Biophilia is our deep-seated connection to nature. It helps explain why the rhythm of crashing waves and the crackling of fire captivate us; why a view of nature can enhance our creativity; why shadows and heights instill fascination and fear, and why gardening and strolling through a park have restorative healing effects.
 
Routine connections with nature can provide opportunities for mental restoration, during which time our higher cognitive functions can sometimes take a break. Cognitive functioning encompasses our mental agility and memory, and our ability to think, learn and output either logically or creatively. For instance, directed attention is required for many repetitive tasks, such as routine paperwork, reading and performing calculations or analysis, as well as for operating in highly stimulating environments, such as when crossing busy streets and navigating urban places.

The mental health benefits of nature are important to understand as our world continues to rapidly urbanize and our cities simultaneously expand and densify. In less than fifteen years more than 60% of humans will live in urban places and there will be thirteen new megacity regions according to the UN. As we continue to select urban places to live, urgent attention must be given to embedding nature and natural systems into urban design to connect people to nature and safeguard our health and wellbeing. If we are not careful, our commute and daily experience within these urban places will be nothing more than glass, steel, and concrete.

Biophilic Urban Acupuncture

On approach to this is urban acupuncture, a socio-environmental theory that combines contemporary urban design with traditional Chinese acupuncture, using small-scale interventions to transform the larger urban context. Just as the practice of acupuncture is aimed at relieving stress in the human body, the goal of urban acupuncture is to relieve stress in the built environment. Urban acupuncture is intended to to produce small-scale but socially catalytic interventions in the urban fabric. No needles necessary. 

Biophilic Urban Acupuncture (BUA) is the theory that threads and nodes of biophilic interventions in specific urban places can help improve people’s moods, connect people to place, and help improve mental health. Biophilic urban acupuncture blends two very important design concepts, biophilia and urban acupuncture.

BUA has higher levels of effectiveness in dense cities versus suburban places due to the ease of pedestrian mobility. A resident that lives in a dense city will spend at least some time each day outside just by the fact that they will be walking to transit stations, walking to work, or walking to get a meal. (Though BUA is also of benefit in suburban places, the auto-centric street design and sprawled land-use in suburbs typically does not lend itself to high quality biophilic opportunities.)

Small BUA interventions
Biophilic interventions do not need to be grand in scale to be effective. Positive impact on self-esteem and mood has been shown to occur in the first five minutes of experiencing nature (Barton &Pretty, 2010). Daily, unintentional exposure should be a priority when planning a BUA intervention. The intervention should be placed in a location that receives a large number of users but is embedded into an everyday habitat or commute. Smaller BUA interventions should be placed in locations throughout the city in a web-like structure, so that users with different destinations will encounter biophilic experiences, no matter their destination or purpose of travel.

Larger BUA interventions
The larger biophilic experience should be placed in an area of the city that can serve a substantial proportion of the population and should include as many biophilic patterns as possible. These are typically parks such as the Olmsted designed Central in New York City or the Tommaso Francini designed Luxembourg Garden in Paris. Large parks that are centrally located within a city and connected by good transit will provide a robust BUA experience to a greater number of residents than parks located in the periphery. 

BUA Examples

In the urban environment, there are two ways to capitalize on the multi-sensory attributes of water to enhance the experience of a place. First, simulating or constructing water features (water walls, fountains, or falls; aquaria; water imagery) in the built environment—indoors and out—creates positive effects for inhabitants. Although, it is worth mentioning that water and energy-intensive installments may create other issues. Second, it is possible to amplify the presence of naturally occurring water (lakes and ponds; streams, creeks, and rivers; rainfall; arroyos) to help inhabitants become increasingly aware of the surrounding environment. The Fountains and Water Features of NYCA space with a good Presence of Water condition feels compelling and captivating. Fluidity, sound, lighting, proximity and accessibility each contribute to whether a space is stimulating, calming, or both.

The Trees of NYCA space with a good Visual Connection with Nature feels whole, it grabs one’s attention and can be stimulating or calming. It can convey a sense of time, weather and other living things.

MillionTrees NYC is a citywide, public-private program that has planted one million new trees across the City’s five boroughs over the past decade. Beyond the numerous ecological benefits, strengthening New York City’s urban forest plays a positive role in helping inhabitants reduce stress and bolster self-esteem, mood, and parasympathetic activity.

PopUp Forest: Times Square is emulating the pop-up restaurant experience by transforming a public plaza in Times Square into a large-scale, temporary urban forest installation. The goal is to foster a movement to re-define cities with nature in mind and to create an urban oasis for wildlife while helping New Yorkers get more familiar with nearby nature.

