The next step in sustainable design: Bringing the weather indoors

A building’s primary purpose may be to keep the weather out, but most do such an effective job of this that they also inadvertently deprive us of contact with two key requirements for our well-being and effectiveness: nature and change.

In the 1950s Donald Hebb’sArousal Theoryestablished that people need a degree of changing sensory stimulation in order to remain fully attentive. And 30 years later,landmark research (PDF)by health care designer Roger Ulrich showed that hospital patients in rooms with views of nature had lower stress levels and recovered more quickly than patients whose rooms looked out at a brick wall.

Unfortunately, many buildings—especially in cities—不与绿色环境得天独厚。我在俄勒冈大学的一批建筑师和心理学家已经研究如何克服这个问题的性质使用随处可用的一个方面的一部分：天气。想想荡漾的阳光从水中反射到船的底部，或从枝叶摇曳在微风斑驳的阴影。

When we brought these kinds ofnatural movementsindoors, we found that they降低心脏速率并少分心比同类，人工产生的运动。早期的研究结果表明，在看到室内空间这样的生活自然运动可能比通过窗口观看室外自然更有利，不仅可以帮助我们保持冷静，但也提高了我们的注意。

These findings are consistent with theAttention Restoration Theory (PDF)proposed by University of Michigan psychologists雷切尔和Stephen Kaplan。别的不说，他们的研究表明，这种熟悉的自然运动形态样必须保持警觉我们没有分心的能力。

Beyond green building

Over the last two decades, architects and engineers have developed approaches to building design that greatly reduce the impact of buildings on the natural environment ("green" buildings）和它们的人类居住者（"healthy" buildings). But these movements focus primarily on new buildings, which benefit only a relatively small number of people compared to the many who could be helped by making existing structures more habitable.

此外，大多数人 - 包括许多那些负责订购的楼宇的建筑，重塑 - 不知道这些进步。绿色建筑，如节能，节水，例如许多关键功能，不会立即明显，作为一个结果，这些简单而重要的实践显著充分利用。

房屋need to actively demonstrate ways of living in harmony with nature.

Several leading commentators on sustainable design, includingJudith Heerwegan and the late Stephen Kellert，都建议，为了对我们面临的严峻的环境问题任何有意义的影响，绿色建筑不再可以简单的“不伤害”。相反，他们认为建筑要积极展现生活与自然和谐相处的方式。我们的研究表明带来阳光，风和雨室内的运动可以在建筑更加明显，谁下令并占领它们，因此大大增加了他们使用的人做被动式的节能特性。

Bringing the weather indoors

轻型货架，例如，在通常的设备改造现有建筑物的窗户日光更深反射到内部。Former University of Oregon masters degree student Aaron Weiss and I have shown that when a shallow layer of water is added to the top of a light shelf and is disturbed by the wind, the shelf reflects moving sunlight patterns onto the ceiling inside.

在使用窗户的房间，配有风扇和强大的光来表示风吹日晒对照实验中，我们发现，这种风动画光不仅降低驾乘者的心脏利率，但也less distracting than similar, artificially generated moving patterns。Importantly, adding wind movement did not reduce the amount of light the shelves transmitted. However, it did make the shelves much more visible to people using the space.

We found the same was true of a range of other key passive energy-saving techniques, including solar heating, shading and natural ventilation. Adding sun, wind or rain-generated movement did not reduce their environmental performance, and in many cases it revealed their operation to those using the building.

The calming effects of natural indoor animation could be particularly helpful in stressful locations, such as hospitals and doctors’ offices — especially in places where people experience the additional stress of waiting. Aquariums are often used in medical waiting rooms, for example, because they have been found to have acalming effect on patients。The stress reduction can be even greater, however, when indoor movement comes from uncontrolled nature such as the weather.

This field test in a medical waiting room confirmed that most people seem to find the naturally moving indoor light patterns calming and fascinating in a nondistracting way.

但是，我们如何能邀请室内元素的运动，而不会破坏建筑物的第一个任务 - 从天气掩护我们？有三种简单的方法。我们可以括在玻璃庭院天气产生的运动;利用太阳光从室外到室内表面工程运行;或投影到半透明的材料，如玻璃模糊的外侧。

现场自然没有真正的替代品

Many kinds of recorded natural phenomena are available today. We can watchvideos of gently rolling ocean waves, or fall asleep to the落雨的声音记录。Sophisticated软件程序可以数字产生这些效果。那么，为什么去重新设计给建筑物带来这些影响室内的麻烦？

要回答这个问题，俄勒冈研究生杰弗里Stattler和我的大学前预计的数字树阴到窗户的房间的墙壁和tested whether there was any difference在人的反应取决于电子树是否与外面的风直播变化根据计算机程序移动或。

大多数人分不清楚是否被风吹或由计算机生成的树运动。但是，当他们认为运动是风力发电，他们的有利影响评估在所有类别均显著较高。

In other words, indoor sensory change is likely to have a much greater beneficial effect on us when we think it is natural and live. So unless we are prepared to mislead people, there is no real substitute for using the real thing.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, most people in the United States花90％以上的建筑物内他们的生活。功能，使我们更加轻松和富有成效的这些室内环境的话，可能会对许许多多生活显著的积极影响。

这些建筑物照明、加热和冷却占美国能源消耗的近40％。The same natural indoor animation effects also could help to reduce that figure by increasing public awareness of passive energy-saving in buildings.

In addition to its practical benefits for people and the environment, weather-generated indoor animation also shows us that, while separating us from its extremes, buildings also can reconnect us with nature.