Full Transcript for Building Design for Learning with Willam Browning and James Determan

don't jump from one thing to another and then you make a decision about what you want to specialize in something. And to me, because it did make a difference what I was doing and the impact my design was going to have on the world. I, I gravitated towards schools. I can remember taking a tour through one private school. With one of the leaders of the school and it was almost finished. And I asked him what he thought, and he turned around and said, “you know, we never knew it could be like this.” He said, “the students that go to school in this new building are going to learn better, and they're going to get better grades, and they're going to go to a better college, they're going to get a better job, and have a better life. Because of what we did here.”  And I'm embarrassed to say that it took a lay person like a client to teach me that this is the impact of design. I think architects sort of always know that design has an impact. But to hear a lay person, a client, you know, sort of tell me how this is impacting him. It led me toward research, to say, “okay, can we actually intentionally try to design learning space to have these impacts?”  So, when I started looking at research, I came across the 14 patterns of biophilic design, which is a guide that Terrapin Bright Green and Bill Browning wrote and heard, Tom Albright, who's the neuroscientist on our research project at a conference, talk about nature patterns and how he thought that they would make a difference in a learning space environment. And so, that led us to the research. And once we had the research published, we applied that knowledge to a brand new elementary school, in Columbia, South Carolina, Blythewood, South Carolina, Bethel Hanbury Elementary School. And we intentionally began that project using biophilic strategies. For example, view to nature, we use dynamic, diffuse daylight, and a lot of nature materials inside the building. One specific pattern that I borrowed from Bill was a pattern. This was like a frit pattern on a western facing glass 2-story piece of glass. So, when the sun comes around in the afternoon, it shines through that ceramic frit pattern on the glass. And produces a shadow pattern on a floor. It feels like you're walking through a canopy of trees, this dappled light. And the students love that. They love that. And of course, it moves right with the sun setting sun. It moves and you can see that movement and it calms them. It relaxes them. And it's a, it's a special feature of that school. We actually did an assessment of that school at one year after it had been occupied and found that the students and the teachers and the administrators love the biophilic strategies; it makes them feel like it helps them do their job better. They perform better and also, metrics like student academics were up beyond expected values. Bullying incidents were down. Attendance was up. Teacher retention was up. Now, we can't say that biophilic design was the cause of that because this is not an isolated variable experiment, like our original research. But all those metrics were up while other new schools in the area did not really compare, with those metrics. Bill Browning: Right, the advantage of this study was that it was an existing population of students and teachers moving from an old school to a new school. So, it wasn't just a new school opening up and being populated. It was a known set of population moving from one place to another, so it gave you the ability to do comparison. And you don't get that very often, but we've had that in experiments with factories and other, settings where a known population was moving from one or several buildings to one, where we could take the measurements from the existing setting and then compare them to the new. We had that with a bank and orders with a with a factory. We've had other examples like that. And so, in the Baltimore. experiment that we did together at Green Street Academy, which is a STEM charter school in Baltimore. In that case, we were looking at one classroom in a control classroom, and we had the data from the students. It was a sixth grade mathematics classroom. We had the data from prior years in that classroom, same teacher teaching the same curriculum, and, we could pull the data from the iReady test scores, which are done throughout the Baltimore system. And so, we had a really nice data set. And we had 122 students using the classroom in one room and, and one year and 125 in the other year. And so big data set to really comb through and look at the differences.     Scott Lee: And, of course, you found that, the biophilic design did improve the test scores compared to the control group? Jim Determan: Significantly. Yeah. Research through the stress.  Scott Lee: Yeah.  