Serenbe Stories

Bringing Nature Inside with Bill Browning and Catie Ryan

November 09, 2020 Serenbe / Bill Browning / Catie Ryan Season 4 Episode 6
Serenbe Stories
Bringing Nature Inside with Bill Browning and Catie Ryan
Show Notes Transcript

Today we're talking with Bill Browning and Catie Ryan from Terrapin Bright Green. Bill is one of the green building and real estate industry’s foremost thinkers and strategists, and is an advocate for sustainable design solutions. As Co-Founder of Terrapin Bright Green, he is no stranger to biophilic design. Bill has worked with the Pentagon, Starwood Hotels, Google, the city of New York Building Resiliency, and the Rocky Mountain Institute, among many others. Catie joined Terrapin in 2008, and is their Director of Projects. She is the co-author of several books, including 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design and The Economics of Biophilia, which is a leading piece in the industry for case studies for designing with nature in mind.

It's been more than 20 years since Steve Nygren met Bill Browning and was introduced to the concept of "biophilia." In today's episode, we talk about their early connections, and the major influencers in the green building industry as well as in developing Serenbe.

Bill and Catie (and Bill's Zebra Finches) share their stories about their work at Terrapin Bright Green furthering the biophilic design research. They also discuss their new book Nature Inside: A Biophilic Design Guide, which we highly recommend and is out now.

Monica Olsen (1s):
Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called biophilic solutions. Our last season of ceremony stories, building a biophilic movement was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture the living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find biophilic solutions on apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and follow us today. So you don't miss an episode.

Monica Olsen(41s):
All right, now let's get back to Serenbe stories. Serenbe is a place where the innate connections humans have with nature and all living things is celebrated through work and play. And we're here to tell the stories of those who have been inspired by this biophilic way of life in our community and across the country. This is ceremony stories

Monica Olsen (1m 23s):
Today. We're talking with bill Browning and Katie Ryan from Terrapin bright green bill Browning is one of the green building and real estate. Industry's foremost thinkers and strategists, and an advocate for sustainable design solutions. As co-founder of Terrapinn. He is no stranger to biophilic design. He's worked with the Pentagon Starwood hotels, Google the city of New York Rocky mountain Institute among others. Did you know that Katie joined Terrapinn in 2008? She's their director of projects and also the co author of multiple books, including the 14 patterns of biophilic design and the economics of biophilia, which is a leading piece in the industry for case studies. When designing with nature in mind, then more than 20 years since Steve Nygren met bill Browning and was introduced to the concept of biophilia.

Monica Olsen (2m 7s):
In today's episode, we talk about the early connections, major influences in the green building industry and in developing ceremony, bill and Katie and bill zebra finches share their stories, their work at Terrapinn that furthers research in biophilic design, and also discusses their new book nature inside a biophilic design guide, which we highly recommend and is out now.

Monica Olsen (2m 28s):
But first Serenbe stories is brought to you by the, in its Serenbe. The Inn is nestled in the rolling countryside at bucolic therapy, where guests can walk on the 15 miles of trails through preserved forest land, the wildflower meadow, and the animal village. You can relax by the pool hot tub or in rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, play on the croquet lawn swings and in-ground trampolines connect with nature and each other all while staying in luxurious rooms on the, in grounds or within the community of Seren. Be book your stay today at serenbeinn.com.

Monica Olsen (2m 58s):
Well, I want to everybody back and today we've got Steve Nygren as usual. Hi Steve. How are you and our guests today are Bill Browning and Katie Bryan of Terrapin bright green. How are you guys? Well, thanks. Well, we really appreciate you guys coming to us via zoom as usual in this current times, and Steve's actually in Colorado on a trip. So we're all in different places, but we're all coming together to talk about your background, your relationship, as well as your new book that's coming out, which actually else should say right now, coming out this September, but by the time this airs, it will be out and everybody can go get it called nature inside.

Monica Olsen (3m 39s):
And we'll talk about that a little bit more today. The first thing I'm always curious about when we have our guests is sort of what is your ceremony story? And so bill, I know you and Steve had known each other, I think for over 15 years that maybe started with the Rocky mountain Institute. So I'd love to hear how you came into our world and how you guys got to know each other 20

2 (4m 3s):
Years next month, bill, more than 20 years.

