Metropolitan life imposes psychological and health pressures on its residents. Unavoidable crowds, narrow spaces, the pace of life, and air and visual pollution cause a remarkable decline in people's satisfaction and well-being. With rapid urbanization, city dwellers have lost touch with nature. Urban buildings are sealed against the outdoors, resulting in closed internal spaces devoid of quality air, natural light, and green spaces, which all negatively impact human behavior and welfare. Improvement efforts involve creating opportunities for escape and establishing a relationship between humans, nature, and interior spaces in urban landscapes. Incorporating natural ventilation, passive shading, programmatic orientation, shading devices, and features like an evaporative pool and green elements aims to design captivating interiors that encourage reevaluating the connection between urban living and the environment. This thesis seeks to create compelling environments that promote ecological sustainability, support the biophilia hypothesis, and offer social opportunities in urban settings. The ultimate goal is to design livable places that enhance well-being, foster a harmonious coexistence between humans and their urban surroundings, and promote a sustainable and fulfilling urban lifestyle.

Clinical healthcare settings now place an emphasis on restorative and healing environments as a desired mode to curative care. This can be achieved through the incorporation of three foundational principles which promote healing within curative environments. The three foundational principles to achieve this include human connection to nature, place identity, and user-controlled experience. To successfully create curative and healing environments that help supplement conventional approaches to medicine, healing, and human well-being, is the direction I have explored in my Interior Design thesis. My thesis aims to define the opportunities behind creating a patient centric and patient controlled environment that promotes holistic approaches to medicine by bridging the gap between conventional medicine and alternative therapies. This investigation seeks to promote a curated and self-guided journey for both the patient and their support teams while carefully considering the treatment paths that each patient experiences. It is my goal to embrace the human connection to nature and the utilization of patient-controlled experiences to create a positive journey to healing.

Accompaniment is a way of being with people and nature that fosters joy and interdependence. It is a reminder that people and nature are not separated, and people are part of nature, where people and nature continuously interact and promote one another. My thesis focuses on the ways to achieve this concept in a built environment by addressing nature as a member of our community. In this community, cultural diversity and biodiversity is valued and associated with the place’s distinctive identity. What makes this Nature-Human Community Center special is the unique integration of culture with nature. The space encourages nurturing the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature through continuous exposure to self-education and activities involving art and nature in the ecological and sensory rich environment. This is to promote a close human-nature connection for a better understanding of sustainable culture and community. This holistic design focuses on the community space enriching the interdependent relationship between humanity and nature.

Our physical environment affects our ability to function on a cognitive level. From sensory stimulation to light levels to a space’s ability to support a sense of community, our physical environment can either support our cognitive wellness or cause it to deteriorate. As we continue to scientifically advance as a species, or face more challenges of severe climate change, the rate at which we explore and encounter these extreme environments will continue to increase. This increase highlights the importance of understanding how to build and design environments that support people at the highest possible level. Whether it be space, the ocean floor, severely changed climates or, in the case of my thesis, the harshest land climate on our planet, the Antarctic, I believe designers have a unique opportunity to create spaces that allow people to not just simply survive, but to thrive. My thesis will explore how design can utilize research to create physical habitations that support cognitive function in one of the most extreme environments on our planet, Antarctica.

Is a life without anxiety possible? Many of us have grown accustomed to waking, working, and sleeping amidst anxiety. How can we shift from a constant state of anxiety to one where we occasionally experience anxiety but are mostly happy? Achieving a life without anxiety is possible when we liberate ourselves from the compulsive pursuit of specific goals and the sense of belonging they offer. It is important to understand who we are, cultivate a consistent sense of peace, and build genuine self-confidence. Nature plays a therapeutic role in promoting mental health by reducing activation in the amygdala, the stress-related brain area, and preventing mental disorders like anxiety and depression. My thesis will explore the possibility of a less anxious life by leveraging the therapeutic effects of natural environments and practices such as yoga and meditation. It will delve into how architecture, when embedded in the natural environment, can foster a closer bond between individuals and nature. This bond, supplemented by mindfulness practices, can alleviate anxiety, improve psychological well-being, enhance self-esteem and self-efficacy, and ultimately increase our happiness index, leading to a peaceful return to daily life.

Humans have an innate biological response to nature. Elements within nature have helped our species survive and evolve to where we are today. Our need to affiliate with nature is ingrained in our genetic makeup. Nature, being as complex as it is, is made up of more elements than we may initially realize. There are 26 elements in biophilia that have been studied and proven to create physical, psychological, and physiological responses for humans. In our modern world, humans spend over 90% of their lifetime indoors. The goal of my thesis project is to create an elegant model living environment that incorporates the 26 elements of biophilic design. More specifically, I would like to design a residence that brings the outdoors in to evoke our innate response to nature.

In today’s fast-paced world, stress has become a major concern, especially for people living in urban areas. The hectic pace of life, the constant stimulation and the limited access to nature can all contribute to stress and its negative effects on health and well-being. While urban green spaces have been recognized as potential solutions, access to these much-needed environments is limited due to scarcity of free space. Furthermore, existing green spaces often fall short of providing the needed restoration as they primarily cater to visual stimulation, neglecting other senses.

Building on this need for better restorative environments in cities, my thesis aims to design a space that renders a slow and sensory experience through a gradual progression into the building providing an escape from the fast-paced urban environment. The goal of my thesis is to create a restorative built environment, incorporating biophilic design principles with emphasis on multisensory and contemplative design, that fosters stress relief and supports wellbeing by inviting its occupants to relax, rejuvenate, and unwind.

This thesis proposes a blending of built and natural environments in the urban fabric. The design blends both physical elements and features as well as social relationships between people. Blending is a way of thinking about the shared experience of the city, incorporating people, landscape, and the built environment.

Connecting with nature provides physical and mental health benefits, yet current nursing home design does not make the natural world a priority. By using biophilic design strategies it is possible to incorporate many of the health benefits provided by nature. This thesis reinvents the nursing home interior to create a more holistic and healthy environment for all its residents.

While the benefits of access to nature for humans are well studied, our built environment instead tends to exploit and poison natural ecosystems. Regenerative design offers a solution by incorporating whole-systems thinking to restore, renew, and revitalize the resources and processes of our environment. This thesis utilizes regenerative design to create an Environmental Education Center that is beneficial to all stakeholders, especially the natural ecosystems in which a building lives.

Humans have an intrinsic psychological need to connect with nature and the natural environment. Architecture is created when humans build in response to the environment around them, and continuous creation of architecture creates the built environment. The treehouse, which is created in response to the environment of trees, is built for the interaction with and/or appreciation of the natural environment. The experience of being in a treehouse brings one to a deeper and more personal connection with nature.

The current segregation of living and non-living systems, especially in our cities, has had devastating effects on both humans and the environment. With biotecture, the synthesis of biology and architecture, we can design a brighter future, in which our philosophical understanding of the ‘natural environment’ incorporates architecture as an integrated constituent.

The definition of Oasis is “a fertile or green area in an arid region (such as a desert).” Translating the concept of an Oasis into a built urban setting, means creating a space in the center of a developed city where people can unwind, get away, restore themselves and feel at peace with nature, while being environmentally responsible.

Isolation and disconnect in cities and neighborhoods has been shown to decrease community engagement and cause a rippling effect that contributes to communities' economic instability, social issues, and environmental challenges. How can public community spaces bring people together to strengthen social bonds, encourage civic engagement, and promote the wellbeing and overall sustainability of neighborhoods?

Urbanization requires adaptation to population density and embrace of associated housing typologies, including vertical living that is cost-efficient, sustainable, resilient, and inclusive.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.