Bill Browning: Yeah. And the the point of that experiment was existing building, it was already a LEED platinum building. So, from a sustainability standpoint and a green building standpoint, a really great learning environment. So, the point of the experiment was experimenting with minimal interventions. So, literally a series of things. There were existing gardens outside the classroom, and it was on second floor that you could look out on if the venetian blinds were open. Which was unfortunately a rare occurrence on all of that because it's an east facing facade. So, you get the morning sun and teachers typically don't then open the blinds when the sun moves off, which is really unfortunate. And then in the classroom Tom Albright's team, the visual processing neuroscience team from Salk was another partner in the experiment, recommended removing a lot of the posters from the walls, because it's creates a really overstimulating environment, makes it hard for kids to concentrate. It's actually really counterproductive,  Scott Lee: And just to interrupt you briefly. I only say that kind of goes against something that I was taught is these classroom walls are typically concrete block

and I always covered my walls with posters. I think a lot of teachers do that, because you don't want to look at the concrete block. So, it's interesting that you point out that that can be an issue.  Bill Browning: So, what we did instead was after removing the posters was around the top of the classroom put in wallpaper and the wallpaper was an abstraction of palm leaves. That was designed jointly by the neuroscience team at Salk, with folks from Design Tech Steelcase Manufacture. And that pattern is specifically chosen because it has biomorphic forms in it. And then what are called collinear patterns. Lines moving in a similar direction. They don't have to be parallel, just moving in a similar direction. And we know it's much easier for the brain to process that kind of image. And so that actually lowers our stress. Similarly, on the floor, wood floor, put down a carpet tile that had a pattern like waving prairie grass. So now you have another biomorphic, colinear pattern. Some of the flat ceiling tiles were replaced with waveform tiles. And then on the windows, the venetian blinds were removed and in their place fabric blinds were added. Were put in that had a pattern of tree branch shadows silkscreened onto them and so that forms what's called a statistical fractal. And so, fractals are repeating mathematical patterns. There are what are exact fractals, which are exact repeats like Mandelbrot sets and gaskets and things like that. That doesn't occur much in nature. What you tend to have in nature are patterns that repeat, but have variations in So if you think about the repeating pattern in a snowflake, or in a fern leaf, or waves coming into a beach, or flames in the fireplace, or my favorite, the dappled light under a tree, I can generate those mathematically. And then create all kinds of different materials using those sorts of patterns, carpet and fabrics and paintings on walls and fritting on the glass like Jim did in the school in South Carolina, that then replicates those sorts of conditions we find all over the place in nature. So, because those kinds of patterns, those sorts of statistical fractals occur so much in nature, when we see them in a human designed object, the brain processes them much easier, with a lot less effort. And so, you see almost instantaneous drop in stress. So, the neuroscientists call this effect fractal fluency. The brain is fluent with these kinds of designs. And so that was one of the majors in the classroom as well. So, these are all things that anyone can replicate, right? They're pretty simple interventions. And then one other part of that was that the, the fabric, shades, were on automated motors that had, that had a light sensor. And so when the sun moved off the glass those would open up. Scott Lee: Yeah, that's interesting. And, and it, it makes me think about, there's just a lot of things out there that I guess they're, I don't know, urban legends or something about how to set up your classroom. I

always put up, now I'm thinking way too many posters, years ago because I wanted to hide the concrete block wall. But another example, I was involved in a, a building project, or, at least the start of a building project for a school, and I was told, “don't put windows in because that will just cause distractions.” And I knew at the time that that just couldn't be right, but I really didn't know why. So I guess in, in the context of biophilic design, explain why windows are important and the research behind that.  Jim Determan: Let me start, Bill, and you can, you can correct me when I go astray. You can imagine now with a little bit of safety, a large discussion about schools that, glass in schools and transparency in the building are major topics. When we designed a new school today, was a, it was a whole generation of schools that were built back in the 70s. That really limited the number of openings outside to remove distractions some of them even had no walls on the inside. I think the thought there was that you would not only learn from your teacher, but you maybe pick up something from the one next door too. The thing about, windows in a classroom, it's so very important to have, I think, as much daylight in a classroom as possible. There is research that's been published, that indicates the more daylight you have in the space, the higher their test scores. So that there was a direct correlation there. Now we know that view to nature