Common sense is often a curious predictor of the truth; it causes us to suspect something is true long before science proves it to be so. Einstein understood this. So did Thoreau, Jung and Wright. They all believed that an important connection existed -- beyond learning, beyond culture -- between the natural world and human beings. Their theories, some proven and some still debated, began with their own experiences and observations, and grew into concepts that have changed our views of life. Today, a growing number of scientists, educators, architects, designers and environmental thinkers are working from that same source of common sense, producing theories and scientific evidence that could be the most significant body of knowledge the design profession will consider in the next few years.

This body of knowledge yields a compelling, if controversial, premise: that human beings have an innate or hereditary need to experience and affiliate with nature, and this need for nature is an important determinant of our requirements for and responses to our environments.

If true, this need for nature premise raises compelling questions. If we need to experience and affiliate with nature to be fully human, can we really be happy in an artificial world set apart from nature? Can technology and our artificial environments provide the quality of complexity, beauty, mystery, awe, knowledge and emotions we innately need and have always received from natural environments?

Not likely, according to Dr. David W. Orr, chairman of environmental studies at Oberlin College. He cautions, "If we complete the destruction of nature, we will have succeeded in cutting ourselves off from the source of sanity itself." Orr's bold assertion sounds like common sense, but it is supported also by his research and that of other scientists. Their findings give new perspective and urgency to environmental protection and ecologically sensitive design. The message is: we must preserve and use well the natural environment not only for the continued physical survival of the planet but also for the continued psychological well-being of the human race. When we design with ecological responsibility and an understanding of the reciprocity between humans and nature, we may actually increase the capacity of the environment to enrich the human experience.

Social ecologist and Yale University professor Stephen R. Kellert agrees. "The conservation of nature is rationalized . . . not just in terms of its material and commodity benefits, but far more significantly for the increased likelihood of fulfilling a variety of emotional, cognitive and spiritual needs in the human animal," he says.

A Link Between Nature and Built Environments
The "need for nature" premise could provide the most powerful rationale yet for conserving what is left of nature, identifying the qualities of nature that promote physical and psychological well-being and reintroducing as much of them as possible to the design of our environments.

The premise views the value of the natural world in terms of both its psychological and physiological benefits. It proposes that the experience of nature -- our intrinsic sensations, perceptions and awareness of ourselves in relationship to our natural surroundings -- may foster improved knowledge and cognitive capacities, enhanced physical skills and creativity and greater awareness and aesthetic experiences. These experiences forge a link between personal identity and nature, according to Stephen Kellert. He writes, "Much of the human search for a coherent and fulfilling existence is intimately dependent upon our relationship to nature."

Professor Kellert's views reflect his contributions to a revolutionary concept advanced in 1984 by evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson. The concept is termed biophilia and it literally means "love of life."

The biophilia hypothesis proposes a genetic basis for our need for nature, what Wilson, professor of science at Harvard, calls "the urge to affiliate with other forms of life." It holds that over the hundreds of thousands of years during which humans lived intimately in nature -- interacting with and learning from the diversity of life -- we developed a deep genetically-based emotional need to experience and affiliate with the rest of the living world. Wilson calls this need a part of our "ultimate human nature," a hereditary trait formed when our survival and well-being depended upon how effectively we learned from and coped with the only environment we had: nature.

Wilson and Kellert, together with 18 other scholars and scientists, including David Orr, contributed their multidisciplinary views on the concept of biophilia to an extraordinary book published in 1993 entitled The Biophilia Hypothesis. The result is a coherent explanation and examination of the evidence and implications of biophilia, and some of the most important arguments to date for the preservation of the natural environment.

According to the biophilia hypothesis, the ability of our early ancestors to recognize characteristics in the natural environment which offered survival advantages had an additional benefit: It elicited positive emotional responses such as fascination, inspiration, attraction, self- confidence, aesthetics and meaning. And equally important (because they sharpened our self-preservation skills), characteristics which posed a threat to survival were accompanied by negative emotional responses including fear, aversion, anxiety and avoidance.

The biophilia hypothesis also maintains that non-threatening natural settings enhanced positive emotional states because they were restorative. They promoted recovery from fatigue and stress and provided a "breather" to recharge physical energies. This, in turn, enabled humans to better focus upon the business of survival.

Based, in part, upon research conducted by professors Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, the hypothesis asserts that the restorative qualities of natural environments include the ability to redirect attention, provide safety and the perception of competence, and evoke fascination and a sense of connectedness. These qualities are part of the "natural aesthetics" inherent in the natural environment, qualities which determine, in part, our preference for these settings.