Biomorphic forms & patterns are symbolic references to contoured, patterned, textured or numerical arrangements that persist in nature. A space with good biomorphic forms & patterns feels interesting and comfortable, possibly captivating, contemplative or even absorptive.

Biomorphic subway art illustrates how this concept has been implemented in New York City subway stations. The passageway between 42nd Street and 5th Avenue includes artistic depictions of natural systems such as tree roots and animal burrows, and the Jay Street/Metro Tech Station depicts glass mosaic art with various animal species, including starlings, sparrows, lion fish, parrots, tiger beetles, and koi fish.

DIY Biophilic Urban Acupuncture

Biophilic Urban Acupuncture does not need to hinge on large budgets or city agencies to have dramatic impact. You can play a role in integrating BUA elements in your neighborhood now. Here are a few strategies to help you get started:

Seed bombs are balls made from volcanic red clay or compressed soil containing different varieties of native species seeds that can fit in the palm. Usually other additives are included in the ball such as compost or humus to provide microbial inoculants. They can be dropped or tossed onto vacant lots or public places that are in need of beauty and vegetation. Seeds that support pollinators such as honey bees or butterflies are better as they will reinforce the Visual Connection to Nature and Connection to Natural Systems biophilic patterns.

WHERE: Seed bombs work well in places that have exposed soil and in places that are difficult to access.
HOW: What was once strictly a DIY project, seed bombs can now be purchased online, in stores, or even from vending machines.  

Tree pits are areas around urban trees that provide a small pervious surface for the roots to breath and absorb water. These can be transformed from a small often neglected patch of soil into a strong BUA intervention. If done with care, you can plant flowers or root bulbs in the pits. Additional interventions could be small benches around the tree pit which will create a reason for people to linger under the tree reinforcing the biophilic response.
WHERE: Most trees that are located in public right-of-way (ROW) are the responsibility of the community to take care of. Check with your neighbors about which tree pits are available to improve.
HOW: Using a hand cultivator, loosen the topsoil as this is usually compacted. Spreading a thin layer of mulch will help the tree absorb water and reduce evaporation. Plant in-season flowers and enjoy!

Guerilla gardening is the act of planting vegetation in spaces that the gardeners do not have the legal rights to use. These sites are typically abandoned or areas that are be substantially neglected. BUA can have large impacts in these neglected areas via guerilla gardening because the intervention is typically noticed and appreciated by the community regardless of who did it, and taken care of for years. This intervention supports the connection with natural systems, visual connection with nature, and non-visual connection with nature biophilic patterns

WHERE: Typically, guerrilla gardening occurs in spaces that are vacant or underutilized spaces. This intervention originated in NYC in the 1970’s by residents throwing balloons filled with local seeds, water, and fertilizer into empty lots.
HOW: This BUA intervention is best done with a group of neighbors and/or friends. Locate the site that is in need of the garden and make a plan for the plantings and improvements. Pre-planting site work may need to be done such as cleaning up junk, trash, and debris.

Conclusion

We know that cities will continue to morph. We also know that we enjoy listening to a water fountain, seeing a butterfly, or watching leaves shake with the help of a slight breeze. Let’s work to ensure that Biophilic Urban Acupuncture is part of the toolkit to help shape the places where we want to live.

Last week I attended the Innovative City Forum 2016 in Tokyo. Bringing together designers, artists, thinkers and citymakers to imagine our future of our life in the city, I was fascinated to see what themes and ideas would emerge from my first Tokyo-based city event. Amid the talk of self-driving cars, various uses for drones, and designing for a lifestyle in space, I extracted some insights into urban design for better mental health over the next 35 years.
 
The most interesting theme that emerged was an understanding that the purpose of urban spaces is changing. With the increasing digitalization of our lives, our physical urban space needs to assert new roles and meanings. If we can sit in the comfort of our own bedroom and use digital and networked tools to conduct our work (emails, teleconferences, etc) and play (streaming music and movies, shopping, etc), then what exactly is the purpose of going outside at all? How do 21st century urban places need to update to deliver more relevant functions for this increasingly digital population?

The consensus seemed to be the need to nurture better pro-social functionality of space: the communal experience and face-to-face interactions that facilitate positive social connections and support our mental health and happiness. Public outside spaces and buildings alike need to be designed in ways that extend better invitations to draw the public into them and encourage social interactions. New technologies like augmented reality to create communal public experiences that engage people with place might emerge as part of an evolving approach to delivering place-based entertainment that cannot be obtained at home.

The other main function of public spaces that was recognized was the opportunity to access nature. There was some discussion of integrating more trees and grass into the exteriors and sightlines of building design (including the design of the first human habitat in Mars!), as well as the design opportunities offered by trees and nature to help bring taller buildings down to the human scale.
 
