unknown to the wider world. Instead, there is an ever-growing group of inspiring intellectuals and designers that are discovering and building upon the concept, which is brilliant and fascinating. However, when approaching hospitality customers or business owners and discussing the concept of biophilic design, you are doing well if you even find one that is aware of what the concept entails. Therefore, we feel to truly re-connect people to nature through biophilic designs, great attention needs to be given to raising awareness as to what biophilia is and how people can incorporate it into their lives and businesses. So far, outreach has been achieved through hosting panel discussions, speaking with biophilic experts, and building up the Nature.In Instagram page. 

There have been 2 online panel discussions hosted by Nature.In to date, each including 4 biophilic experts. The first panel looked at different ways to approach re-connecting people to nature in a hospitality setting. While the second panel aimed to establish pioneering adaptations of the work and future plans of Nature.In. The panels provide great insights from leading experts into how nature can be innovatively and dynamically incorporated into hospitality spaces to attract customers. They aim to be informative and thought-provoking for hospitality businesses, customers and other biophilic experts. This has ignited conversations on how we can intrinsically incorporate nature into our hospitality experiences. These discussions can all be found on the Nature.In YouTube page. However, future panel discussions and meetings with biophilic experts are looking to be moved onto platforms accessed by a wider audience, such as Clubhouse, Podcasts, Instagram and even Tiktok. 

The Nature.In Instagram page aims to showcase natural events, experiences, and designs within hospitality settings as well as natural experiences run by Nature.In. This page is also helping to form a conversation and community in the comments section, through the page’s growing following. Check it out to learn about our upcoming ventures and come and visit us there! Over the coming months there will be several natural events hosted at Chelsea College of Arts and we are always looking for more hospitality venues that wish to explore natural events, experiences and designs that can be hosted in their spaces. So, if you’re interested in getting involved, get in touch! 

Ideas For How to Incorporate Biophilic Design into Hospitality Spaces

Future ideas being explored for upcoming events by Nature.In include exploring the powers of targeting different senses and technobiophilia, which involves utilising technology to aid in connecting people to nature. However, there are many small ways hospitality businesses can easily implement nature into their existing spaces. Some simple ideas are listed below:

  • Utilising herbs as table centre pieces
  • Informing customers of where your produce comes from and your sustainability actions
  • Incorporating colour schemes mimicking that of nature eg: blues and creams of the ocean, green hues of plants or orange, red and stone colours of the earth
  • Taking advantage of natural light in your space
  • Incorporating natural scents and soundscapes

I hope some of the ideas raised here have helped you to think about how you could interact with nature in any small way today, to help bring those natural benefits into your life and hopefully to continue those connections into the future.

For information about future events, experiences, and talks follow our Instagram – @nature.i.n  or keep in touch with the progress of the project via the blog: https://nicoleparkes.myblog.arts.ac.uk

If there is anyone interested in collaborating in our work or wants to find out more – drop me an email – nicoleparkes0@gmail.com

Reflection

I loved the opportunity to write this article and share more about y missions of my work and why it’s important to bring nature into everyone’s lives. I was asked to write this article after contacting the editor of the Journal of Biophilic Design to take part in my latest panel discussion. Unfortunately, Vanessa was unable to take part in the panel, but instead, she asked if I would be interested in writing the article. This demonstrated the power of building a strong network of stakeholders once again, as doors begin to open with the more people you build relationships with.

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Planted Cities Event

Yesterday I had the brilliant opportunity to speak with Sam Peters who is one of the founders of Planted. I recently saw Sam speak at the Fika with Friends conference, which inspired me to get in touch.

Planted is running London’s first zero waste event at Granary Square on the 23-26th September. It was great to hear more about the event and the future plans for Planted. For instance, expanding their podcast outreach, lauching a members area, future events and much more.

  • Panted installation during London Design Festival in Granary Square, King’s Cross

Having spoken to Sam about my work and how our aims are very much alined to connect people to nature in innovative ways, Sam kindly offered for me to get involved in their event this September. Therefore, I will be attending the event on Thursday (23rd) and Friday (24th) and assiting in anyway I can, as well as meeting with the team. This is a very exciting opportuniy to make many more connections within my stakeholder network and learn more about cuttting-edge work in the field of biophilia and sustianability.

I will also look to work with Planted past this event as they continue to expand, and hopefully find key opportunites for overlap and collaboration in our goals.

Reflection

Being invited to take part in the Planted event feels like a big breakthrough in my work, which expresses that my project is valuable to the scetor and my stakeholders. Having this validation of my work that others are interested in it to the point that they want me to collaborate in their work allows me to feel I am on the right track, talking to the right people and persuing new ways to create changes in connecting to nature.

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Meeting with Sue Thomas – Technobiophilia

Yesterday I had a very informative and insightful discussion with Sue Thomas, a pioneer in technobiophilia and she actually coined the term! Our discussion can be seen below and I have also typed up some key points from it.

