Stephen Kellert, a professor at Yale University’s School of Environmental Studies, had been asked by a retirement community to study whether the ponds, waterfalls, trees, gardens, and other elements of “biophilic” design throughout the 52-acre facility were beneficial to the elderly residents, perhaps improving their cognitive function, stress levels, or other physiological measures, and whether additional biophilic elements should be introduced.
You would think conducting a study like this would be fairly unremarkable, except for one thing. More than 30 years after Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson popularized the term biophilia in a 1984 book, it remains ill-defined, controversial, and short of rigorous empirical support—yet practical applications of it have spread like kudzu. Researchers such as Kellert, a leading exponent of biophilia, are left to run after the schools, corporate…
