Create Your Better Workplace With "Biophilic" Design

It’s amazing what a substantial impact the design on your workplace can have on how employees feel about their work and how much they get done on any given day. Ergonomic and modern office designs are essential, but you also have to marry this with the right style and ambiance. One of the growing trends as far as office design is biophilic design, which aims to increase your connection with nature. You can learn more about the biophilic workspace concept and the advantages of implementing it in your company in this article.

What Is Biophilic Design?

Before looking at some of the specifics of biophilic office design, it’s important to first answer the question of what it is and what it entails. If you are asking what is biophilic design, there's no simple answer. It is a concept that covers many style factors. It is a fast-growing design concept that is used in the building industry to increase the connectivity of the occupants with their natural environment.

All of the methods used to achieve a biophilic office design encompass using direct or indirect elements of nature, as well as conditions of space and place.

Here are some of the specific areas where you could incorporate various aspects of this design concept. In the next couple of sections, you can learn more about the benefits of doing so.

• Ergonomic office design to optimize the place for the worker’s benefit
• Improved temperature regulation
• Improving air quality and ventilation
• The use of better lighting, both natural and artificial
• The incorporation of beautiful views of the outdoors
• The selection of materials, colors, and patterns that are closer to nature
• Other elements that improve the general ambiance of the place

Each of these individual areas is important to the human occupants of any building, be it at work or home. They can be incorporated into the building design during construction, but many of them can also be implemented at a later stage during renovations, refurbishing, or general building improvements.

The biophilic workspace concept is a growing trend because it is a natural offshoot of several other growing ideas and movements. These include green building, sustainability, ergonomic office designs, and employee physical wellness and mental as well.

Why Biophilic Design Is Important

The design of a building can do so much to improve the well-being of its occupants. It doesn't matter if you are talking about a living room, kitchen, office, or conference room, design matters. It’s time to look at the general benefits of adopting a biophilic design in a new or existing building.

One of the key factors of this design concept is the use of natural light. You may be asking why your office design needs natural light and how it can improve the workplace. When you use the optimal level of light and try to incorporate as much natural light as possible, there are several benefits. These include reduced eye strain, fewer headaches, improvements in mood, better accuracy, and reduced drowsiness.

While you might not be able to do much about the size of the windows in an existing office building, you can make some changes to the types of blinds you use and the layout of your offices to increase the amount of natural light. You can also invest in better artificial light sources if need be, which better mirror the ambiance of natural light.

As far as an ergonomic design that is easy for workers to maneuver, the benefits include improved posture, reduced neck and back pains, and more productive use of time. All these factors have a positive impact on worker motivation and productivity.

A biophilic design also improves the comfort level of the employer. When temperature, lighting, acoustics, and air quality are adjusted to their optimal levels, people in the office can function at their best. There are also associated health benefits of keeping up with the environmental conditions and making sure that the air-conditioning and other controllers are just right for maximum productivity.

How Biophilic Design Impacts Workplace

One study showed an 8% improvement in productivity and a 13% increase in employee wellbeing when the office design was made more biophilic. There’s a lot that you can do to use the biophilic workspace concept to create a better work environment.

Changing the office furniture you use in your office can improve the overall ergonomics of the office. Adjustable chair and desk options are easier to personalize for each user. You can save some money when you opt for a bulk office furniture order of better office ergonomic chair and adjustable standing desk options.

Choosing the right color, pattern, and style of ergonomic furniture is also important. Many people like simple color combinations. White office desks and designs may be just what your team needs for clearer thinking and more focus. You might also want to consider the many bamboo desktop options from Autonomous because these are also aligned with the biophilic office design. Imagine decorating a bamboo adjustable desk with some green plants, natural or artificial. These small changes can change the entire environment of your office space and bring about some physiological and psychological benefits to everyone working there.

Changing the design up to incorporate more of nature can help workers with improved focus, innovation, and motivation. The workplace should be somewhere they enjoy being. A biophilic design can also lead to lower numbers of employee dissatisfaction, disengagement, and turnover.

Besides the physical changes you can make to improve your office space, you can also  with some simple initiatives. You could hold an innovation challenge to get people thinking outside the box. Making your company a place where innovation is welcome and encouraged is a culture shift that may take some time to do but can lead to significant improvements down the road.

Another idea to encourage innovation and create a better workplace is to advocate for more flexible schedules and remote opportunities. When you permit employees to work in their preferred setting, be it at home, outdoors, or anywhere else, they can connect better to nature and their most productive selves.

If you want to better your workplace, one of the best ways to do this is to start implementing a biophilic design. It may take some time to achieve this because of all the different facets of it, but the improvements are going to be worth it.