Discussion Points:

  • Tragetting sense of smell
    • Utilsing perfume spray before food is given out eg: vanilla scent or violet, nothing too over powering that distracts from the food/ drink but something unusual that sets the tone for a natural experience
      • Easily removed from a senario unlike diffusers

  • Technobiophilia experiments
    • Irish phone game of differing landscapes, linked to a meaure of oxygen levels to determine the change in stress levels after experiencing nature
    • Art project in hospital showing live stream of coast or coutryside and the pateints could choose which. The patients were lukemia patients with their vitals measured constantly, but there were no records taken of the impact of the nature on their stress levels
    • Snow ward – Seattle military hospital had to chnage the soilders dressings everyday which caused great pain. So, they developed a VR game to distract them that involved runing and playing in snow, they also sat the soliders in a cold environemnt whilst playing the game. The experiment found that the soliders didnt feel the pain whilst in teh immerisve natural experience!
  • Restaurants could measure oxygen levels in an event or experience to see impacts of natural intercations
    • Utilise finger clip to measure oxygen levels – talk to medical professionals or medical supply company
    • Samsung S8 phone utilise a ‘stressmeter’ on the back of the phones measures the levels of oxygen in the skin which is lower if you are stressed
    • Could measure oxygen levels at the table and take the readings when ordering?
  • Use of sound in natural experiences
    • Contact British Libary and utilse their audio collection, also BBC sound archive
    • Radio Lento collect their own natural soundscapes – ask to collaborate?
  • Connecting people to water as a natural element
    • Implementing a live stream of a wtaerfall into technobiophilic event?
    • Book Blue Mind by Wallace Nichols talks on why we are attracted to water
    • Even utilsie items associated with water eg: fish net decoartions/ plants associated by water
    • Craete that gut reaction of connecting to nature, then the next step can be nudging people to act more sustainably
    • Crashing water soundscapes? – relaxing and exciting at the same time?
    • Ways to recreate the smells of running fresh water?
  • Natural sounds utilsied in spaces
    • Bird song boxes – small reminder of nature that connects you when you walk into an unnatural space
  • Contact biophilic cities – similar to the journal of biophilic design, but American verison, aks to talk with them if anything similar to my ideas is being done in the US that they know of?
    • Look at the likes of cutting edge american innovators eg: silicon valley, portland oregan and california

Reflection

I was so appreciative of the opportunity to talk to Sue as she is so highly respected in the area of technobiophilia. It was brilliant to talk through different academic studies and possible applications of technobiophilia with her. This conversation and the others I have had over the past few days with people like Kristina Libby and Heidi Learaertz have led to great confirmation from my stakeholders that they believe my ideas have the potential to be highly useful, engaging and powerful. This has really inspired me to move into the development of these next ideas iterations of interventions, utilising what I have learnt from my first interventions and building upon the feedback of my expert stakeholders.

Looking towards my next stakeholder meetings of this type, reflecting on my interviewing technique, I feel I need to work to ensure I ask the interviewee more questions to encourage them to talk, as I feel sometimes I fall into the trap of early wanting talk to talk about my ideas and plans which can take over the interview.

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Meeting with Heidi Lenaertz – Targeting the Senses and Technobiophilia

Today I had a very thought-provoking conversation with biophilic expert Heidi Lenaertz. We primarily discussed different ways to approach targeting thes senses in applying biophilic principles to hospitality venues, alongside touching on technobiophilia. The main points I took from the discussion can be found below, as well as the audio recording of the discussion.

Discussion:

  • Opening up the senses – start with scents to target the smell, as this is attached the the oldest part of the brain in evolution meaning once smell is evoked it is easier to open up the other senses.
    • Take into consideration that some people can’t smell
    • See the impact of this on the other senses and compare against evoking a different sense to smell first
    • Could begin with scents that are familiar eg: mint or lavender so people recognise them and compare against less familir or recognisable scents
  • Measuring
    • Ask people what they think/feel/ see when they smell certain things eg; vanilla, pine or coffee
    • Body metrics – blood pressure/ pulse
      • Perspiration of skin – could compare against research with introvert vs extrovert as one’s skin has been found to perspire more than the other – can help to determine how at ease they are
    • Record/ observe facial expresssions eg: smiles/ relaxed/ tense – video reactions and evaluate them
    • Asking participants to choose a colour to represent their feelings – can analyse what meanings can be found behind different colours
      • Could reveal what change or mindsets have occured before and after the experience
      • Self awareness revealed if you ask why they chose that colour
      • Be aware some may be colour blind – could instead chose a texture, possibly of a plant eg: round leaves or spikey

  • Diffusers for smells in technobiophilic experience
    • Blind fold people to heighten their sense of smell?
    • Compare the smells from real herbs vs diffusers – see which people like the most/ what is more agreeable to them
      • See the extent to which people are comfertable with technology/ processed scents eg: if the plants are unable to be utilsied do they feel artifical scents can provide the same benefits?
  • Testing biophilic elements around the experience of having a cup of coffee – low threshold ways to test out biophilic elements
    • Coffee corner – ask people to try the coffee from different tables 1/2/3 and compare – to determine which lighting and visual positioning is best
    • Could even test visuals from the shape of the milk eg: leaf/ heart/ circle
    • Coffee plant – testing real vs plastic plants
    • Vision of coffee beans – either in person or on a poster or even showcasing a video of their production – allows opportunity to showcase any sustainbel actions they are taking eg: transportation
      • Test differnet beans for changes in scent
    • Pour coffee in different cups – modern vs more natural/ leaf shaped or wooden
    • Artificial vs natural light – how to position things within the light

Reflection

I think this disucssion rasied some very interesting differing concepts and ideas. Especially aorund how to measure changes in connection such as recording reactions or asking feelings to be expressed through colours. I also thought targeting senses in differing orders was a concept to look at further the future.

Testing differnet elements in such a simple format in around how people enjoy a cup of coffee could allow for a path/ modle of how to best implement these biophilic elements into hospitality spaces. I think the small scale of this idea to test around the coffee is a very clever one. However, I think the exact details of this type of intervention would need to be refined for the context of my work. This is because at present the ideas around the coffee relate quite heavily to all encompassing upheavals of hospitality spaces if to be scaled up as they resemble testing elemnets of more common biophilic schemes, which is a key factor I am looking to overcome with this project.