Speaker: Stephen Kellert
Tweedy Ordway Professor Emeritus, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University;
Board Director and Chief Environmental Officer, Bio-Logical Capital

Lecture: Nature, Human Development and Design of the Built Environment
Film Screening: Biophilic Design: the Architecture of Life

Humans have an inherent inclination to affiliate with nature instrumental to their physical and mental health, productivity and wellbeing, something called biophilia. The biological basis for this need will be briefly explained, as well as limited evidence to support it. This need is highly influenced, however, by learning, culture and experience. Unfortunately, data suggests contact with nature in modern society has greatly diminished, especially among children and in urban settings. In many ways, the natural habitat of many people has become the built environment where on average we spend 90% of our time. Biophilic design is a strategy for restoring beneficial contact between people and nature in the modern built environment, which along with low environmental impact design, is viewed as the necessary basis for sustainability, health, and biophilic design in a variety of learning, health, work, and community contexts, particularly in a recently completed film, Biophilic Design: the Architecture of Life. (view the movie trailer here)

Bio:

Dr. Stephen R. Kellert is the Tweedy Ordway Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology and Senior Research Scholar at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  He is also a member of the Board of Directors and Chief Environmental Officer of Bio-Logical Capital, a firm that invests in and implements multi-layer sustainable land uses on large landscapes. His work focuses on understanding the connection between nature and humanity with a particular interest in environmental conservation and sustainable design and development. Dr. Kellert is also listed and described in “American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present.”

He has served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been a member of the board of directors of many organizations. He has authored more than 150 publications, including the following books: Nature and Humanity: Values, Culture and Biology (in preparation); Companions in Wonder (edited with J. Dunlap, Cambridge: MIT Press); The Coming Transformation: Values to Sustain Natural and Human Communities (edited with Gus Speth, Yale FES, 2010); Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science, and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life (co-editors, J. Heerwagen, M. Mador, John Wiley, 2008), Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection (Island Press 2005); Kinship to Mastery: Biophilia in Human Evolution and Development (Island Press, 1997); The Value of Life: Biological Diversity and Human Society (Island Press, 1996); The Biophilia Hypothesis (edited with E.O. Wilson, Island Press, 1993).

Location: Seattle Central Library, Microsoft Auditorium, 1000 Fourth Ave., Seattle, WA  98104

Time: Doors open at 5:00pm, Lecture begins at 5:30pm

Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Cost: Cascadia Members and students; Free (RSVP MANDATORY)
General Audience; $10

Click here for the event flyer.

The Transformational Lecture Series aims to inspire all building industry professionals to embrace their role in creating as sustainable built environment now, as well as ensuring that sustainability becomes integral to all development in the future. In an effort to both reduce cost and carbon emissions, and to inspire the local community, most speakers are notable local heroes and reside in the Pacific Northwest.