Following on from recent thinking on the mental health impact of 'boringness', I was intrigued to hear from various speakers opposing the trend of ‘faceless perfection’, where homogenous, unchanging materials are used to create boring, sterile urban landscapes which people struggled to connect with. There was much discussion of the potential benefits of exposing and embracing imperfections as part of the design, rather than trying to correct them, and using new technologies like 3D printing to expand our design paradigms.

Associated with that theme was the question of urban identity in a world where cities are becoming increasingly homogenous. With chain shops and restaurants dominating many city center, the speakers argued that urban design needs to better reflect and promote the intangible culture of a place to help people feel part of a shared local identity, and the question of how to build a city’s heritage into its new developments (while remaining dynamic and avoiding the trap of getting trapped in a particular era of a city’s heritage). The surge of shopping centre popularity came up, and with it, a question: since people’s wellbeing benefits from pedestrianized, walkable, pro-social, safe green spaces, how can we better design shopping center to deliver these components, and can they promote better mental health as much as similar design features within a city center?

We have been shaken by the terrorist attacks which have recently occurred in Europe. There is no doubt that terror organizations have inspired or helped, if not recruited, many of the perpetrators. Of course many motivators can contribute to these types of attacks: inspiration provided by other perpetrators, violence in the media, the ease with which weapons can be acquired... The list could go on, and these factors undoubtedly play an important role. And yet, we are also reminded of the attacks staged by angry young men in the US and other countries who shoot at strangers without any motive other than their own resentment, marginalization and alienation. To understand what has motivated this spate of terrorist attacks, it is hard not to wonder about the roles of frustration, a wish to get even, or the desire of the perpetrator to not only to commit suicide, but to take others along with them. And in considering how these motivations may have developed, it is important to consider the built environment in which these feelings germinate.

If we look at where many perpetrators of terrorist attacks in Europe come from, we discover that peripheral urban areas as the Parisian banlieu or districts as Molenbeek in Belgium are somewhat overrepresented. Many such dormitory towns have become ghettoes where a particular social and/or ethnic identity may predominate. Of course there are many positive aspects of people embracing their cultural identity and forming communities with others who share their language, culture and religion: these types of communities can support people's wellbeing. It is also perfectly possible to be part of such a community, and still be an active and well-integrated part of wider society. But the design of many of these dormitory towns may be making this less likely.

Many dormitory towns offer bleak views of identical high-rise apartment blocks surrounded by lawns in a sorry state, parked cars, and empty streets, and their design helps preclude the wider integration that we see in the traditional city. Residents of these towns may have few opportunities to see, meet or interact with people outside of their immediate social circles, other than children in playgrounds and people hurrying to or from their apartments. This setting can create feelings of isolation that can turn to segregation - and with this comes resentment, suspicion, alienation, and a feeling of 'us and them'. 

La Mariscal has about 20,000 residents and a daytime population of over 180,000. People flock daily to work, to school, or to grab a bite and a beer. The neighbourhood has enormous potential of becoming a centre of educational urbanism. Good practices within La Mariscal would raise awareness and recruit almost two hundred thousand neighbourhood ambassadors who would go back home every evening to the farthest reaches of Quito's metropolitan region thinking about lessons learnt and, with the right kind of encouragement, about how to share them.
 
The potential is there, and it does not require billion dollar investments in infrastructure and services. What we need is to turn every resident and visitor to La Mariscal into a potential citymaker. And, as it turns out, this will be less of a feat than one would otherwise think.
 
Quito is sitting on a gold mine, urbanistically speaking. The bland cityscape of underserved neighbourhoods (or wealthy ones with security concerns) that boast endless perimeter walls and deserted sidewalks miraculously disappear when you enter La Mariscal. Close proximity between people is pervasive on mostly open facades built with non-residential uses on the ground floors. The human scale of stores, food stalls and shopfronts adds to the ease of walking and keeps the trail interesting. The experience is part of an adequately designed, properly scaled, outside 'living room' where public space is open, inclusive and ready to be shared by all.
 
Only it currently doesn’t work quite that way. Violent crime is not unheard of and petty thefts occur daily in the area. Old diesel engines battered by the low oxygen in this city at an altitude of 2800 metres above sea level spew black smoke on every street, and noise is well beyond acceptable limits. Storefronts are not inviting and people rarely say hello, let alone chat about the weather with strangers. We can safely affirm that La Mariscal has the bones, but still has a long way to go before it is able to set an example and recruit its floating population as unconscious citymakers and ambassadors of good urban practice.