Architecture (Journal)

Ghaziani, R. (Guest editor)
Dr Kenn Fisher (Guest editor)

Portsmouth School of Architecture

Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Publication peer-review

Description of Activity

Guest Editor for Special Issue "Biophilic School Design for Health and Wellbeing."

Period	Aug 2023 → Jul 2024
Type of journal	Journal
ISSN	2673-8945
Degree of Recognition	International

Keywords

biophilic school design school design in connection to nature biophilic learning environment biophilic classroom design for health and wellbeing evidence-based design

Documents & Links

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a loud wake-up call for education (Nair, 2020). Research suggests that schools could become better learning environment for health and wellbeing through biophilic design, which has become more important during the pandemic and for the post-pandemic environment. Within an educational setting, nature provides a calm and safe context for learning by improving learners’ attention, reducing stress, and increasing curiosity. In addition, experiences with nature seem to promote children’s development as persons and as environmental stewards (Kue et al., 2019). Existing frameworks for biophilic design (Kellert, 2018; Terrapin, 2014) support the implementation on nature design in architecture. However, the focus has been primarily on adult spaces, missing the opportunity for sustainable impact on the wellbeing of generations by omitting schools as a crucial context of implementation. Therefore, the design of school classrooms and school grounds needs to be re-imagined to consider school users’ health and wellbeing. The aim of this Special Issue is to unlock the complexity of the cross-disciplinarity of biophilic school design through the views of the invited authors. It explores a long-term biophilic design approach for post-pandemic schools that promote health and wellbeing of their users--children, young people and adults. The discussions in this Special Issue will focus on (but are not limited to) the following thematic areas: -Bio-urbanism; -Therapeutic gardens; -The relationship between the natural environment and health and wellbeing; -Enhancing the health and wellbeing of students and staff through biophilic design; -Unpacking the global green star credit rating systems; -The power of urban forests in schools; -Increasing biodiversity through biophilic design; -Biophilic architecture and interiors; -Carbon neutral schools through biophilic design; -Improving learning outcomes through biophilic design; -Showcasing new and emerging evidence of the benefits of the biophilic design of schools.