How Do We Build Resilient Communities For The Future?

Monica Olsen (0s):
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Monica Olsen (28s):
Hey Jennifer.

Jennifer Walsh (29s):
Hi Monica.

Monica Olsen (30s):
Hi everybody. And welcome to the very first episode of Biophilic Solutions. Before we dive in, I think maybe we should talk about this word "biophilia". It's kind of a mouthful and most people have never heard of it. What do you think, Jennifer?

Jennifer Walsh (44s):
Totally. It's not the most beautiful word, but the idea behind it is super beautiful. I mean, basically, biophilia refers to this very human desire to connect with nature. And so much of that connection has been lost in modern times. It's so good for our mental and physical health to connect with nature and feel like we are part of nature. And that simple idea is at the forefront of new thinking about design, urban planning, mental health, and the conversation around climate change and protecting the earth.

Monica Olsen (1m 10s):
So biophilia is a simple idea, but maybe also super broad?

Jennifer Walsh (1m 15s):
Totally. And our conversation today is about biophilic communities and what that looks like and how are we can advocate for biophilic land planning in our own communities.

Monica Olsen (1m 24s):
Especially thinking about our experiences with COVID and the possibility of future pandemics, we need more communities that are resilient and forward-thinking, it's more important than ever.

Jennifer Walsh (1m 34s):
Absolutely. And to your point, today we're talking to Dr. Phill Tabb, a land planner, architect and scholar who is at the forefront of the biophilic movement for nearly 20 years. Dr. Tabb is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Texas A&M and the author of multiple publications on topics such as solar energy, green architecture, and sustainable urban design.

Monica Olsen (1m 54s):
His most recent work is the book Biophilic Urbanism, which we're going to dive into today. He talks about nature based urban environments that are climate positive, sustainable and healthy. Dr. Tabb is also the lead land planner for the biophilic community of Serenbe, which is located just outside of Atlanta where- spoiler alert- Phill and I both live.

Jennifer Walsh (2m 13s):
So without further ado, let's get into our interview with Dr. Phill Tabb.

Monica Olsen (2m 21s):
Welcome Phil.

Phill Tabb (2m 24s):
Oh do I talk now?

Monica Olsen (2m 26s):
Yeah, how are you? Welcome to the podcast. You're our inaugural episode.

Phill Tabb (2m 30s):
Alright. Well, to start off for me, biophilia is a set of relationships between nature, human beings, and the environment, and each of those interact with one another. In other words, the environment has an impact on nature as does nature have an impact on the environment. And nature has an impact on humans as do humans have an impact on nature. And finally humans have an impact on the environment as the environment has an impact on humans. So there's those the six components that comprise in a way, the function of Biophilia.

Monica Olsen (3m 9s):
Okay, I'm going to have to get a chart for that and, and figure that whole thing out, but it sounds like it, so basically we are all affecting each other and we have to be really thoughtful and aware of those interconnections. Tell me about biophilia a little bit. Like when did you stumble across it? Is this been something in your work forever or is this something new to you?

Phill Tabb (3m 31s):
Yes and no. I grew up in Southeast Idaho, which is one of the more beautiful places in America. And I thought that everywhere was full of nature. You know, we are right next to the Rocky mountains, Yellowstone national park, the Tetons and so on. And so I've always had a close connection to nature. But specifically with biophilia, I think my first interaction with the term was with a guy by the name of Pliny Fisk, who is a sustainable planner and landscape architect from Austin, Texas. And he went to the University of Pennsylvania and the 1960s when Louis Kahn and Ian McHarg were teaching there.

Phill Tabb (4m 13s):
And Ian McHarg wrote the book Designed with Nature in 1970. I got his book back then. This was, this was the actual book that... So I mean back to 19 or early 1970s Designed with Nature. And he's not really credited too much with biophilia, but I think the, his concept certainly is a component of biophilia.

Monica Olsen (4m 41s):
And did he talk about cities and bringing nature into cities or was he just talking about it in general?

Phill Tabb (4m 48s):
He was talking more, I think in general, but as a concept that affects, you know, all scales of design. And he has a center outside of Austin, Texas, and he primarily started by focusing on sustainability, but then expanded into all of the elements of water collection and solar and so on, and then moved into Biophilia. I was a department head in 2004 and I hired him at Texas A&M. So that's why I got to know planning well, and, and of course working with Serenbe and the early stages of the Biophilic Institute, I had groups of students here from Texas A&M that were living as part of the study away program.

Phill Tabb (5m 31s):
And we actually looked at biophilia among other things here at Serenbe. So that was another sort of, one of my introductions to biophilia. And of course, being on the board of the Biophilic Institute here at Serenbe has allowed me to interact with a lot of really world renowned people in the field.

Jennifer Walsh (5m 51s):
What year did you move to Serenbe, Phill? 

Phill Tabb (5m 53s):
Well, I built my house in 15 and 16, and then I moved here in the summer of, or the late spring of 2017.

Jennifer Walsh (6m 3s):
When you did move to Serenbe, did it kind of change your vision of how you saw biophilic design or how you want to intend it to look for yourself? 