not only reduces stress, but it also improves cognition. And part of that is Attention Restoration Theory, so that if you are in a classroom, typically there's a whole wall of windows. Say to your left, and it's in your periphery you can see what's going on out there. But if you're focused on a teacher who's going on and on and on about something, a lot of times you'll see kids put their head down. They're tired because their attention is actually at the end. But if in your periphery, if you see a breeze, capture a leaf, a large leaf on a tree, and the tree moves, or if you see a bird or an insect come flying by something that's not very frequent, then that may capture your attention. You turn your head and you look outside, and that does a couple of things. Takes your attention away from the teacher for the moment and moves to nature. This place of described as soft fascination, and it takes your focal point from 5 meters, say, to more than 30 meters looking out the window. There's research that shows if you hold that gaze, and Bill's going to correct me, it's either 30 or 40 seconds, and then you come back, your attention is restored. You now have more energy in your attention so that you can absorb more content of what's being presented in class. And that's the crux of attention restoration theory. So, the windows are extremely important. And when you see a student looking out the window, don't stop that. Unless it goes on and on, because that's doing some good. Bill Browning: So, Jim's right. The windows are distracting and it's a distraction that you want. Right, so if I'm looking out the window, looking at nature, for just 40 seconds, the brain does shift into this mode called soft fascination, but more importantly what's happening is the prefrontal cortex is actually quieting down, so the brain's expending a lot less energy. So, after I have that brief pause of seeing that image of nature, I come back and I have much better restored cognitive capacity. So that's the whole point of attention restoration theory. And the neuroscience is pretty clear about that. We can actually see that happening in people's brains and we can see the transaction happen very quickly. The other piece is there's a biomechanical thing going on there as well. If I'm staring at a computer screen or staring at something really close to me, I'm in, my eyes are in what's called the near visual focus. The way that works is all the muscles in the eye contract to round the lens. Now think about how long you can stay in that state before you start getting muscular fatigue. So, if I can get you to look up and look away, and particularly at a view that is more than 30 meters or more than 100 feet away, now the eye shifts to the fourth visual focus, which is called, the infinite visual, focus. And that's, anything more than 100 feet away. The way that works is that the lens flattens. And the lens flattens by all the muscles in the eye relaxing. One of the reasons why if you've been staring at a computer screen for a long time, or staring at a book or something for a really long period of time, and you start getting headaches, or feeling fatigued. That's literally muscular fatigue. So that bird flying past the window or that leaf shaking outside is really, really helpful. It gets you to look up and look away and relax the muscles in the eye. And so, the combination of attention restoration. So cognitive capacity, but also just sheer physical fatigue, both of which are improved by looking up and looking away out that window. Jim Determan: We also have, an issue with, interior glass in buildings. We like to put some level of blazing, some level of transparency between the classroom and what's happening outside in the corridor., That's important for a couple of reasons. One is I think it's the, the biophilic strategy prospect. Prospect means I can see a long way and if I can see a long way, I can see there's no imminent danger and I feel safe, I feel comfort. A lot of classrooms have no transparency to the corridor and basically the only opening is the door if there's some commotion that's happening outside tou don't know how to react until trouble is at the door. But if you have some level of transparency and you can see the people were moving about in the corridor, just calmly, and there's, there's no need to worry. I think it puts everybody at ease inside that classroom. So, when you have a little bit of prospect to be able to see a long distance and know that you're safe. You're

