Beyond Sustainability –Towards Restorative Interior Spaces through Biophilic Design

According to biology, humans are inherently interested in 
connecting with the natural environment physically, 
psychologically, and spiritually, which is known as the “biophilia 
hypothesis”. However, with the increasing of urban 
constructions, they not only caused severely environmental 
impact, but also isolated us from the nature.
Although the current sustainable design and development
movement has confessed the need for change in building and
design, it mainly emphasizes a green building standards and low 
environmental impact approach as well as it has made progress 
towards avoiding our damage impact and achieve a balance 
between built and natural environment, but this does not 
guarantee that the building environment is enjoyable and 
satisfactory. However, when sustainable design is execute 
independently, 
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
ADVANCED RESEARCH ON PLANNING AND 
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 
ISSN: 2735-5403 VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2, 2021, 8 – 44.
www.egyptfuture.org
/ojs/
8
it discards generally the significance of realizing long-term 
sustainability and fails to achieve the goal of restoring the human 
relationship with nature and establishing place-attachment within
the built environment in a mutually beneficial manner.
Therefore, a new concept of sustainability was needed to include 
the reciprocal relationship between man and the environment,
which is known as Restorative Environmental Design (RED).
RED is a building design paradigm combining sustainable
building practices with building practices that benefit occupant 
health and helping to re-establish the human- nature connection.
It is a further step than just sustainable construction through: 
Biophilic design for the occupants, green building methods for 
the building. Biophilic design as a new movement, has recently 
obtained much momentum within the building field, which 
provide restoring valuable contacts between people and natural 
environment. While the green movement has often focused on 
the means, biophilic design tends to emphasize the end results, 
promotion natural-based habitats for humans to live and work. It 
considers that true sustainability must contain quality of life case 
cover human physiological & psychological- health and wellbeing and incorporates green building ideas, so biophilic design 
combines elements derived from nature in order to maximize 
human functioning and health. Recognizing the need for 
restorative environments in urban settings where nature has been 
severely withdrawn from interiors and architecture, this paper 
underlines the limits of Sustainable concept and looks at 
Biophilic and Restorative Design, two emerging concepts that 
appear to have a more appropriate solutions to the environmental 
& humanity problems that we face today and in the future. This 
paper will give an overview of each concept and design 
framework, trying to interpret the way they operate and how to
use them in the formulation of internal spaces.