Phill Tabb (6m 10s):
No, I had already ideas about that. Cause I, you know, I started planning Serenbe in 2001. And this was before the biophilia really was a very common term, although Wilson's book in 84, I believe, and Kellert's book came out and the eighties Kaplan and Kaplan came out and 89, these are all books that were early, early academic writings on Biophilia by non-designers, but oriented towards designers. And it wasn't until I would say 2010 ish and on, did it really begin to infiltrate the design world. 

Jennifer Walsh (6m 51s): 
Interesting. 

Phill Tabb (6m 53s):
Terrapin Bright Green's 14 patterns had a huge influence, even though it was not a book, it was an online PDF that got circulated quite a bit. And it was one of the first, I guess, examples of, you know, what the design guides of what to do, and really nothing had come out since then. I think it was 2014 when that book came out, that was six years ago.

Monica Olsen (7m 15s):
Yeah that's not very long ago. Wow. Do you feel, so are people, are, is it being taught at universities and colleges is biophilia being taught like as a, as a true class or sort of industry? 

Phill Tabb (7m 26s):
I don't really see it as an industry. I see it as a focus field. It's not taught to my knowledge as a full course, you know, biophilia 101, but it is taught within the other courses. I know at Texas A&M we have a, an environment and behavior class that, that brings up biophilia as a component of that. And the sustainability course that I taught at Texas A&M also brought up biophilia as a component of a sustainability. 

Monica Olsen (7m 55s): 
Interesting.

Jennifer Walsh (7m 57s):
You think that would be taught though in the future?

Phill Tabb (7m 59s):
Could be. One of the reasons I got more seriously involved in biophilia is what I was looking for. Always looking for umbrellas that are bigger than the smaller umbrellas. So I'm always looking for the big one, of course. And in my world, I started off with solar energy and then it went to renewable energy and, and then it went to the sustainability. And, and finally I think biophilia and the thing that I like about biophilia is that it encompasses a lot of other tangential areas, such as placemaking and the spiritual component too, the environment, health and wellness, of course, and I think climate neutrality. So in my book, I point out those, I think five outcomes, which makes the book a little bit and unique to what's been written before, because most of the previous books focus on health and wellness as the, the major outcome of biophilia. My book, I really felt that mitigating climate change, creating more sustainable environments, creating placemaking, especially from the social point of view, and health and wellness, of course, and, and finally, the numinous, which is our emotional and spiritual relationship to the unknown or to the spirit.

Phill Tabb (9m 11s):
So a lot of those seem to be components that, that were important. 

Monica Olsen (9m 14s):
Talk about, you know, biophilic cities or Biophilic Urbanism, you know, you've talked about sort of what biophilia is, but like what is a Biophilic urban space look like?

Phill Tabb (9m 32s):
I mean, that's a good question. And even though as an architect I'm very visual, it's not how it looks to me that's important. It's how it functions on all these different levels, you know, like the five outcomes. And in fact, at any scale, you know, at what scale can you begin to deal with climate neutrality? What scale, you know, all, and in fact, you can find out that on all those scales, you can deal with all those outcomes, but they're a little bit different. The scale has a way of creating a difference. For example, at the community and urban scale, design elements such as infrastructure become more important than

Phill Tabb (10m 13s):
Let's say the Biophilia of a single room in a house. So as you move up scale, you begin to get into bigger, more systemic ways of dealing with Biophilia. <inaudible> resilience. I think for me, the, the, the most basic component of resilience is the idea of survival advantage. When biophilia first came into, at least this is what a lot of the early academics on biophilia began to say, is that during the savanna hypothesis period, which was about 1.8 million years ago, when we became bipedal that along with that became a certain kind of self-awareness and consciousness that lead to this notion of Biophilia, the love of nature.

Phill Tabb (11m 2s):
And in addition to that, we began to evolve from, let's say the forested areas, which were affected by climate change and what they call the, the, the arid hypothesis into the savannas. And so what makes us resilient is our ability to find the survival advantages in certain settings. And fast forward to today, and look at COVID for example, where is it safe to be a, to exist in it and a COVID laden environment. And that's part of our survival advantage is finding those places. And of course, I think Serenbe is a community that goes to that.

Monica Olsen (11m 44s):
Sure, I personally of course love that you say that, but my first thought is like, what is safe is the outside, right? Or hearing so much, like if you're outside, it's safer, they still require masks still six feet, but like, you know, have your gathering outside, or if you're going to get together with people, get together outside. You know, I, I think so many places, you know, Jennifer's in New York and obviously I'm down here and sort of the country we, you Phil and I we're in the country and outside of Atlanta, you know, it's easier to get outside in different places, but talk about, you know, cities, that's where the majority of people live and/or individuals in the suburbs that just don't have access to a trail head or a park.

Monica Olsen (12m 26s):
What are the opportunities to change that? Like who's doing the work or how do we change that placemaking our environment?

Phill Tabb (12m 34s):
You know, that's a really difficult question because you know, the, the past political environments have been such that you can't do anything, let alone change for Biophilia. So, I mean, we have a huge inventory of existing buildings and cities and street's and so on and the technologies that support those. To begin to change all of them worldwide is unbelievable. We're talking about centuries of work. Most of us live in the present. So what does it I can do today? And if you're an individual, there are a lot of things that you can do in the home.

