Applying Biophilic Design in Living Environments. The Role of Computational Design a Literature Review

In the 1960s, Erich Fromm proposed the term biophilia, denoting a “love of life” and the tendency for organisms to integrate positively and combat threats. Edward Wilson expanded this in the 1980s, identifying humans’ innate focus on life. Today’s pressing environmental needs place this issue at the center of the design agenda, consider¬ing biophilia as the strategy to create suitable habitat for people in the modern built environment that advances people’s health, fitness, and well-being. Despite the promise of biophilia principles to improve the spatial conditions related to emotional and well-being aspects, there is a lack of a shared design framework to be applied in developing biophilic living environments. The paper aims to explore literature regarding Computational Design’s role in the development of a shared Biophilic Design framework (approaches and tools) to cre¬ate “sustained” interactions and relationships among people and nature, integrating physical and digital realities. The work starts by clarifying how Computational Design can support Biophilic Design by delineating a set of keywords pertinent to Computational Design, which are categorized into: “fields”, “approaches”, and “tools”. Employing a Boolean process, these keywords are sys-tematically juxtaposed with the overarching concept of Biophilic Design. Preliminary outcomes revealed a pau¬city of scholarly articles in the Scopus and Web of Science databases addressing these intersections, albeit a substan¬tial occurrence of books and some innovative ongoing experimentations. This study also investigates the poten¬tial Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) of adopting a computational design-based bio¬philic framework within the living environment through a systematic literature review. The paper shows the results of this literature review process, identifying the research network, the research gaps and setting key terms orga¬nized in a glossary. The paper aims to kick-start the missing dialogue surrounding Biophilic Design and Computational approaches.