able to focus more on the content being presented.   Scott Lee: And that brings us to another thought, you do things that are different when you're designing a school, compared to schools built in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. But from a cost standpoint, you're really not adding costs are you, or is that something you get pushback from, is that it costs too much?  Jim Determan: I get pushback for anything that's new, because people say if it's new. It must cost more.  Scott Lee: Uh-huh,  Jim Determan: right. And there's a lot of focus on cost of schools. And that's appropriate. But just like meeting the building code, the zoning code, meeting the schedule, you must meet the budget. This is a must. This is not a goal. This is a must. You must meet the budget. But the goal for a school, if you read any school district's mission and goals and values, number one is academic excellence. Right? Or it's to, help students know how to work with others or to be global citizens. Right? Equity and diversity and all these things that learn how to get along with others that are not like you. These are all things that school districts have as their goals.  So, when I, hear from some that are decision makers and they say, “well, we want to do this as cheaply as we can.”  “Well, I don't see that in the goals that the Board of Education publishes on your website, right?” I don't, I don't think it's in the interest of taxpayers to maximize square footage per dollar. I think I, as an investor in schools as a citizen, I want to maximize the GPA. I want, and I want everybody that's involved in this decision making about how we form schools to refocus this frame of, of success. It's not about doing it as cheaply as possible. That's nowhere in anybody's goals. It's about maximizing the skills that we want our students to have. biophilic design can absolutely help with that. Scott Lee: So, if I'm a teacher and I'm in one of those schools that was poorly designed, I've got no control over that a lot of times. Are there things that a teacher can do in their classroom, using biophilic design to help improve the classroom climate, achievement, all of those things that we want to do, even if I can't add more windows to, to my particular classroom or if I'm a principal to my particular school? Jim Determan: Absolutely and it just if you just take a look at our Green Street Academy experiment that was a renovation of an existing classroom. So, get rid of those opaque lines put in shades that are somewhat translucent that even when closed allow some soft light to come through and get those shades open because not only is daylight precious for improving test scores, but we know that view to nature is going to calm students, relax students, put them in a better frame of mind to be able to excel in what they're doing in the classroom. The thing about the posters on the wall, to me, this is the essence of biophilic design.  If Tom Albright were here, he would say, “think about the brain as an information processing system, and it's finite, and everything in the classroom that you see is statistical data, and you take that in. And the brain's got to process it and identify it. If you're covering your walls with all of these formulas and learning guides, etc., the student's brain is so busy trying to decode all of that stuff in its environment that it's got little capacity left to solve the complex problems presented by the teacher.” But if you think about creating an environment that is easy for the brain to facilitate, these images of nature, these patterns of nature are easy for the brain to facilitate because we've been doing it and recognizing those patterns from our earliest ancestors. We've got the ability, the capacity to do that because we have the neurons from the lucky survivors that were able to recognize these patterns. It helped them get food, shelter, and reproduction, right? So, use the patterns of biophilic design the shades are an important thing, the calming on the walls. I'm not saying don't put any teaching guides up, be targeted and be limited. Put, put elements of nature. And I recommend that everybody go take a look at the latest edition of the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design by Terrapin Bright Green, which is Bill's book, because it's got 15 different ideas of what you can do.  Bill Browning: So different experiences in nature. Right now, we've talked largely about visual experiences of nature. But also sound and scent and touch, right? All the other senses come into this. We've developed what's called a pattern language so these are different experiences in nature you can translate into the built environment. Some of them are direct experiences of nature, like seeing it or actually having a plant or animal in the classroom, right? So, an aquarium or a terrarium. And we find actually, like, a terrarium is more effective than, a small group of the same plants, just in individual pots. Those are nice. But if they're planted together in one plot, or in a, even better, in a small terrarium. For some reason we read that and look at that and say, “oh, look, there's a habitat. These things are living in a habitat, so there's a habitat here, so this must be a good place for me to be.” Other patterns we've talked about are indirect experiences of nature. So, like using fractal patterns and using biomorphic forms in that those are not direct experiences in nature, but they're indirect and the brain processes those in a beneficial way. Jim mentioned some of the spatial patterns and we have a series of spatial patterns. So, prospect, this unimpeded view through space is really good for perceptions of safety and navigation and wayfinding and opportunity. The couplet condition is refuge. So, this is where my back is protected and I may have some canopy overhead. That can be as simple as adding a high back chair into a space that you can go sit in when you need to withdraw for a little bit and