Phill Tabb (13m 16s):
And you can also begin to support your community making some changes. And to some degree through the political processes generally, you can affect what can happen in cities. But one thing that's seems to be happening is the migration.

Jennifer Walsh (13m 31s):
Absolutely.

Phill Tabb (13m 33s):
And there is a migration because of COVID out of cities. And that leads me to think that, and because of the way the work situation has worked for many people, my son and daughter-in-law had been working at home for nine months and will do so for another nine months. So not new, but not all jobs allow that, but that's beginning to change the work landscape. And also because of that work landscape is beginning to change is beginning to change the necessity for really highly dense cities. A professor at my Washington state university used to ask his, ah, students- this was the structural professor-

Phill Tabb (14m 17s):
What was the single most important technology that allowed for the evolution of the high rise building? 

Monica Olsen (14m 24s):
Oh, interesting. What was that? 

Phill Tabb (14m 28s): 
Well, a lot of people said, well, was it creating the air conditioning systems? Was it the elevator? Was it a curtain wall skins that go on to high rise buildings? Anyway, his, his hit was the single most important technology was the telephone because it allowed people to be able to work way up in the air and connect to everybody. So I think in this day and age, especially with the internet and zoom and so on, you can see how important that is.

Phill Tabb (15m 06s):
And of course, you know, to do zooming and, and telephoning and texting does not, you do not need to be in the high rise building and do that.

Jennifer Walsh (15m 14s):
I know that feeling now that I'm like, I know you said you, I live in New York city, but right now I'm recording this up in the Catskills. And when you were saying that the, the plight of people leaving and just everyone taking off from cities, I, everyone appeared the homes are they're gone because everyone moved from New York to live here in the Catskills area. And it's a beautiful place to reside, but I understand it's just that, that mentality of everyone's got to, got to get out, I need, I need to breathe. I need more space. I need some solace in the woods, but we can definitely feel that for sure.

Phill Tabb (15m 42s):
Now the flip side of the argument is, well, what do we do with cities? I think, you know, a hundred years ago when we had pandemics and even before that, city planning was highly influenced by, by the diseases and that's where parks and tree-lined streets come in and, and those are things that can happen, even pedestrianization can happen. And those particular moves have been seen to be very beneficial and to actually reverse the migration tenancies back into city centers. onto the bear day. Punta Verde in Spain is a good example. In 2000, actually 1999, they decided to get rid of the car and the historic area, the, of the city.

Phill Tabb (16m 28s):
And sense that time population has increased. There's more a percentage of families with children. There's only been one or two automobile deaths within the, within the last 20 years. Of course, CO2 levels have really gone down and so on. So, I mean, that's something that I'm beginning to see that happening more and more throughout the world and getting rid of the automobile in downtown. 

Monica Olsen (16m 51s):
Yeah, and you're seeing that in, right, San Francisco, London, obviously New York with either Time Square or Harold Square. And, and I, and even in Atlanta, I think the BeltLine is an interesting example. High Line in New York would be another example. But we moved to Atlanta, oh gosh, 20 years ago and no BeltLine. It was just an idea and Ryan Gravel's head and, you know, nobody, I didn't feel like Atlanta was a very outdoorsy place, but they built something that got people outdoors. It, you know, drove them to this BeltLine that then, you know, a ton of infrastructure, apartments, restaurants, and everything along it, and connected all these neighborhoods.

Monica Olsen (17m 31s):
And now, you know, Piedmont park, which is the central park in the middle of the city, which is connected to the BeltLine, I mean, it's, you can barely get on the, you can barely walk the BeltLine, it's so busy. And so there is a bit of the, if we build it or, you know, we don't even know what we need. And I think biophilia is a big thing to me at least is like, we don't, we don't, I, when I first heard it, I don't know what that is. But now that I understand that, it's just like, it seems like it's everything. So how do you feel like, you know, your book just came out, obviously you've been working in the industry for a while or the, sorry, the field, but what, what's your thought about scaling it and, and how this book will help or what do people need to do?

Monica Olsen (18m 16s):
I mean, we, obviously we can do things in individually, but I'm a big advocate that we need to, you know, push the people who really have the power to make changes. What, what can we do and what are you seeing about scalability?

Phill Tabb (18m 32s):
Well, the scalability is ultimately what we need to have happen. And not only, I mean, Tim Beatley's books on biophilic cities talks about, I think, five different scales: room, architecture street, block, community, and region. Ultimately it's going to have to be the whole planet. Right? And that that's going to be a huge challenge planning to get to that scale. You know, if you take the five outcomes and maybe there are more outcomes and those five; climate neutrality, sustainability, placemaking, health and wellness, and the numinous.

Jennifer Walsh (19m 6s):
By the way, just a reminder to everyone listening, numinous refers to the spiritual aspect of biophilic design. It's one of the positive outcomes. 

