Biophilia and Architecture

During most of the history of the human race, a long period of tens of thousands of years much more than the few thousand years of civilization, humans lived immersed in nature, and relied on it for their survival. It was in this context that the mind and body of Homo sapiens evolved, creating the foundation for the modern man.
Natural elements such as light, temperature, water, fire, wind, animals, vegetation, among others, influenced the evolutionary development of human beings. For a hunter-gatherer species as the human race was in its origins, the relationship with these elements was critical. Early humans needed to understand and incorporate them into their lives to survive. This influenced the way we perceive and respond to the physical environment. Therefore, a close relationship with the elements of nature is rooted in our origins as a species, and certainly encoded in our genes.
We can define Biophilia as the human need to be in touch with nature, derived from the relationship that we had with it in our evolutionary origins.  

The term Biophilia was popularized by the Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson, PhD, in his book from 1984, Biophilia. He defines it as "the innate tendency to focus on lifelike processes”, adding that "to explore and affiliate with life is a deep and complicated process in mental development. To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hope rises on its currents. "
Because of Biophilia, the physical and mental welfare of human beings is related to their contact with nature. Studies have shown that contact with natural elements promotes health, learning, recovery from illness, and productivity, among other benefits. But unfortunately, there is a gap between our built environment and our need to be in contact with nature. In most cases, the architecture has been a barrier between the natural world and the human being, under the false premise that the technology embodied in the buildings can meet all our needs. This has also a high environmental cost, overexploitation of natural resources, high energy consumption and degradation of natural habitats.
The growing movement of sustainable architecture just focuses on avoiding or reducing the impact of construction on the physical environment, which is necessary and beneficial, but fails to reduce or close the above mentioned separation between nature and human beings, thus depriving the people of the benefits that the natural world brings.
We need Architecture that design and build with nature in mind, in a broad sense, not only focusing on the impact that the building will have on the physical environment, this approach is insufficient.  A building can also help the people to meet their need to be in contact with the natural world, and thus enhance their well-being and emotional development. We need to incorporate Biophilia to the architecture.

Luis Bentancor