recalibrate.  Or you're seeing in many school designs and in the Bethel Hanbury School and, and many other places now window seats sort of a niche or a space that you can sit in, in a corridor, in a hallway. But your back is protected, your canopy overhead and if I can now see up and down throughout the space, I now have prospect and refuge together. And a great example of that, a case study we really love was a space designed by a friend of ours, Oliver Heath in the UK, in The Garden school in Hackney. They had an old storage room that they converted into a retreat space for children on the autism spectrum. And this is a school that has an amazing, curriculum and has a great playground that has a lot of nature experiences in it. But the scrum of the playground can be just overstimulating for kids on the spectrum. So, if I create a space and so this narrow room has windows out to the playground, but it has one long wall that has these sort of, almost looks like a honeycomb pattern in it and those hexagonal cells are spaces that kids can get into. They've got carpet all around them, and so they can withdraw into that and have this little refuge space, but can still see everything going on from in there. And then on the floor are carpet tiles that have biomorphic forms that are also fractals there's wallpaper on the wall on the solid wall in the back of the room that's, wallpaper of trees. And then there are wood columns that have basins in them with, someone has bark and others gravel and others pine cones natural materials that the kids can self-stimulate with. And so, the refuge in a classroom. Even if I can just add one or two, high back chairs so the kids can sort of nestle into and have that option of having a refuge space, that can make a huge difference. And the Bethel Hanbury School that Jim designed, there are window seats in a lot of the spaces. And in the post-occupancy research that was done by a team of researchers from Upper South Carolina University. What they found was the teachers reported that having those spaces help kids withdraw when they needed to, but greatly increased the rate of social environmental learning, among those students. And so really big success. You know, those are simple measures. Right. Those are simple measures that can either be part of the fixed permanent design of the school or can be movable and things that I insert.    Jim Determan: Before you go on, Scott, we have to talk about awe, which is the newest biophilic strategy, that I love, particularly for schools. Scott Lee: Yeah.  Jim Determan: I mean, awe, if you provide something that. That you've never seen before that is either by scale or, or by some other measure is just there's no other word but awesome. That is just, just gets a wow from students. Like, for example, at the Bethel Hanbury school, we provided a corner in the library. This is this tall glass cone with a tiered seating area in it and it just provides this huge panorama of the surrounding forest that encircles the school just gives you a grand view of it. And we used colored glass and we use biomorphic patterns hexagons that are kind of hanging up above and some special lighting and as soon as you walk into the library. You see this, you get that “Wow.”  And the kids want to go into that space, they want to look through the colored glass. It's like looking at the world through an artist's eye, but you have this awe element. We hope in every single school and awe it has, has been studied. It's been researched and Bill's going to help me, but I know some of the things that it does. Bill Browning: It makes you think about experience of awe. Generally, when we have conversations about awe, people think about, “oh, you know, I walk up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and I go, wow.” Right. Or into a great cathedral. You know, so those are very big experiences of awe, and what's going on when you're having that experience is that literally the, the medial prefrontal cortex is overloaded and the brain just has to hit the pause button and then you have to sort of recalibrate.  So, the, the scientific definition of an experience of awe is literally that an overwhelming. Experience that causes recalibration but I can do this in an even small scale and Frank Lloyd Wright did this quite a bit, he called it “compression and release” and you'll see it in his big buildings. You'll also see it in individual houses, so you come in, you enter the house and the ceiling is almost uncomfortably low and the, and the corridors, the hallways are kind of narrow. And his argument was, “why do I need a really big hallway? I'm just walking through it. Why waste the space?” Right? So you walk into that and then you usually have a turn or two, so it's an indirect path. And then you come around the corner and all of a sudden you come into the space that has this much higher ceiling. And a lot of times he's bringing light in so it almost looks like from the top of the wall. So, it almost looks like the roof is floating. And so the space isn't huge, but that contrast from those two experiences makes it just sort of explode around you. And so, you have that experience of awe, even on a small scale. Now, when we have that experience in the reset of the brain, it changes the way we behave. After we have an awe experience, we tend to be much more humble, much more charitable. You see all these sorts of examples of much better pro social behavior. So if I can create that awe experience, you see it a lot in library design in particular. But also sort of an entrance lobby. There are different ways of doing it. In a church, you don't just walk into the nave, usually. There's almost always the narthex, which is that transition space from the front doors, then into the nave, and the narthex is usually low and somewhat compressed. And so when you get into that space, you have that experience of awe you can, you can do that quite frequently, easily in schools as