Phill Tabb (19m 14s):
If you take those and begin to scale them, you'll see that they scale slight- in slightly different ways. And sometimes there's actual contradictions when you start to scale them. For example, density is a good, sustainable strategy, it creates more efficiency. But density also begins to create difficulties for solar access. So low density is better for solar access. High density is better for efficiency. You have these contradictions, and as you move up and down the scale, you're going to find out that you have similar contradictions, but we're going to have more similarities. For example, you can have a plant in your room, you can plant trees and your garden.

Phill Tabb (19m 56s):
You can plant trees along the street. You can create a pocket park in your neighborhood. You can create a large park and tree-lined streets and edible plants in your community. And within your region, you can begin to plan around ecological flows. So these are all things that we can begin to do as you begin to up the scale. And it is really important to, to think in a scalar way, I think because it's more comprehensive. It's one thing to put a plant in your room and that's good, right? But you're not going to solve all of the problems or the world by putting the plant there. 

Jennifer Walsh (20m 34s):
So true. Actually, can you speak to that because I know you talked about the home, so what do people just trying to understand what does biophilia mean to my home? And what can I do and my own home to be more biophilic or be better planners for, you know, even for, to teach our own children? How do we think about that first?

Phill Tabb (20m 50s):
Well, if you look at the biophilic patterns, and Stephen Kellert had 72 patterns, and then later he and Liz Calabrese reduced that down to 25. Terrapin Bright Green had initially 14 patterns and they've added awe as the 15th. 

Jennifer Walsh (21m 8s): 
Love that. 

Phill Tabb (21m 10s): 
In my book on the serene urbanism I had 20 place-making patterns and in this new book on Biophilic Urbanism, I have 25 patterns and there's a lot of crossover on these patterns. So for example, if you were to look at the 25 patterns and go through that list and say, okay, what can I do in my own home relative to those patterns? Then you can begin answering the question.

Phill Tabb (21m 32s):
For example, the third or the second pattern is our relationship to the animal kingdom. So get a bird, or a cat or a dog, or if you're fortunate enough to live in a place like Serenbe, we have 123 different bird species here. So wake up in the morning and go out and listen to the birds. I mean, by that is a biophilic function. That's just the second one. And then of course, there's relationship to nature to the, the, the plant kingdom, which planning and having the, the potted plant and your room would do essential experiences, you know, opening up all the senses is going to create, let's say, greater healing and potential for greater healing.

Phill Tabb (22m 16s):
And of course, walking around Serenbe and places like Serenbe, if you walk by the Daisy you can smell the food being prepared, you can hear sounds of bells ringing and so on. So all of the senses get activated. So I think that that's an important one, of course, prospect and refuge is another one. And that's an interesting one that exists on, on both the house scale and community scale. The omega shapes in Serenbe are ideal prospect and refuge planning shapes, because you have the prospect of looking into the omega centers and you have the surveillance of streets and at the same time the omega shape creates a protected inner area, just as, let's say, the living room in your house creates a protected area.

Phill Tabb (23m 6s):
So those are two ways in which prospect and refuge are expressed at these different scales. 

Monica Olsen (23m 11s):
Yeah, and I remember learning about that concept from Bill Browning and the, the example- and tell me if this is correct- I always think of like, why does everybody want the corner booth in a restaurant? And that, and that corner booth and the restaurant provides both prospect and refuge, right? You you're protected. You're sort of in the back, you know, your back is protected, and then you can see out, and that is this really deep seated biological...

Jennifer Walsh (23m 38s): 
And it's so fascinating.

Phill Tabb (23m 40s):
Yeah, it is. It's an inherited, what Kellert would say is that an inherited genetic quality of our evolutionary biology. So yes, that is true. So that's an important one. And I mean, if you go down the list, take a look at Kellert's 72 items. Ah, the reason there's so many, he has about five or six items dealing with natural light or with light, and what Bill Browning and I have done is kind of collapsed those five or six elements all into one, which I call all aspects of light. 

Monica Olsen (24m 14s): 
Talk a little bit about that.

Phill Tabb (24m 16s):
Well according to Kellert's listing, things like light and shadow, and of course we can get that here in Serenbe when you walk out in the woods, especially this time of year, when you get the shadows of the trees, especially early in the morning, and later at night, you get these beautiful long shadows crossing the paths. You get a diffused light like we've had when it's a, not so sunny here and you get direct light coming in, you have sort of flickering light if you're out in the woods and you see the leaves beginning to move. And, and then that affects or gives it a more dynamic quality of light. And you have, lets say nightlight, and here at Serenbe of course we protect the night sky light, but at the same time the nightlight is mandated to be very low and, and very subtle and down pointed. 

Monica Olsen (25m 9s):
Exactly. We don't really have like master, huge streetlight's. We encourage everybody to have, I think it's actually required, you know, a light on your house and that front, you know, front door light is a sol- it's supposed to be solar activated and that's supposed to sort of illuminate the street in a very subtle way, which I think is an interesting design element versus the sort of like encroaching poles that sort of... Like during the day, yeah, like New York. 

Phill Tabb (25m 41s):
At my house I have- and I can't say that this is something that everybody can do or design- but I have, what's called a light gradient which goes from my living room, which is really bright light, to my office which is medium, to my bedroom, which is darker.

Monica Olsen (25m 57s):
And you did that- you did that through architecture?

