Before I explain anything else, let me state that a $42,000 living wall (which I completely destroyed, by the way) was once part of an asset I owned. And yes, I meant it when I said I “killed it”. Everything went wrong during its presentation highlighting the health benefits it offers.
That was without a doubt the single most humiliating moment of my career. Designing that wonderful vertical garden for a tech startup in Portland, which was 12-feet tall, was everything to me. From picking out plants for air filtration system to implementing high tech irrigation systems, my third monitoring them with moisture sensors, and warning me if anything went haywire, turned out useless. Throughout the entire building process, I found myself telling Marcus the founder repeatedly about the new “office environment” I’d spruce up.
In Mark III’s case, his office would magically change and tier his stress levels would be reduced by 23%, this was all based off a recent study I skimmed through and understood half of. All of it up until the installation phase went splendidly.
The culmination of months of toil and perfectionist obsession went culminated for 9 days without a hassle. That was until the 10th day. Everything went wrong in an instant during my client tour. Mid way through the “bragging” as you so put it I decided to demonstrate what the irrigation system mushroom was capable of. It’s only right to expect disasters to come in the form of horrible grinding sounds right? Imagine me standing there, witnessing a torrential downpour of decaying water with my shoes submerged in it all, it was memorable to say the least.
The sensors’ failures were all my fault because I placed them too close to the grow lights. Almost every piece of technology I installed was completely useless due to my miscalibrations. The irrigation system was overwatering some sections and neglecting others. Some plants were drowning while the others had dried out. Somewhere in the middle, there was some fungus growing that Tara, my horticulturist friend informed me was “actually really fascinating from a biological perspective, but definitely not something you want in an office.”
Killing an expensive installation is bad, but what’s worse is trying to explain to the client why all the promised benefits of improved air quality, reduced stress, and increased productivity—none of it is actually happening because of your blunder during implementation. Why is there no way to ascertain that these benefits wouldn’t materialize if the implementation went perfectly?
Trying to please my client and make my design business thrive was out of sheer desperation due to that incident. The most important lesson here is the fact that if there is no chance of measurement, the investment is deemed useless.
I cannot stress enough how much I believe in biophilic design, seeing how it has changed people’s spaces by infusing nature indoors. It is astonishing to see how a person’s attitude and mood shifts the moment they step into a thoughtfully designed biophilic space. One need only witness the transformation themselves. Yet, anecdotes and feelings do not sway CFOs to say yes to a budget. They require data. Our sector, up until now, has been too optimistic regarding what they can offer and lacking in substance to back it up.
After my living wall disaster, I effectively returned to school. I devoted a substantial amount of time studying how to quantitatively evaluate the impact biophilic design features. The results I uncovered were definitely both encouraging and frustrating. The reality of the situation is that there is a significant amount of scientific evidence supporting the influence of biophilic design, but attempting to incorporate these measurements into practical design work is way more difficult than most designers are willing to admit.
Eliza, my friend who heads the sustainability division at OHSU, shared a thought over coffee last month that struck me: “We have all these wonderful renderings of green spaces, but try and get any designer to show you their post-occupancy evaluation data and they give you that look as if you just asked them to explain the quantum mechanics of a chainsaw juggling contest.”
For three years I have focused on finding practical ways to gauge the influence of my designs. Not to validate that they work, but to determine why they do not and when. After all, a single $42,000 faux pas isn’t exactly part of my business strategy.
This is what I’ve learned about measuring the effectiveness of biophilic design, and it’s the often sanitizied logic of reality we avoid.
Psychological metrics are the first that come to mind. These are stress relief, mood enhancement, and increased concentration which are easily thought of when referencing biophilic design. Contrary to what is most often believed, these “benefits” are the hardest to measure accurately.