2 (5m 3s):
That's right. September, 2000, 20 years ago, next month.

1 (5m 8s):
That's incredible. And had you heard of the Rocky mountain Institute before Steve through the work that you've done or was this sort of a new absolutely.

2 (5m 16s):
Because as bill said, right, re-use Serenbe as his sort of base for a lot of these think tank meetings. So the whole crew from, you know, they had been coming since gosh, mid to late nineties, right. When did you start working with, with re bill? Yeah, as I was saying, so it was several years, but you know, it was just, you know, through Ray's friends, Ray really connected us with, with the thought leaders and, and, and that circle still isn't nearly as big as it is, but the back in 1995, 96, it was a small circle.

 (5m 56s):
Right? Well, and now guys are on the biophilic Institute board together, along with Ray's daughter Harriet, which is great. You know, one of the things that I think is interesting with the Rocky mountain Institute compared to other Institute is you guys kind of think of it as a think and a do tank bill, talk a little bit about that. Like most foundations or institutes sort of are more research-based, but tell me about the, do part of the Institute. And was that an example of when you came to Sarah and be of the do

 (6m 27s):
Basic research on energy policy, community, economic development, agriculture systems, transportation, and it wasn't enough just to do policy work. We actually needed, we got questions about how could we help people. And so we ran economic development programs and rural communities whose altered or have become dependent on now abandoned coal mines work with car companies. We got a lot of questions from architects. And so I went off to MIT and did a real estate degree and came back in 91.

 (7m 8s):
We started a real estate consulting group called green development services. It was one of the first green building consulting practices. We also worked with companies. So not long after Paul Hawkins started working with 'em. We got asked to join in the conversation of interface.

 (7m 35s):
Yeah. And how did you get into this world of sort of green? Was this something as a kid you were interested, did you study it before you went back to school or did you come in it through sort of design and architecture?

 (7m 49s):
My mom says I was always interested in, it reminds me of the very first adult book that I bought with my own money was joy Adams since born free. My hero growing up was a shark. So I guess always I went to design school in Boulder. Steve went to Colorado Boulder. It was one of the few programs that environmental design. And so not only did we study architecture, but also landscape architecture and town planning and solar policy, environmental psychology, really amazing sort of diverse background.

(8m 43s):
When I, when I was there, Amory and hunter Levin's came to teach a summer course. And so I studied with them. And then after that was one of the volunteers on the construction, their house across the street from them was John Denver's foundation, Windstar thousand acre site. They were getting ready to build a new greenhouse with Buckminster fuller. And I had just done my architectural districts was working on a huge solar greenhouse project in Boulder.

 (9m 23s):
So when I graduated, I moved up there to work on that project and was with Windstar for a number of years and then moved across the street.

 (9m 33s):
Wow. That's incredible. Like that. Must've been one of like the final Buckmaster. Gotcha. Wow.

 (9m 46s):
I never heard that story, that piece all these years, did you first run into Phil tab

 (9m 55s):
Around Volvo? So Phil was teaching at the university of Colorado the same time that I was a student there and I knew Phil, but I never took any classes with him. In particular. He was working on a book with a number of friends of mine on planning communities for solar access, which is still one of the best books on that topic. And so I knew Phil from them, but I never studied with bill amazing

 (10m 24s):
For all of our listeners. And bill is the person who introduced us to Phil tad. And so we can thank bill for, for all the great land planning. We had a survey because it's that connection that brought the Sarah bee story forward.

(10m 43s):
So the three topics, especially for now, the first was solar design and planning for solar. The second was a sacred architecture, underlying principles that are used traditionally in architecture, the world, and also the formation of how land planning was done historically and the formation of English villages and what physical form. So what you see at Seren B is really put together.

 (11m 24s):
Yeah, it is really interesting. And I know he's got his new book out. That book also focuses on biophilic design, but much more of a, a research tone, then more what you guys are doing, which I think is more for the general public, obviously designers and architects and well, but I want to bring Katie in and find out, you know, you've been working at Terrapin bright green, so maybe we can touch on sort of the inspiration and how that company came to be bill and then kind of how you came into the fold, Katie and what you're working on. Really want to tell us about Tara? Sure.