Phill Tabb (25m 59s):
Yes. And it's the idea is having variable light qualities within your house instead of having the same light quality everywhere. And then have you focus your eyes in different ways. I mean, these are just really subtle, subtle things. That for me is more than just putting a plant in the corner of your room. Let's see, color, which is another one of my patterns, which I don't think Kellert or even Terrapin and have used, which I call living color. And I got living color really from feng shui. And as the idea of being able to experience real, alive color, artificial color. And artificial color in itself is not bad, but experiencing the red of a real red rose is different than experiencing the red on a wall.

Phill Tabb (26m 52s):
So it has a much different kind of vibrance to it. So that's what we, we, we call it living color. 

Monica Olsen (27m 01s):
Ah, I've never heard of that. That's so interesting. 

Phill Tabb (27m 4s):
So the more living color you can have in your room, for example, then again, you're exposing yourself to another quality of biophilic design.

Monica Olsen (27m 17s):
That's interesting to think about people buying fresh flowers or, you know, why, why is that such a wonderful experience, you know, beyond the, you know, a permanent plant, but that's interesting to think. It's not just, whatever, that it cleans the air or it's a natural product in the house, but the living color. Never really thought about that. And, you know, we, we love a brand of paint called Farrow and Ball, which is fabulous. And it's so beautiful on the wall. And I, and my understanding is it's like, it has so many more pigments in it and that it sort of changes with the light a little bit. And I think more and more companies have done that over the years, but I had never thought about, you know, maybe why I'm attracted to or why all of us are attracted to natural living things that's another reason.

Phill Tabb (28m 6s):
Yes. Now the other one of the patterns is our connection to the celestial world. And again, this is a design thing, in my house it was important that I had visual access to the night sky and, you know, when it's about a, a quarter moon to a half a moon, I can look right out in my living room windows and I can see it up there at about nine o'clock.
 
Jennifer Walsh (28m 26s): 
Oh wow. That's fantastic. 

Phill Tabb (28m 29s): 
Okay. Now what good is that? Well...

Jennifer Walsh (28m 34s):
I like looking for the moon in New York City, which is hard to do sometimes. 

Monica Olsen (28m 37s):
Yeah. I think what's good, it's pretty. 

Phill Tabb (28m 40s):
Yeah. It is, but it expands your, your world. It expands it to something larger than your house, your community to, you know, the, the, the world around us and knowing our place in this larger world, I think is really, is really healthy. 

Monica Olsen (28m 58s):
Well and that, that touches on awe. Can you talk about awe a little bit, because I think that sits in, that's in the numinous. Okay, talk a little bit about that because that's, I think a concept that we're going to hear more and more about in the coming months and years.

Phill Tabb (29m 17s):
I think so. And in fact, I have a new book proposal out called Thin Places: The Hidden Function of Architecture and Urban Design. So it really focuses in on the experience of awe, which using the concept of thin places is the threshold for that experience.

Monica Olsen (29m 39s):
Give us an example, like what would be a thin place?

Phill Tabb (29m 42s):
Well, it can exist on any scale. Let's say Piazza San Marco, okay. If you've ever been there or the first time you went in there, you were probably kind of blown away, right? And that's an experience of awe. Have you ever been to the grand canyon?

Monica Olsen (30m):
Yup. Or Yosemite. 

Jennifer Walsh (30m): 
Yeah.

Phill Tabb (30m 2s):
Yeah, or along a beautiful beach. I mean, these are all natural or an intimate, let's say natural setting, like a beautiful little clearing in the woods or here at Serenbe, the waterfalls. These are all a natural places. Now in architecture it can happen as well. There's some, a lot of really extraordinary buildings from the MIT chapel done by Louis I. Kahn to a place that I've discovered a little, it's a little glass chapel in Mexico. It's really beautiful. And you can also find them in every day. That's another part of this book proposal is the kind of the numinous or thin places in every day. Window seats, you know, one of the floors in, and you're reading a book or you're just hanging out in this teeny little place and it becomes a thin place. And a thin place is defined as a place, since it's a space, it's a place where there is a veil, very thin veil between the secular and the sacred. When it's the thin place, it gets thinner, thinner, and thinner to the point where in many ways it goes away and you have this numinous experience with God or nature or whatever it is

Phill Tabb (31m 22s):
That is unexplainable. And so I agree with you. I think this realm, the realm of awe is really going to be of interest and it too has many interesting outcomes of which health and wellness is one of them. And I think that has a collateral kind of positive outcome towards sustainability, placemaking, and some of these other outcomes, because if you're in a thin place, you're going to want to sustain this kind of place. So whenever you come to it and you have that same experience, the Western wall in Jerusalem is a thin place, okay. The stone in Mecca is a thin place.

Phill Tabb (32m 2s):
There's so many examples of thin places, but the ones that I think are really, and the book is kind of oriented this way is to show what a thin place is, but also to bring it down to your everyday experience, much like what Biophilia is trying to do as well. 

Monica Olsen (32m 17s):
And that kinda leads us to case studies in your book.

