Biophilic Design and the brain

Latini and associates report that “a new design approach for preliminary assessment of BD [biophilic design] intervention in VR is presented [in their paper]. . . . . [it compares] three office layouts (Indoor Green, Outdoor Green and Non-Biophilic) and three acoustic scenarios (Office, Office + Traffic and Office + Nature). . . . participants . . . . [completed] three cognitive tasks for each acoustic condition. . . .  The findings of the cognitive tests revealed that audio-visual connection with nature can positively influence working memory, inhibition and task-switching performance. The acoustic factor exhibited a higher improvement effect compared to the visual factor, between 23 % and 71 % against 12 %–39 %. Moreover, the Natural sound in the Indoor Green condition was the most supportive visual-acoustic condition while Traffic in the Non-Biophilic environment was the most disruptive one.”

Arianna Latini, Simone Torresin, Tin Oberman, Elisa Giuseppe, Francesco Aletta, Jian Kang, and Marco D’Orazio.  “Effects of Biophilic Design Interventions on University Students’ Cognitive Performance: An Audio-Visual Experimental Study in an Immersive Virtual Office Environment.”  Building and Environment, in press, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2024.111196