 (12m 3s):
In 2004, to be the director of design for a new town that was being built in Virginia, a new urban community designed by one unclutter cyber. We got the town designed to prove finance or selling lots of home builders and beginning construction and the families that owned it, imploded spectacular divorces. And so I went back and then 2006 friends of mine in New York, Rick and Bob box who were designing the bank of America tower.

 (12m 46s):
We're getting lots of requests for green building consulting, and you don't have time for that. And so we formed the firm together up and break green in 2006.

 (13m 1s):
Right. And Katie, how long have you been there? I want to say you started in oh eight. So pretty much at the inception that tell us how your background and how you stumbled upon bill and why, you know, why you do what you do. Yeah, well, I, I joined bill and the team in 2008, July, 2008. I was actually in the midst of just previous to that. I was doing graduate work in Mexico on green infrastructure in the town of San Diego, the end day. So they were in the midst of applying for a world heritage site designation and serious storm water management problem, and a lot of overdevelopment and a depleting aquifer.

 (13m 46s):
So they were trying to figure out I was working with the architects and the department of environment and zoning to figure out how to develop differently. And so we came up with a micro watershed strategy to, to, to approach development, but that worked down there as well as other work in, through my graduate program at Brandeis that I really became interested in, in urban green development. And so when I was in Mexico, I started a job search and I came across Terrapinn randomly.

(14m 28s):
And I S this is it. This is, this is what I want to do. This is the company that I need to work for. And I, I basically said it, you know, if I don't get this job, I'm going to stop looking until after I graduate, because I just, I can't write a thesis and do my job and look for a new job at the same time, but this was too good to be, you know, to let pass. And so I pursued that and unusual for the times it was just a phone interview. We had two phone interviews and they offered me the job while I was in Mexico, which may not seem that strange now, I guess, because of all this zoom activity.

 (15m 13s):
But back then, you know, you really, the in-person interview was really critical. So they hired me in, or they offered me the job. And I guess it was bill with this, like the end of February, beginning of March of 2008. And I didn't even meet them until April and I didn't start my job until July. So it was a lot just the right time for all of us, I suppose, everything came together. And so from then, I've been engrossed in whatever Terrapin had to, to throw at me. I spent that first year working on algae-based biofuel research, which not what I had planned on doing, but it was fascinating.

(16m 0s):
And, and that was with the NRDC. And then after that project was over, it got more into building and planning projects and I've been with them ever since. And biophilia comes into the story through bill again, and I kind of fell into it because that's, you know, that's where there, where I was and the opportunity that was provided to me. But background to that, I had my actual, my undergrad degree was in graphic design and arts. So I was already in the art realm, but after several years of being a professional designer, I really felt like something was missing and I needed more like some social impact.

 (16m 55s):
And, and of course I had a real, always been an outdoorsy person. So I, that's kind of how I ended up. I mean, that's a very short story to how I ended up where I am now, but it was

 (17m 12s):
It's.

 (17m 13s):
I felt like I was late in the game, but at the same time now, it's, you know, it's just part of who, who I am. So it's, it's been a great journey. Yeah, no, it is interesting. And as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, the word biophilia, like, you know, that came into my lexicon only through Steve and maybe five or six years ago, which seems like a ton of time ago. And as a marketer, I thought, what a gobbly goop, what, what word is that? Like, I don't know. I can't say it. I can't pronounce it. I don't know how to spell it. Like that's never gonna take off, you know? And so over time, obviously, you know, repetition is important, but you know, I'm, I'm like a huge believer now in it.

(17m 56s):
So like, Hey, where did like, w where did that come into your life? Cause it sounds like maybe bill and Steve, this is just sort of saying it's been with them forever, but like, is this something that Terrapinn brought to you? Was it something that you studied at all? I mean, it's really fascinating concept. Well, actually I think that your experience that you just described is actually pretty common, not just for bikes. I mean, when I got this job and I told my family and people, you know, what I was doing, they were more excited that I was coming back to the Northeast than the fact that I had this particular kind of job. You know, people were calling me tree hugger and they were, you know, green, stuff's a trend or fad, you know, it'll, it'll end.