Phill Tabb (32m 22s):
Yeah. Well in the book, there are six, what I call precedents and one case study. The case study, the case study is Serenbe and it goes into a lot of details. And I'll talk a little bit about that after I talked about the precedents, and the precedents evolve in the book from smaller scale to a larger scale. So in a way, the precedents are scaling. So the first precedent is a place that I've visited many times called Castillo di Gargonza in Tuscany. They, the 13th century, a medieval town that was originally designed as one horseback ride away from Sienna overlooks the Val di Chiana, which is the main valley that connects Tuscany back to Rome.

Phill Tabb (33m 14s):
And it was an outpost so that the Siennese could tell if either the, either Arezzo or Rome was marching on them. So they were one horseback ride away. They sustained, a little sustainable community, tiny, with about originally about 30 homes in it. And it has a little parish church and the square and a tower, and it's got a battered wall around it. And it's really a beautiful little place now that was sort of rundown about, I dunno, 20 years ago. And then it was purchased by account from Florence. And then he has repurposed it to kind of a conference center,

Phill Tabb (33m 57s):
And there are 23 of these beautiful little cottages that you can stay in. And like I said it's got this parish church and a well, and it's got really beautifully updated conference facilities. And so they're getting a lot of sort of corporate management people coming out and having these conferences there. And every year that I was in Castiglion Fiorentino, I would take my class there and we would spend the day there and have lunch there. So that's one of the precedents. And of course it has, what's strong there is the fact that it's similar to, to Serenbe in that it's in the middle of the woods and two it has this wonderful prospect, in that case of the Val di Chiana, and it has garden's and trees within it,

Phill Tabb (34m 47s):
And it's bounded really beautifully and bounding is another one of the patterns. And it has a true center, which is this Plaza and a well in the center. So, and it has natural materiality, beautiful stone work and wood, and it, and like I said it has gardens and there's a lot of sort of wild animals that are around the area so people staying there can interact with them. But anyway, that's, that's the first one. The next one is a little odd, which I think is, but it's really interesting is the Google headquarters in Mountain View. 

Monica Olsen (35m 21s): 
So different. 

Phill Tabb (35m 23s): 
So different. And what I really liked about Google was among other high tech businesses,

Phill Tabb (35m 29s):
It is really transforming the business landscape. Employee landscape. And both my son and daughter-in-law worked for Google, so I've had the opportunity to visit Mountain View, their facility in Boulder, and their facility in Zurich. It always blows me away with the kind of personal freedom and the encouragement of creativity and also the encouragement of interaction that and health and wellness that goes on in these businesses. It's just quite extraordinary. So also the, the firm BIG is designing a new edition, it's actually a new facility in the Mountain View, and it's a big, huge dome like space is going to have plants, 

Phill Tabb (36m 15s):
And this, again, this very creative work landscape inside. It also has a way where the existing community of Mountain View can actually begin to interact with the building in a greater way. Most of the times, and all the, if you think of the, I shouldn't be saying this, but if you think of the Apple building, which is a huge donut building and, and stuff like don't come into me, you know, we might get really repelling in a way where I think the Google is really trying to create a more, what we call a front door area.

Monica Olsen (36m 50s):
Well, many of the tech companies, you know, having friends in San Francisco, the ones that are in downtown San Francisco and we won't name them, you can imagine, you know, they, they came in and they said they got all of these concessions through the city because they were going to bring all of these people, but they ended up creating their own internal ecosystem with their own dry cleaners and food. And actually the workers didn't actually leave the building and actually support the local community. Then it became this very insular, you know, it, it, you know, it sort of purported to be something that was going to transform a neighborhood, but, and ended up being very insular.

Monica Olsen (37m 33s):
So I love to see that Google is moving to create campuses that are more inclusive rather than exclusive because that's, that's a huge thing that I think we talked about a lot in placemaking is like, there's no gates, you know, like so many of these neighborhoods are dated and you're, you're kind of like created this little jail that you're trapped in, and only you can come in and there's just no energy because a real town, a real space, you know, has people flowing in and out. And, and that openness is really beautiful and what we should all be looking towards and I think is potentially what, one thing that makes a biophilic city or a resilient city is that that, would permeability be the right word?

Monica Olsen (38m 22s):
I don't know quite what the right word is, but
 
Phill Tabb (38m 24s): 
Porousness, right?

Monica Olsen (38m 25s): 
Porousness. 

Jennifer Walsh (38m 27s):
That makes sense. It's the way you really feel in a space it's that kind of ebb and flow of a space that it gives to you that you recognize it, I think right away how good you feel somewhere. And it's almost palpable I think.

Phill Tabb (38m 39s):
One of the things that was the hidden agenda for me was the idea of matching Serenbe with Google. 

Monica Olsen (38m 46s): 
Talk about that. 

Phill Tabb (38m 48s): 
The idea of marrying a Google kind of place and Serenbe is to attack one of the biggest polluters that we have, which is the commute to work. Residential communities to work. And you talk about resilience and it is the resilience to be able to transform the kinds of cities that we've created in the 19th and 20th centuries versus the ones that are going to evolve in this 21st century.

Monica Olsen (39m 19s):
And, and let me, let me follow up on that. What changes are we most likely to see in cities to support that outcome in the next 20 to 50 years?