In addition, the positive emotional states associated with these natural settings enhanced the opportunity and capacity for creative thinking and problem solving. Our myths, morals, ethics, symbols and speech all arose from emotions experienced in natural environments. "Elemental things like flowing water, wind, trees, clouds, rain, mist, mountains, landscape, animals, changing seasons, the night sky and the mysteries of life gave birth to thought and language," Orr explains. Because these and other emotions and skills were formed originally through our constant interaction with the natural environment, it is reasonable to conclude, based upon research, that nature would continue today to exert a powerful influence upon our emotional and physical development and health. The biophilia response -- an innate affinity for the rest of the living world -- appears essential to the full development of a wide range of human characteristics and potential.

But what happens to these genetically-based traits in a built environment? They become fragile, according to the hypothesis. We need to experience nature early and often in order for the biophilia characteristics to be fully expressed. And the opportunity to do both diminishes daily. "If by some fairly young age . . . nature has not been experienced as a friendly place of adventure and excitement, biophilia will not take hold as it might have," Orr writes. "An opportunity will have passed and thereafter the mind will lack some critical dimension of perception and imagination."

The Consequences of an Artificial World
A significant consequence of limited interaction with the world is "biophobia," a fear or strongly negative response to nature. According to Orr, "Biophobia sets in motion a vicious cycle that tends to cause people to act in a fashion that undermines the integrity, beauty and harmony of nature -- creating the very conditions that make the dislike of nature more probable." In essence, we will not save what we do not love; and we cannot love what we do not understand.

Living almost exclusively in a world set apart from nature, humans now face an "extinction of experience" -- the loss of direct, personal contact with nature. Replacing this direct experience with vicarious sources such as television and virtual reality does not give us the deep-level, emotional experiences and understanding we crave. Artificial sources simply do not provide the complexity of information, the sense of connectedness, or the "natural aesthetics" found in nature. Wilson puts it this way: "People can grow up with the outward appearance of normality in an environment largely stripped of plants and animals . . . yet something vitally important would be missing, not merely the knowledge and pleasure that can be imagined and might have been, but a wide array of experiences that the human brain is peculiarly equipped to receive." Wilson's concern is that we may have discovered this essential fact too late. He believes we must examine and consider seriously the deeper consequences of living in an artificial world. "The natural environment is disappearing," he says, and the question we should be asking is, "What . . . will happen to the human psyche when such a defining part of human evolutionary experience is diminished or erased?"

It is a question we cannot afford not to ask because, quite simply and above all, we are a species that builds. It is what we do and we're not likely to stop -- for any reason. But when humans build, however benign the intention, we change the world. And that act separates us from all other life, both figuratively and literally. It is now estimated that by the year 2025, more than five billion people will live in cities -- in some form of built environment. This trend poses a tremendous challenge for those charged with designing and building the world in which so many will live.

The Value of Nature
Perhaps the problem is we still live in a culture that views ecology as antithetical to economy. Nature is a commodity first, a place we visit second and an integral part of who we are last. The mutual exclusively between economic concerns and environmental quality-of-life issues has to be resolved before the ecological message can become mainstream and before the intangible benefits of nature can be truly valued. The need for nature premise may provide that resolution.

This is not just another "romantic idealization of nature" movement, say the scientists and professionals whose work forms the foundation of the need for nature premise. Although it may validate many ideas expressed by the "romantic" poets, artists and philosophers of the late 18th century -- particularly their vision of nature as restorative, interdependent and even spiritual -- the need for nature premise reaches much deeper. It proposes to alter our fundamental understanding of the value of nature by redefining the reciprocity between human beings and the natural environment.

The scientists also are quick to point out that the research is still in its early stages. The findings are compelling but incomplete. Further inquiry is necessary. Hopefully, some of that inquiry will come from the ranks of the design discipline. Architects and designers have long held that the design of the built environment can have profound effects upon human attitudes, behaviors and physical and emotional well-being. And it now appears that this phenomenon is grounded, at least in part, in our relationship with the diversity of life around us.

Today, it is impossible to look to the future of any profession without considering its role in the larger context of society and the planet. Survival is now recognized as an interrelated concept involving all species, all resources and all activities undertaken by all humans. And survival of the design profession is most uniquely tied to this concept of interrelatedness.

For the discipline of design to survive, society must recognize design as essential to survival -- of humanity and of the planet. An expanded knowledge base enabling design to better address global and societal issues and needs is central to this recognition, and that knowledge base must include an understanding of the reciprocity between human beings and the natural world. Architect William McDonough, whose work embodies this understanding of reciprocity, calls for "humanity to find and accept its place in the world, mediated between human and natural purposes."

However, for this to be accomplished, the environment, both natural and built, must be viewed as a seamless whole, not as separate, mutually exclusive "choices." The research, theories and hypothesis behind the need for natural premise must be tested, interpreted and translated into solutions that make both ecological and economical sense.

Much of this work requires the leadership of the design profession. It begins by asking the question, "Is it possible to identify the characteristics of the natural environment that promote physical and psychological well-being and to reintroduce at least some of these to our lives through design? Part two of this article will examine the answers to this question.

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