 (18m 42s):
And I just, I kind of ignored them and just did what I wanted to do. And then slowly people would start to send me news articles. Oh, we saw this thing about like solar energy in the movies. And we thought of you, okay. But slowly, maybe saving me more articles or sending me things. And then I started getting requests for, well, you know, I I'm remodeling my home. What should I do if I want to save some energy or, you know, my kids are going to be living in this space. I want it, I don't want any toxins. And so like, it just increased and to the point now where the people get it.

 (19m 28s):
So in my family, please. So the, the biophilia thing is a little bit like that, but I definitely, I didn't with my family. At least I didn't try explaining it too much until now until there's something that they can hold, hold and see, and read and process themselves. But I'd say it's been 10 years back in 2009 or 2010 is when I think it was 2010 bill when we started talking about biophilia more intently at Terrapin.

 (20m 9s):
And it might've been around the time that Delose start mate was making a request for more information on how nature might benefit designs of nature or landscape, community planning might influence their approach to, to, to new development. And so that's when we look back at old spreadsheets on the research that had been done in the eighties and nineties on things that we now associate with biophilic design, like lighting and views to nature and things like that, like the early research.

 (20m 55s):
And so my, one of my first jobs within the realm of biophilia was to evolve that spreadsheet into something much more robust and current. And so that was my, that was my true introduction to it, reading a lot of the, the journal articles and reaching out to the researchers to find out what the current thinking is on this. And so that was in 2010. And, and then I think Bill's story around the book, biophilic design and pursuing, pursuing interest funding investment in early biophilic design projects is what kind of what's kick-started terrapins services in that, on that topic.

(21m 46s):
It might be, you'd like to indulge us

(21m 49s):
Bill you first introduced me to the concept at the tshirt Bret 20 years ago, where did, where were you first introduced to it

 (22m 2s):
From university of Washington and the us general services administration was the person who introduced me to biophilia. In the mid nineties. We were working on a book on green real estate, eventually published and called. And it was a process of green real estate. And while we were pulling together case studies, we're finding these amazing examples of really big jumps in productivity. And we couldn't find anything in the literature about it. And we had two different groups finding this stuff. There was another group of Rocky mountain that was working on energy efficiency in industry, and we're finding these huge jobs.

(22m 46s):
And we were found that most of these things in the never been published and so pulled them together into a publication called greening and the building and the bottom line that was published in December, January, December of 94, January of 95, it generated a lot of interest. We got like 500 articles and good morning America and wall street journal and all sorts of stuff. My coauthor, Joe Rome left the Institute not long after that and joined the Clinton administration and the department of energy and the research and finance division and energy efficiency, renewables.

 (23m 31s):
And we decided, you know, wouldn't it be great if we could actually study rather than just having these anecdotal or these case studies that we had, where we had good solid numbers, but doing the actual winter green building increased productivity, bill McConnell had just finished designing a new factory for Herman Miller, the furniture company, they were moving 700 people out of a windowless box enjoining site, this beautifully daylight building that was surrounded by a restored Prairie and water features and 700 people.

3 (24m 14s):
That was a good chunk of folks to be able to study, to see was there any gaming associated with this new facility? And what was great was it was known population and nothing management wise was changing just the building. And so Joe had funding to support that research and brought together a number of folks from the federal laboratories. One of whom was Judy Heerwagen and forming the research hypothesis for what might lead to gain in productivity. In that facility, Judy introduced the concept of biophilia.

3 (24m 56s):
Now we were thinking daylight and the access to daylight was the thing that made the difference and partway through the experiment. We were all a little perplexed because we saw an overall gain in productivity in the whole facility, but we didn't see a gain in productivity across all the shifts. We had a big gain in productivity, in the daytime mixed results in the swing shift, no gain in productivity, in the nighttime shift. And what we eventually came to realize was the difference was because the level of lighting is the same on all the shifts, but the daytime, the nighttime folks, couldn't see the landscape outside landscape with all the flowers and the other flies and the birds and the water features.

3 (25m 49s):
And so suddenly that really quick, this connection to nature, maybe really fundamental and might be a really good way to think about how we add to people's wellbeing. So we with insurance and others started this spreadsheet that Katie talks about mentioned trying to find every paper we could find on the topic. There weren't a lot of the time, but collecting them all together. And then one of our folks left RMI to go do a master's degree in the streets, then shepherd and took the, took the spreadsheet with them because he was going to be working with Steven Keller and then a number of other students and seeing in the expanded that spreadsheet, which I eventually years later came back.