Phill Tabb (39m 34s):
I think it's what is now being called land form and landscape urbanism. And so it's more about horizontal territoriality vs. vertical. Now of course, if you live in Manila or Tokyo or Shanghai or New York City, places like this, they're very vertical cities. I just don't see, remember the why do we have a high rises? You know, what's the major technology that's allowing for high rises is basically communication. And with today's communication, we don't need that same kind of concentration and it's going to have negative environmental effects to be horizontal, because one of the advantages of vertical cities is they take up less land.

Phill Tabb (40m 28s):
Though, in a way, I still think from a biophilic point of view, going more horizontal, that was going to be the trend. Personally, and this is my own personal view, if I never have to use an elevator again, the rest of my life I'll be happy.

Monica Olsen (40m 45s):
Yes. And then I will, I will second the, those awful parking lots where you're driving in circles and circles and circles to get to your space and then you have to get into an elevator. Oh

Phill Tabb (40m 58s):
Yeah. And that precedent that, we've got to push on, is- after Google- is a place called, I got to get the right pronunciation, its Helsinge Haveby, it's a Danish name and it's a small community about an hour north of Copenhagen. And it's an existing town, but this community is right on the edge of town. And it's within walking distance of right downtown where there's lots of restaurants and so on. And it's maybe about the same scale of Serenbe, but it has about 2,500 I think population. And it's a series of 25 clusters,

Phill Tabb (41m 40s):
They're like donut shapes, of single family and attached housing, that are surrounded by farms. So it's an agrihood there and they have some mixed use and they have the thing that's called the food hub, which like a, a center within all these little centers where the community can meet and they can have community dinners and so on like that. But each, each residence has their own way of doing this. It's somewhat like co-housing, but not quite so strict as co-housing, which also started in Denmark.

Phill Tabb (42m 21s):
Anyway, that's the second or third. The fourth one is I believe Kronsberg, which is that's called the Kronsberg district. It's in Hanover, Germany and I had the opportunity to go there in the year 2000 when it opened. And it was designed to be one of the most sustainable communities. It also has agriculture. It's a little bit denser than some of these other communities I've been talking about. And one of the things I featured in my book that it has, is what are called Superblocks. They're large blocks that are porous meaning that you can go in to them and inside is, you know, a couple of acre site, two to three or four acre sites that are natural.

Jennifer Walsh (43m 5s): 
Wow. 

Phill Tabb (43m 6s):
And each block has a different kind of nature inside. 

Monica Olsen (43m 8s): 
Oh wow. 

Phill Tabb (43m 9s): 
Some have daycare, some have elementary schools, some have parks, some have water retention, some have streams going through them and they're all interconnected in a pedestrian kind of network. And so that was one of the main features that I thought was biophilic and also had, as you can imagine, a square donut having great prospect and refuge, right? And access to nature. It also has a density gradient going from a tram on one end, a tram line on one end, to the farms on the other area. And so the density is about five stories on the tram end going down to two stories on the farm end.

Phill Tabb (43m 48s):
So I thought it was, and then the streets really interesting, there are tree-lined streets, but depending on what side of the basic district you're in and which orientation east, west, and north south, we have different columns of tree so that, you know, and, and the food trees. So, you know, whether you're going east or west or north or south, depending on what kind of trees are there.

Monica Olsen (44m 14s):
That's a wonderful signal.

Phill Tabb (44m 17s):
Yeah. So there's certainly a lot of small little details like that. And then the overall large one like these Superblocks I think are wonderful. So that is, that is Kronsberg. And then the next one is Pontevedra, Spain, which I've talked about already. That is a remarkable place. And there's more places like that happening. That just happens to be the one that I was not that familiar with. And I started doing the research on it and I found it just really fascinating. And the fact that it started about the same time Serenbe did. Serenbe started in 2000 basically, and, and Pontevedra started in 1999. So it's amazing what can happen in 20 years.

Phill Tabb (44m 58s):
I mean, a lot of really radical, wonderful, radical change can happen. 

Monica Olsen (45m 3s):
Yeah, and, and I think that it's really interesting because you know, your books are, you know, tend to be more academic, I want to say, but this one is it's very dense, but I think it is, it actually could be like a really wonderful sort of, you know, pseudo coffee table book because of the, the, the concepts are so phenomenal. And the hope is, is that, you know, we get like government and, you know, city planners or city council or mayors or governors that are sort of exposed to these ideas that they can transform their cities, but also the, the, the, the everyday, everyday person like ourselves, that, that can sort of, if you will, demand these changes or advocate for these changes in our cities, because we do have power, you know? 

Jennifer Walsh (45m 54s):
The last question I would like to ask you, is really what has the importance of biophilia in your life? And not necessarily in a work perspective, but maybe how it makes you feel, your overall health.

Phill Tabb (46m 3s):
Great. And in fact, it's kind of in a life-saver. I, two years ago, I came down with two forms of cancer and have more or less kicked both of them. One of them was cut out. It's long gone. And the other one is just through lifestyle changes. Part of it is because I'm retired, but I work just as hard as I did before. But the main reason is stress reduction, I think, and the quality of a social interaction that I can monitor living in Serenbe with my tendency to be reclusive.

