STAKEHOLDER OVERVIEW
With the wide range of solutions we are proposing, there are numerous stakeholders involved with making this process successful. All will play a significant role in making biophilic design a priority across the built environment in the City of Denver and the more community involvement through social, economic, and environmental sectors will ultimately produce a more resilient city.
STAKEHOLDER OVERVIEW
With the wide range of solutions we are proposing, there are numerous stakeholders involved with making this process successful. All will play a significant role in making biophilic design a priority across the built environment in the City of Denver and the more community involvement through social, economic, and environmental sectors will ultimately produce a more resilient city.
STAKEHOLDER OVERVIEW
With the wide range of solutions we are proposing, there are numerous stakeholders involved with making this process successful. All will play a significant role in making biophilic design a priority across the built environment in the City of Denver and the more community involvement through social, economic, and environmental sectors will ultimately produce a more resilient city.
STAKEHOLDER OVERVIEW
With the wide range of solutions we are proposing, there are numerous stakeholders involved with making this process successful. All will play a significant role in making biophilic design a priority across the built environment in the City of Denver and the more community involvement through social, economic, and environmental sectors will ultimately produce a more resilient city.
eNVIRONMENTAL
IMPACTS
The majority of humans spend the vast amount of their time indoors, yet scientific studies on human health all point to the wide array of benefits with spending time in and around nature. By incorporating biophilic design into our built environment we can regenerate urban biodiversity, improve air quality, mitigate heat island effect, and increase building sustainability. Utilizing biophilic design to help bridge the gap between humans and our natural environment, we will see many other positive impacts such as reduced stress, improved mental health, creativity, productivity and reduced risk of illness.
Description of System
Modern cities have often chosen paths that direct away from engaging with the natural environment as oppose to choosing to embrace it and experience its benefits. Cities today stand as physical barriers to natural processes and display the innovation of heavy industrial building with steel and concrete. As the industrial revolution progressed, humans saw an increasing push away from the natural world.
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Humans spend 90% of their time indoors, and with the current ongoing COVID19 pandemic, this statistic can only be increasing. Therefore, this time spent indoors is critical to human health and wellbeing. The current system in place treats nature either as an obstacle or trivial consideration. To exemplify human attention to the natural environment, Denver’s primary watershed, Platte Watershed, feels the strain of having to sustain one of the fastest growing cities in the US. Population growth has led to challenges with polluted stormwater runoff, additional pressures on the underserved, and high levels of pollution and E coli outbreaks.
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According to the study released late last year, 71 census tracts — 6 percent of all census tracts in Colorado — have significantly higher rates than the state average of both households spending more than they can comfortably afford on rent and of people experiencing mental health issues. Most of those 71 neighborhoods were in metro areas such as Denver along the Front Range. Ultimately, research has shown a link between housing and health.
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When Real Estate, Design and Construction professionals start incorporating Biophilic Design in an integrated, full life-cycle building process, it brings awareness and resolution to not only construction pollution and waste, but to operations waste throughout the buildings life, and lastly but not least, awareness of waste and pollution to the building's occupants. Furthermore, bringing life and nature to our everyday environments will increase urban biodiversity, lower the heat island effect and bring back humans connection to nature and its value.
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Stakeholder Analysis
In a broad sense, we are all stakeholders in the process of improving the overall health and wellbeing of our lives. Human beings have the opportunity to be productive in reducing carbon emissions while there is still time to make a noticeable impact. The current generation of industry leaders will continue to set the precedent for those to come in the future.
Architects and builders also have a huge opportunity in changing the building industry. It is their responsibility to be at the forefront of green design and lead the way into a regenerative future. If these goals are shared with developers and building owners, a productive solution can be achieved.
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Those most affected are also those who are directly exposed to unhealthy indoor conditions, both being in outdated work environments, as well as non-sustainable affordable housing. From many different scopes of income and circumstances, the equalizer is in the containment of the built environment. Biophilic Design is the only practice that considers human health and wellbeing during the building process and the building's operational life cycle.
Current Approaches
Daylighting is the controlled admission of natural light into a building to reduce electric lighting therefore saving energy. Statistics have shown that daylighting positively impacts human health by reduction of stress, improved productivity, and mood. Incorporating natural light into a building can lead to major energy savings on a larger scale. Electric lighting in buildings consume more than 15% of all electricity generated in the US. What makes this a challenging approach is that daylighting is a moving target since it shifts from morning to evening, and season to season. This makes it hard to incorporate this energy saving method as a standard for all buildings. Learn more here.
This chart depicts the benefits of daylighting and categorizes them in to four main sectors. Health, productivity, energy, and financial. The main benefit for the energy sector is that daylighting can cut energy use for the building’s interior lighting up to 75%-80%.
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Figure 9 depicts the results of a case study showing the differences in lighting energy use across three conditions: base case, reduced fenestration, and light shelf.