1 (26m 51s):
And we did it again for the book. Actually we did again in 2012. Yes. Well, you do the economics of biophilia. Is that the book? Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about that. So I'm assuming all of, you know, the, the prior research kind of got expanded or crystallize into that piece is, is that a book that you feel like the economics of biophilia kind of you distill down all of those learnings?

3 (27m 20s):
Yeah. That one was important. Chris Gargan, our former business partner was the one who said, you know, we really need to do this. And it was largely because we were having conversations with clients and potential clients about biophilia, and they get really excited in their heads about up and down. And while this is really nice, but we couldn't get them beyond. This is really nice to be able to show them that, Hey, it's not just nice. They're really big numbers associated with this complete rewrite.

3 (28m 11s):
That was 2012. That will be our next book.

1 (28m 21s):
That's great. I mean, you know, just to tie that to, to Sarah B, Steve and I were having a conversation with a podcast, another group yesterday, and, you know, the economics, it really is, you know, we can think that these are nice things to have, but you really do have to prove the economics, right. Steve, I mean, you have, I've had to do that over and over again.

2 (28m 42s):
We have a general perception that it's more expensive and at one period in time that maybe was, but the ongoing problem I find is, is they continue to measure in silos and you cannot in the silos. It doesn't always work out. You have to look at the entire project to see where the cost savings actually are.

1 (29m 4s):
Yeah. And it's not necessarily right up front, either those cost savings happen over time. Exactly.

2 (29m 11s):
Especially with, with the geo thermal solar, the, the demonstration house we had with Bosch and, and, and most of these companies still look at the energy savings. For instance, if you're talking about just energy and how the savings is over time, and they don't look at the cost of money. And actually, if you're looking at cashflow it's month, one on these projects, because the cost of money, if you factor that in and we still have to have a good economic measurement against Hills. And so once you add energy and health savings, it's, it becomes an absolute, why would we do it any other way?

2 (29m 52s):
But we continue to look at silos.

1 (29m 56s):
2012 publication economics of biophilia was a pivotal moment for us in getting buy in and interested. And just being able to talk about it. People much more receptive.

3 (30m 10s):
The response to that was a good friend that an old friend, he was doing sustainability consultant for helping run. A lot of that for Google came to us and said, Mary Davidge and said, Hey, this is really interesting. We know you guys have been talking about some patterns around our culture is you have to have the science before you can have the conversation. So we want you to take two or three of your proposed patterns and run the science to ground with them and come back.

3 (30m 50s):
And then we'll, we'll have that peer reviewed. And if things look good from that, then let's have a conversation about developing an entire set of pattern language for Google spaces and buildings. So that was an ongoing process and student color. We're all partners with us in that process

1 (31m 26s):
Was that that eventually led to the publication of 14 patterns of biophilic design. And I was going to ask because there's Google metrics, obviously Google being a huge company. And then you guys coming in with the expertise, I'm assuming they still use all of that in any kind of their project like they do. It's, it's a little different than what you see in 14 patterns. Cause that's, it's distilled down from, from a lot of other works and there's was, does their materials were designed or developed specifically for their culture and their, the way they developed. So, but they, we went on to develop other tools for them to integrate both of design for their projects specifically.

1 (32m 15s):
So that went on for several years. So we've been working with them for like eight years on, on how to evolve that. And a lot of the research that we've come across over time was through their support. Like they were, they've been very supportive in the development of this and accessibility of it to, to the broader design community. So tell me how

2 (32m 39s):
It seems to really drive things. And while you have some really companies that are seeing the advantages what's happening with the real estate appraisal community, are they taking any of this into consideration in an appraisals? Cause because that's what it's really going to drive. That's kind of funny.

3 (33m 2s):
Real estate appraisals have all taken. This classic example is if you look at the real estate values in Seattle, partial water view is significantly more expensive per square foot house with no view households, full water view is like 58% per square foot, more expensive than no view. And the house on the waters and 137% more expensive than the house on that same side with no water.

3 (33m 51s):
So we, and that's been done on Heights of buildings, the pricing of condo units, as you go up higher and have a better view actually increases in most buildings, right? So this is not, this is something we've already been valuing, just not explicitly.

