Thursday, 20 June 2013
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Biophilic Design
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6olJKvwfrI
Biophilic Design: The Architecture of Life
Executive Producer: Stephen Kellert
Producer/Director: Bill Finnegan
Production Company: Tamarack Media
Film Length: 60 minutes
Biophilic Design is an innovative way of designing the places where we live, work, and learn. We need nature in a deep and fundamental fashion, but we have often designed our cities and suburbs in ways that both degrade the environment and alienate us from nature. The recent trend in green architecture has decreased the environmental impact of the built environment, but it has accomplished little in the way of reconnecting us to the natural world, the missing piece in the puzzle of sustainable development. Come on a journey from our evolutionary past and the origins of architecture to the world’s most celebrated buildings in a search for the architecture of life. Together, we will encounter buildings that connect people and nature - hospitals where patients heal faster, schools where children’s test scores are higher, offices where workers are more productive, and communities where people know more of their neighbors and families thrive. Biophilic Design points the way toward creating healthy and productive habitats for modern humans.
Producer/Director: Bill Finnegan
Production Company: Tamarack Media
Film Length: 60 minutes
Biophilic Design is an innovative way of designing the places where we live, work, and learn. We need nature in a deep and fundamental fashion, but we have often designed our cities and suburbs in ways that both degrade the environment and alienate us from nature. The recent trend in green architecture has decreased the environmental impact of the built environment, but it has accomplished little in the way of reconnecting us to the natural world, the missing piece in the puzzle of sustainable development. Come on a journey from our evolutionary past and the origins of architecture to the world’s most celebrated buildings in a search for the architecture of life. Together, we will encounter buildings that connect people and nature - hospitals where patients heal faster, schools where children’s test scores are higher, offices where workers are more productive, and communities where people know more of their neighbors and families thrive. Biophilic Design points the way toward creating healthy and productive habitats for modern humans.
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Friday, 7 June 2013
Disconnect III
"But what worries me is not that we are not fully experiencing things because of our gadgets, but that we feel that to fully experience things we must constantly - almost incessantly - capture them, romanticise them through filters, and make sure everyone else around us knows and acknowledges that what we just went though is totally awesome/cool/worth telling."
http://theguiltycosmopolitan.com/post/44402769814/googleglasses
http://theguiltycosmopolitan.com/post/44402769814/googleglasses
Disconnect II
http://www.psmag.com/environment/nature-deficit-disorder-outdoors-outside-54707/
"Last week, to cite one well-publicized recent study, Scottish researchers outfitted pedestrians with mobile electroencephalographs and set them loose for 25-minute strolls in Edinburgh. Those whose paths wended through green spaces “showed evidence of lower frustration, engagement and arousal, and higher meditation” based on EEG readings, the academics wrote, adding a quantitative page to the annals of similar qualitative “restorative literature.”"
"Last week, to cite one well-publicized recent study, Scottish researchers outfitted pedestrians with mobile electroencephalographs and set them loose for 25-minute strolls in Edinburgh. Those whose paths wended through green spaces “showed evidence of lower frustration, engagement and arousal, and higher meditation” based on EEG readings, the academics wrote, adding a quantitative page to the annals of similar qualitative “restorative literature.”"
Disconnect
Disconnect – by Matthew Connors
Since the Industrial Revolution, there has been a gradual societal withdrawal, a progressive isolation and alienation, from the natural world. The decline of family-run farms and urban migration have significantly decreased peoples encounters with nature. Time to enjoy the natural world has progressively been usurped by the need for multiple jobs, longer working hours, and lengthy commutes on crowded interstates. Until recently, childhood had been sheltered from these time constraints of adulthood and separation from nature. But, no more.
Childhood used to be a time to delight in the outdoors, a time of wild explorations and flights of imagination, but more and more in the 21st century children have retreated from outside play. Extra time not devoted to organized sports and homework is being squandered in the electronic glare of televisions, computer monitors, cell phones, mp3 players, video games, and social media sites. Although technology has undoubtedly benefitted society and our children as well, is something being irreversibly altered by our cultures avid dependence upon it? Will today’s youth be irretrievably engulfed by the pervasive availability of the digital airwaves? Is it too late to reintroduce our children to the wonders of the outdoors and their imaginations? Technology is here to stay, but our children’s time of innocence, playfulness and freedom is all too brief.
Help them disconnect.
Matthew J Connors
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