When working on a project for a law firm located in the city, we actually pulled in Dr. Reynolds from Portland State’s Psychology Department to assist us with developing a measurement protocol. We conducted what’s called a cortisol sampling study, where participants who were willing provided us with saliva samples at various times of the day before and after we remodeled their offices. Measuring cortisol gives you objective data regarding an individual’s stress level, and is a stress hormone.
I’ll be honest, I was skeptical. It was all too clinical for what I had perceived as largely an emotional benefit. The results, however, were astonishing. After three weeks of being in the redesigned space, average cortisol levels significantly dropped by 17%. Even more importantly, the afternoon cortisol spike that is common in high-stress workplaces was greatly diminished.
We all know that this type of research is not easy or cheap. Obtaining IRB approval, collaborating with specialized labs, and funding a million other variables all added to the expenses. Dr. Reynolds blew half our budget trying to control for so many confounding variables such as sleep and caffeine – which to most, don’t seem very practical for every project.
“It’s not that biophilic design does not work,” she said to me. “It’s that human beings are very complicated, and trying to separate the impact of any design features from everything else going on in people’s lives is extremely, extremely difficult.”
For some of the smaller projects, we have started using more standardized stress and mood assessment questionnaires, like the Perceived Stress Scale or the mood assessment PANAS. These do not have the objectivity of biological markers, but they are much more practical. After we renovated the waiting room in my dentist’s office (thanks, Dr. Kim, for letting me do some tinkering in her practice in exchange for pro design work), patients reported a reduction of pre-appointment anxiety by 22% after we reorganized the space to provide views of the courtyard garden and installed a small living wall.
Cognitive function metrics pose another intriguing opportunity, although they are harder to do well in practice. There are tests like the Digit Span, which measures attention and working memory by having you repeat sequences of numbers, both forwards and backwards. We attempted to apply it for a classroom renovation at Lewis and Clark, but standard testing conditions were so difficult that they proved to be impossible. Students got distractors, timing was chaotic. We collected data, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth taking a hit to my reputation.
What works better for us are the physiological metrics – the actual measurable environment, and people’s responses. The most important one is air quality. This is where biophilic design can truly excel in terms of measurable contribution.
I bought a professional-grade air quality monitor last year, the Aeroqual series 500. It wasn’t cheap at about $4000, but it’s been worth every penny. Now, we take baseline measurements before any project, and then follow up at one, three and six months post-installation.
The information has truly been surprising. For example, if I had proper monitoring with the living wall disaster I spoke about before, I would have caught the problem before it became catastrophic. Now I can show clients how much living walls improve particulate matter removal and VOC reduction.
My colleague Ramesh, the mechanical engineer with a focus on building systems, has been my go-to partner for these calculations. He is always complaining about the designers regarding the lack of understanding from biophilic installations from a technical perspective.
“They’re biological air filters with specific capabilities and limitations,” he said to a client the other day, and I highly consider it magic. “They aren’t magic,” filters do require measuring and in this case plants were the filters that the client was paying for. “I’m doing what you’re paying for.”
Indeed, his explanation had a ring of truth to it, although his bedside manner leaves much to be desired. At River Point Office Plaza, we installed a major living wall system in their main atrium. Subsequent measurements showed they were capturing a 31 percent reduction in airborne particulates and a 22 percent reduction in VOCs compared to baseline. But, three months later, numbers had dramatically declined… the maintenance staff had switched to a new cleaning product that was essentially poisoning some of the plant species. We would have never caught that problem without regular measuring.
Measurement has helped us refine our approaches in temperature and humidity regulation. Microclimate conditions still rely on biophilic concepts such as living walls indoor water features, which are primary contributors. We have begun implementing networks of small wireless sensors in pre and post installation conditions monitoring such as the Monnit ALTA systems, which I prefer.
This brought about a few unanticipated lessons from the Waterfront Credit Union project. The living wall we implemented was, in fact, exacerbating humidity problems in one area of the space, creating conditions for mold growth. By monitoring the situation, we were able to mitigate damage by modifying the irrigation system and plant selection prior to damage occurring.