2 (34m 20s):
I agree with you. But some of that same concept was true with the values for golf course lots. And it was about view and daylights. It didn't look at the whole picture, right?

3 (34m 33s):
Yup. Right, right. So it's similar to two early green building stuff early on the appraisal folks had a hard time appraising. So you had to get them to look at the, at a number of different things, the net operating income differences, capitalizing those things. And sometimes it's hard to assign the health improvements directly to the economics of a building, unless you're a corporation or a company or a factory,

1 (35m 26s):
It's harder to do a steady house by house versus you've got everybody in one Google benefit also. I mean, if you really want to get into it, the benefits differ for females versus males, people who are 80 versus 18, you know, so there's, there's a lot of other factors to consider. So you can't necessarily, well, there's certain, there are certain universals and truths to this. There's also, you know, you can't make a certain assumptions about benefit when you're talking about such a disparate diverse group of people.

1 (36m 7s):
Why do you think? Cause you know, so the, so the lead and you know, now we have sort of this well, but these certifications for commercial have really taken on importance and it's, some of them are almost you, if you're going to build a tower, like of course you're going to use a sort of a lead system. And I think the green building, you know, years back really, really sort of incorporated all that and push it, but we don't have it kind of to Steve's point in the residential real estate at this point, you know, all of our homes are EarthCraft certified, which is the south face group. You know, I guess energy star might be the most consumer friendly term. You know, we think about, you know, what, what are we, what's the consumer demanding, right.

1 (36m 50s):
Versus, you know, I, as an employee and maybe not demanding to live or to work in a lead certified building, but it's coming down from the top. Right. But residential real estate kind of starts at the bottom. Right. I have to decide or demand that I want an energy star or an EarthCraft house. There's very few. And I guess there's more and more developers who are saying everything has to be EarthCraft I'm seeing more and more geothermal the, do you guys see something like that? That could be a, not a designation. I don't feel like we need another certification, but like, do you feel like there can be a demand created for a biophilic, you know, house or a biophilic life that we can demand as consumers?

1 (37m 38s):
Do you see that as a future,

2 (37m 44s):
There's a silver lining to this pandemic. It is the very bad people may not be, I be tagging it, but it's all of these issues that people have suddenly realized are important. And I think this is moving the conversation forward. You know,

1 (38m 4s):
I would say that people have expectations or demands that already exists. Like, you know, living a healthy lifestyle, fitness, being able to have outdoor space. So it could be more of a how you frame those opportunities. And it may in fact result in a biophilic home, you know, so having a place to retire to, or, you know, read your book and not be disrupted or still have a great view outside like that, those are just characteristics of a space. So the solution is going to vary for each individual or family depending on their needs.

1 (38m 45s):
But I think even in, in, in our, some of the earlier or within the last 10 years, I guess built CA can you, is it the Solaire or the Visionaire, maybe in lower Manhattan that where their families were buying in because they were able to tie their children's health benefits to the quality of the building. I mean, that's more of an indoor air quality issue, but it's the same general idea, right? It's their priorities are being realized through the design. Yeah. The solar

3 (39m 19s):
Was the first green high rise, residential building and wind up capturing a rent premium. And what really took off was a newspaper article where they interviewed some families. And one of the families said you had prior to living in this building, we had a child who couldn't sleep, Susan respiratory problems. And once I moved in here, those went away. We went on vacation and stayed in some conventional places and the kid got sick again, we came home and within a few days that one newspaper article shifted the whole market perception of, I think the student Katie nailed it.

3 (40m 10s):
And that is, you know, particularly now when so many families have been having to shelter in place to be at home for extended periods of time. I think people are becoming much more aware of sort of the impact of their surroundings on them. And so that opens an opportunity for a new conversation about biophilia. And one of the things in, in Karen's new book, we look at a whole bunch of the different sort of green building rating systems. And almost every one of them out there now has some component or is developing some components around biophilia as part of the rating.

1 (40m 55s):
They don't always call it that, but they often do. So it's more a matter of the approach the team or the client wants to take to, to realize that goal. Well, that's a perfect lead in for the book. And so the book, you know, is called nature inside and it really talks about right, the key benefits, the principles, and really what is biophilic design and I, and you had illustrations, right. And how that can be implemented in interiors, tens of case studies, different scales, different topologies, the Telus. Tell us a little bit about it. Like, how did you guys come together? Obviously the Terrapin has been prolific at research and writing, but this feels like maybe it was just in dwell.

