Principles of Person-Focused Design

In our last blog outlining ScienceinDesign and the budding field of neuroaesthetics, we gave a brief history of the evolutions in neuroscience and philosophy that underpin the foundational principles of person-first design: biophilia and neuroaesthetics. When assessing the agreement between the philosophy of nature-inspired design and biological responses to certain aesthetic themes, some principles of person-focused design emerged. These principles include nature-inspired patterns, organized complexity, modes of mystery, and prospect and refuge. By incorporating these principles into design, we can create spaces and aesthetic experiences that are attuned to people, helping them feel comfortable and safe.

This article will detail one of the principles of person-focused design: patterns of nature. Hopefully, you will not only leave with a better understanding of patterns of nature, but feel more prepared to apply these patterns to your spaces.  

Patterns of Nature

The presence of nature-inspired patterns is an aspect of the aesthetic experience that’s easy to overlook, but is essential to putting the brain in a zone of comfort. While it may not be something we find ourselves explicitly considering all that often, patterns are among the first things we subconsciously examine. This is significant, considering that our brains process 11 million bits of information per second, and only 40 bits make it to our conscious awareness. Given that the vast majority of our processing is subconscious, it’s critical that we cater to the aspects of an environment, like natural patterns, that attract our subconscious attention.

As we reviewed testimonies and philosophies of various neuroaesthetic, biophilic, and design experts, we noted that three patterns rise among the rest according to the human subconscious: biophilic patterns, biomorphic patterns, and bilateral symmetry.

Biophilic Patterns

Biophilic patterns occur in nature. They often express an organized complexity that mimics biological growth, often in the form of fractal patterns. 

By integrating visual complexity that mimics natural growth patterns into human-made spaces (look here for a deeper understanding of nature’s growth patterns), we intuitively feel safe. In days of old, our brains learned that intact natural growth patterns symbolize untouched natural environments, signaling a lack of predators and therefore safety. While impractical today, this deep neurological remnant of our nature-surrounded ancestors still accounts for real feelings of stress and relaxation.

Rule of thumb: Try to place biophilic patterns in areas that represent points of transition, going from one place to another. This could represent a rug in a hallway, a textured wall paint, or window-shades that create biophilic shadows. Much like a tribe trudging through the forest on the way to camp, the addition of biophilia in transition gives the brain a comforting amount of environmental stimulus.

Biomorphic Patterns & Bilateral Symmetry

Similar to the logic behind biophilic patterns, biomorphic patterns refer to patterns that resemble the natural creatures we associate with safety. Most notably, this refers to soft curves & symmetry. Soft curves are preferable to straight lines and right angles as soft curves are abundant in nature, whereas straight lines and right angles rarely appear in the natural world (check out the biomorphic approach to robot design for a cool example of this theory in action). Similarly to biophilic patterns, the appearance of soft curves that appear in nature is de-stressing, while right angles and parallel lines are unnatural and, thus, trigger the stress of an unnatural environment.

Experts also suggested that bilateral symmetry - a pattern that can be divided into two mirrored halves (think: faces, butterflies, bodies) - is a trait of comforting aesthetic experiences. This is thought to stem from similar roots as biomorphism, as it’s theorized that bilateral symmetry is attractive as it mimics the human face. The distinction here, however, is that there is not a stressful counterpart to bilateral symmetry; it’s simply a comforting pattern to see as it resembles the blurry symmetry we evolved to associate with our guardians and tribe during our first years of life.

Rule of thumb: When choosing new patterns or colors for an environment, ask yourself: “what in nature does this shape, color, or texture resemble?” If it’s something of natural abundance, go for it! If the color or shape would require intentional intervention to exist in nature, it may be a stressful addition to your environment and best used sparingly.

To summarize these points, the addition of nature-inspired patterns is a vital piece of crafting comforting environments as these patterns are prioritized and sought by our subconscious. By catering to subconscious preferences like patterns of nature, we can affect the amount that we are inherently stressed or comforted by the spaces we frequent. 

In the next blog, we will continue with more themes of nature-inspired design: Organized complexity, modes of mystery, and prospect and refuge. If you have any questions, thoughts, or suggestions for future research & writing, please don’t hesitate to reach out to research@afreqeuncyproject.com.