But let’s be real. While it’s fair to assume that designers will be concerned with the air quality and microclimate conditions, clients are interested in quantifiable economic indicators. Bottom line: is this biophilic installation worth it?
ROI calculations for biophilic design are really hard and tricky, however, my most successful biophilic case study comes from Evergreen Software, where we completely redesigned the biophilic open office area. The project cost $178,000, which not cheap, but spending that amount on such a project is still reasonable if a company can be shown positive results. We partnered with their HR department to gather data metrics from the actual employees before and after.
They reported a 22% decrease in sick days taken in the year after installation, which they estimated saved them around $92,000 in lost productivity. Additionally, employee turnover reduced from 28% yo al (which is the industry average, 25%) to 19%, which was estimated to save around $103,000 in hiring and training costs. Recruitment costs in general dropped too, their hiring manager Jesse told me that they now feature the office in their recruitment ads, and new employees discuss the office as a reason for joining the firm.
“I was the biggest skeptic,” Jesse said at the one-year post-renovation assessment meeting. “Personally, I thought it was just going to be costly office decor. But in reality, we’ve literally earned back the investment and that, too, only based on the metrics that are easily quantifiable.”
As it happens, not all clients have the capacity or means to really track these types of metrics, especially more rigid ones. For these smaller projects, we’ve created a more streamlined ROI calculator that uses conservative assumptions based on industry standards. It may not be wholly accurate, but it provides some sense of the likely returns to clients.
Through this trial and error process, the single most important lesson to take away from all this is that measurement needs to be incorporated at the start of a project, not as an extra step that comes later. Now measurement strategies are standard components in our primary conversations with clients along with design choices, financial limits, and other preferences.
Jordan, my business partner who handles the finances while I take care of design, has been particularly enthusiastic about this approach. “Any client who does not see any value in spending money to measure outcomes is not seriously considering biophilic design,” she argues. “They simply want aesthetics with plants.”
I consider her view overly harsh. Some clients do appreciate the value but are not in a position to afford extensive measurement. Regardless, an important point does remain: without measurement, we are simply creating beautiful spaces and hoping for the best.
And sometimes, things do not go as intended, such as the meditation room for a tech company’s employees that no one actually used because it was too close to the executive offices and they felt self-conscious being seen taking “mental health breaks.” Or the atrium garden that was beautiful but created horrible screen glare at certain times of the day. Without measurement, we might never understand why these spaces fell short of delivering the benefits we intended.
I still believe in the effectiveness of biophilic design, especially because of how it changes spaces and people’s lives, but I am much more cautious now about how I promise certain results. The consequences of lackadaisical measurement tools are very real. Capturing the outcome of a given design is imperative, as is estimating in advance what the goals and critical aspects of success will be. That experience with the living wall certainly taught me a valuable lesson: whether in design, or in life, things that can be tracked can indeed be controlled.
So if you are considering a lobby enhancement or a comprehensive office redesign using biophilic design, I encourage you to question your designer on ordering metrics. Demand to be provided with a specific plan outlining steps to achieving success. Should they mention something vague like “improved wellbeing,” alarm bells should start tolling.
And if you’re a designer, learn from my mistakes. Proper wall constructions, accompanied by a simplified monitoring system, could have retained the wall for less than 500 bucks. Ideas never further than $42,000 could have achieved what both expensive and futile showcase projects accomplish. Design, even the least glamorous tributaries of monitoring equipment, clever maintenance protocol, or maintenance planning, specify the boundary between a beautiful showcase project and a replicated failure.
In my case, I have an entire integrated sensor system that tracks the new living wall installation at First Portland Bank, and as I’m typing this, the data is being updated. My smartphone application displays superior moisture levels, ideal lighting, and the air quality is already improving metrics. Achieved goals, not only dreams. That’s the future of biophilic design—and honestly, it’s about time.