1 (41m 41s):
Like, is this the most consumer friendly book? Do you think to date or maybe broad interest? Because I'm very excited to dig into it actually for, for years, people have asked us when we're going to write a book, like the economics of biophilia is a great resource, but it's not, it's, self-published 14 patterns, also great research for a design community, but it's self published. So people have been asking, you know, when, when are you going to publish a book? And you know, a lot of it has to do just having the time, having the time to, to, to make that happen. And you never really have the time unless you make, you know, so, but this, this kind of fell in our lap and bill, I'm not sure.

1 (42m 25s):
Do you know how

3 (42m 27s):
We got contacted by the role? Instead of one of the editors said, I want to commission a book on biophilic design and interior, would you guys do it? Or who would you say should write this book, thought about it and said, you guys are gonna kill me, but I think we have to write this.

1 (42m 56s):
He did actually say that you're going to kill me, but do you, I don't even w I think we asked them how they, what, where they heard about the topic or what possessed them to reach out to us in the first place. And that they didn't really, I think it was something that was probably brewing for awhile within. And so we, I was very reluctant because I knew that this was going to be a, a huge time commitment, but we knew it was important. And we, I mean, we were excited to do it too. It was just making the actual commitment, made it a real thing.

1 (43m 37s):
So there was some discussion negotiation around what the book should include, how focused on the interiors versus other other topics. And so we struck a nice balance. I think with the book where, you know, it is focused on the interiors primarily, but a lot of the principles and ideas, they can be applied to anything, whether it's the interior space, the architecture itself, landscape community, and so on. And we do have a chapter that addresses outs, you know, outside of the building. But I, I treated it like a project. It was the only way to get this, you know, get it done.

1 (44m 19s):
So it's been, it was about a year and a half in the making. Well, I, I mean, again, like thrilled to see it in dwell because the more that we can get the words out there, people to really understand that it is accessible, that they can incorporate it into their lives. Tell us a little bit what the reaction has been so far. I mean, I know it's not quite out publicly. It will be when this airs, but what are you hearing from people? People seem really excited, bill. I think you've talked to more people in the recent recently and gotten responses.

3 (44m 54s):
My favorite was from reproducing, former chair of the building council and the head of well Rick's comment was it's beautiful. And that's one of the things we really were happy about was the commitment to do full color throughout. And so it's still the photographs. And we start, we started the scale of individual objects. So fabric and hardware furniture and finishes before we even jump into spaces.

3 (45m 35s):
Some of those smaller pieces that anybody could add to their own home and then move from there to residential factories and office buildings, civic buildings. So really exploring that. And we have, are really a toolkit to help people through how to apply and tools to help them with the application.

1 (46m 10s):
Yeah, they, the book was supposed to have about a hundred photos. I think it, if you clues include everything, it's probably has about 260. I'm not sure. And, and RBA was great. They didn't ask us to cut back and it was hard enough to, to limit cause there's so many other projects that we could have included and photos and Memorial that's for second edition. I don't have to save that one for later. So it was definitely, it was a fun process thinking, and it was actually really helpful to break it down and think about it, different spaces, like what, you know, without repeating ourselves, because a lot of these ideas could be applied to any type of interiors, but then we go, okay, how, how does this space, or what's important to a residential interior then compared to say a community center.

1 (47m 8s):
So we, the, the book gets into a little bit about for each space type, what, what are the important health considerations or experiential modes that you want to be in or to provide in this space type? So for each chapter, we have a little bit of a history and then a little bit of a design impact opportunities specific to that interior type. And so that's kind of the structure of the book after that first couple chapters that introduce the topic. Yeah. Well, and I think we're all trying to figure out what, how do we like upgrade? We're trapped in our house all day, you know, what are we going to upgrade?

1 (47m 51s):
What are we going to change? So it's probably going to be a really great tool to inspire people and also some practical applications for obviously professionals, but all again, I mean, I always think of like from the consumer facing sure, the books that we've produced in the past or that we've published ourselves have been, well, anybody could read it and use it. They were geared towards particular audiences. This book in particular, while it will appeal to the architects and interior designers is very digestible to anybody. Great. The case studies are written to really be something that people can process and recognize how this might be applicable to their own space or project.