well. And so that's the newest of our, of our patterns and the pattern language. It's one that we wanted to have in our original edition of 14 patterns of biophilic design that we published in 2014. But at the time, our main patron for our research and our writing was Google, and the rules with Google was if you don't have the science, you can't have the conversation. And at the time, we knew there was something going on there, but there wasn't enough science to actually explain it. And in the last 10 years, there's been a whole bunch of research on this, looking at the brain, looking at the physiological, looking at the psychological responses. And so, we've added the experience of awe into our patterns.  Jim Determan: There's a great quote from Abraham Joshua Heschel, that is “awe is the beginning of wisdom.” And so, we love that. We love that for a school. If you think about it, if you do take a look at the Grand Canyon and you're, you're just awed by it, what do you do? You go back and get on your iPad and start Googling, “how did this happen? What is the history? How did the Grand Canyon get created?” And you want to understand more about it. So, we think that this is an incredibly important strategy to have in schools.  Scott Lee: Mm hmm. That, that makes perfect sense to me so we'll definitely have a, link to each of your organizations on our website. Are there any other resources or places you'd like to suggest for people to learn more about biophilic design? Bill Browning: Well, go to Jim's website cdgarchitecture. com and then also the Terrapin Bright Green website. And so, you will find, I think now we're up to 12 or 13 different publications on biophilic design in there in multiple languages. You will find the Baltimore study. On the website, you will find 14 patterns of biophilic design. You'll find a new edition of the Economics of Biophilia that talks about the economic benefits of bringing biophilia into a variety of different settings, including educational. You'll find specific papers on fractals, on nature sound, on the presence of water so you can do as deep a dive as you want. And then, there's one additional resource that we have, is a book that, you can't download for free off the website, but it's from the Royal Institute of British Architects, a book called Nature Inside. A biophilic design guide that was commissioned by the Royal Institute of British architects and you can find that on Amazon or Rutledge or from the R. A. B. A. if  Jim Determan: you do go to our website, C. G. D. R. dot com. You're going to find the the 2 papers, the 2 published studies. One of the Green Street Academy study and the other is the paper. That's the assessment Bethel Hanbury after one year, occupancy in that, new school that had a lot of biophilic strategies. So, if you want to do a deeper dive, to me, what's really fascinating is to go to the end notes. Of the green street academy project because there you see All of the papers and all the scholarly works that really formed the basis for what we were doing And, that's to me the most fascinating of all.   Scott Lee: Thank you both for joining us today on the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast.  Jim Determan: We appreciate the opportunity to be able to continue to get the word out about how design matters, how design contributes to better learning and particularly about biophilic design.  Bill Browning: Thank you. Agreed. Yes, this is about making better lives for students and teachers.   Scott Lee: The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with schools and youth organizations strengthening learning cultures and developing more resilient youth, please visit our website at w w w dot oncoursesolutions dot net. Also, please follow me on social media, my handle on Instagram and Bluesky is @drrscottlee and on Mastodon @drrscottlee@universedon.com   This has been episode 3 of the 2025 season. If you enjoy this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about us, in person and on social media. Also, five-star reviews on your podcast app helps others find us. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is a production of Oncourse Education Solutions LLC, Scott Lee producer, a member of the PodNooga Network. Guests were not compensated for appearance, nor did guests pay to appear. Episode notes, links and transcripts are available at our website w w w dot thoughtfulteacherpodcast dot com. Theme music is composed and performed by Audio Coffee