Guest Lecturing on Biophilic Design
Recently I have been invited to go into the University of Westminster as guest lecturer on their Real Estate programme in conjunction with their Sustainability and Planning module.
My lecture will be for an hour to around 60 students and is to take place in January. I will speak on what biophilia is, its benefits to health and sustainability as well as how it can be applied in the world of real estate and planning.
Reflection
Being invited to do this discussion validates my position as an expert and agent for change in the field of biophilic design that I have built up throughout conducting my project and most recently through forming and building the Nature In Community. Being invited to do this lecture is a direct consequence of leading the Nature In Community, as I reached out to Professor Ali to join the community and in response he asked me to come in and speak with his students.
The request from universities for discussion around biophilia to take place in their lectures symbolises the rise in academic acceptance of the field and also the rising need for it within professions. This is due to the university wanting me to educate the real estate students on the value and potential power of biophilic deign, which may subsequently inspire them to following a career in natural design, or on a less grandiose scale, it may inspire them to join the Nature In Community and learn how they can begin to link biophilia into their work and integrate nature into professions they will undertake. Either way, this opportunity signifies a much needed step in making biophilia a well known and applied concept, as there are currently no university courses that focus directly on teaching biophilic deign; rather there are only courses on sustainability (or similar) that merely touch on the subject.
Conducting this guest lecture directly serves my mission of the Nature In Community to educate on biophilic design and how to integrate it into city spaces, making it approachable, engaging and exciting for professionals, or in this case upcoming professionals in university students.