1 (48m 40s):
Well, I wanted to ask sort of as a final wrap up question, you know, with all of the incredible work that both of you guys have done, and obviously, you know, this wonderful new, you know, design guide, you know, what do you guys looking towards? You know, and that could be a project you're working on. You can both answer this separately or, you know, what are you really hoping for sort of, I mean, there's a lot that we're hoping for the future right now, but really more from in your world and biophilia, like where are you see things going over the next, let's say three to five years. And obviously things have been accelerated quite a bit now, but I'd love your sort of put your future futurist hat on.

1 (49m 20s):
And what would you hope to see, or what do you think is going to,

3 (49m 28s):
We've been doing some fundraising. We really would like to do some direct neuroscience experiments, how people are responding to using eye-tracking mechanisms, using some of the advanced TEG experiments as well to watch the brain wave patterns we did. And it's in the book. And also on our website, we did with Jim determine and architect, other Baltimore Morgan state university, and the neuroscience team. We did a year long experiment in a classroom in inner city, Baltimore looking at use of carpet, wallpaper, window blinds, ceiling tiles that had biomorphic or fractal patterns to see to that improve the learning environment for the students.

3 (50m 22s):
And we saw a dramatic increase in academic performance, and we also four months of data on improved stress recovery, and students using that classroom as well. We'd like to see more of that more post-occupancy work. We're moving into doing more work in hospitality as well. And hotel design and hotels, the conversation about experiences, but also thinking about hotels as this amazing economic engine that it touches a whole bunch of different parts of a community in particular, we're pretty fascinated by this idea.

3 (51m 6s):
Can a hotel become the hub for resilience for community, and we're seeing bits and pieces of that larger conversation. Particularly when you're operating a hotel, you get into food systems, laundry and support and engineering and energy systems. You get into a whole bunch of other stuff that other building types, other than maybe your hospital hotels as potential engines for change around sustainability and resilience,

2 (51m 54s):
You look at the number of people that come through a hotel and expose them. And many of them are change makers, influencers, and you start getting that, repeat it. You also start putting the economics. That's a brilliant place to really have a demonstration.

1 (52m 10s):
Yeah. And we want to get to hotels. Yeah. So I'm right there with bill on the direction that, that we want to go. And then we see things going, but also just from a specifically with respect to biophilic design, I'm interested in seeing it the larger scale and how we, we think about biophilia biophilia and the biophilic experience with respect to ecosystem services and how we treat and design our landscapes and the communities and how that might influence how we design our buildings. Because the biophilic experience is not just about the interior space, it how the, the exterior might influence your experience of the interiors and, and that transition between the indoors and outdoors and so on.

1 (53m 1s):
And that can be done through the, these, the hospitality concept we're talking about. It's, it's part of that public health resilience. I think there's a lot of ways that you can, can spin it. Now. I think that's incredible. I mean, just the placement on the land of anything is always so important that we don't think of. Right. We don't think of that. That benefits us. Well. Is there anything else that you guys want to add that we didn't, we didn't cover? So book is available starting Tuesday. So the book is available when this comes out or you can buy it anywhere. I'm assuming. Yeah. I'd say go to Amazon or the RBA website.

1 (53m 42s):
Those are the best places to start or your local bookstore. Hopefully. Yes. Everyone needs to know our bookstore.

2 (53m 51s):
Sarah B is a New York reporting bookstore. So

1 (53m 56s):
Help move it up to up the list. Well, we would love to have you guys here once, you know, everybody can travel again safely. You know, that ceremony is OAS, welcoming, love. Authors would love to help promote the book and we'll definitely be sharing it out and want to amplify it. And just thank you so much for your time. This has been completely interesting and really an honor to have both of you on the podcast. It's been great. Thank you all. See,

2 (54m 36s):
Is it going to be in another language? Is that already in the works?

1 (54m 43s):
I'll put everything up on the website to end tag everything and direct you guys to Terrapin and the book and everything. So thank you guys so much. Very exciting.

0 (54m 60s):
Thank you for listening to Sammy stories. New episodes are available on Mondays. Please rate and review the podcast and visit our website to learn more about upcoming guests, episodes and everything by ophelia@sarahmbiestories.com.