Phill Tabb (46m 45s):
So, and, and of course my interaction with nature. I can't, like now I'm looking out, I can see a huge view of trees and my garden. And I think these all have contributed to just a sense of accomplishment of that my life has led to this point that I have this kind of environment to live in both in terms of being able to live in Serenbe and to, to, to live in my house and to, to interact with both the people and nature that's around here. Every day, I open up my windows even on day, like today and let in fresh air. It's found out that indoor air pollution is a major cause of colds, not cold outside.

Phill Tabb (47m 33s):
So, you know, beginning to get a little bit of air changing is really great. I love the idea that most of my electricity comes from photovoltaic panels on my roof. And I have very little pollution here, but I think that the visual environment and all of the patterns are, are here. I've got a little dog and I have an incredible number of animals that come into my garden from snakes to birds, to frog's and you name it. And all these things and in little ways, I think contribute to a Biophilic experience. And the one on awe I think is also, there are a lot of times, well when you get into it really deeply in a way, that which is sacred chooses. You don't. It's like you walk into the woods, I'm going to have a sacred experience, right?

Phill Tabb (48m 26s):
You, you, it's not a human centered process. In a way it's a divine centered process. And so the best we can do is be open to it. And, and if you're open to it, then you're creating an opportunity for those kinds of experiences to occur. Another thing that's very interesting about awe, that's been done by some researchers, William James wrote about this, that awe experiences are what he calls numinous experiences are momentary. They last between 10 and 15 minutes, to up to an hour or two max.

Phill Tabb (49m 10s):
And another quality of them is that they do create this kind of transcendent change, almost like a metabolic change. And so these are important, I think, to have these experiences. I can remember when I was younger and I had kids and family and work and problems and issues and credit card debt and you name it. And, and it's just like, I can remember in my mid thirties to late thirties, what it was all about was trying to find 10 minutes to a half hour a day where I could just be myself and be alone. And by the time you get to my age now, its it's not that.

Phill Tabb (49m 55s):
It's like 99% of my time is like that. And, and of course a to me, it's, it's all biophilic. 

Monica Olsen (50m 2s):
That's great. Well Phil, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. I'm super excited about the new book. You've put so many wonderful ideas into our heads.

Jennifer Walsh (50m 12s):
Absolutely. Yes. We love to have you Phill. Thank you so much for your time.

Phill Tabb (50m 15s):
Well thank you for the opportunity to be first on this podcast. 

Monica Olsen (50m 19s): 
Our pleasure. 

Phill Tabb (50m 21s): 
Okay, well you guys take care. 

Monica Olsen (50m 23s): 
Okay. 

Jennifer Walsh (50m 24s): 
Thank you. 

Phill Tabb (50m 25s): 
Bye-bye.

Monica Olsen (50m 29s):
Oh wow. Okay so that interview was so great. Where do we even begin?

Jennifer Walsh (50m 34s):
I know. So many things I could have talked about for hours. I mean, hours and hours. 

Monica Olsen (50m 38s):
Seriously. Thin places, that the whole idea blew my mind.

Jennifer Walsh (50m 42s):
Okay, let's try to wrap it up as best as we can.

Monica Olsen (50m 45s):
So what I heard was a biophilic community is the place where people have access to nature and can easily engage with the outdoors. He also talked about planning and development should be prioritizing the natural resources and ecological conditions of each area that you're doing that building and planning.

Jennifer Walsh (51m):
Right. And there are five outcomes of that kind of planning. Think of it this way, climate positive, sustainability, placemaking, health and wellness, and the numinous or spiritual component.

Monica Olsen (51m 10s):
And there are scales, right? He talked about scales to each of these where, where they can look very different when you're talking about a town versus the city, right?

Jennifer Walsh (51m 19s):
Exactly. So in a town you might be talking about nature trails and being able to walk to a few shops to run errands, but in a city you're dealing with infrastructure and an entirely different beast. 

Monica Olsen (51m 29s):
So we all need to advocate for more biophilic communities. 

Jennifer Walsh (51m 32s):
Yes, exactly. This is going to look different depending on where you are, but find out who your city officials are, your city council, or maybe the planning department, make sure they are aware of the ideas and how impactful and positive they can be. Educate yourself and your community about the positive outcomes, the economic advantages and start making that argument. 

Monica Olsen (51m 49s):
I mean, take a look at the Atlanta BeltLine, for example. 

Jennifer Walsh (51m 53s):
Or the high line in New York city. 

Monica Olsen (51m 55s): 
Exactly. Or even Serenbe. These places are thriving because people want to be here.

Jennifer Walsh (51m 59s):
Exactly. And once people start to see the benefits, the argument kind of make themselves.

Monica Olsen (52m 4s):
All right, guys. Well, that does it for our first episode. Congratulations Jennifer. 

Jennifer Walsh (52m 8s):
Congratulations Monica. We did it.

Monica Olsen (52m 11s):
Thanks so much for listening everybody. And we hope you'll tune in to episode two that is going to be with Bill Browning of Terrapin Bright Green. 

Jennifer Walsh (52m 18s):
If you want to support, please follow, subscribe, and give us a five star rating, if you don't mind. It really helps, and we really, really appreciate it.