The Potential of Biophilic Fractal Designs to Promote Health and Performance: A Review of Experiments and Applications

Abstract

Fractal objects are prevalent in natural scenery. Their repetition of patterns at increasingly fine magnifications creates a rich complexity. Fractals displaying mid-range complexity are the most common and include trees, clouds, and mountains. The “fractal fluency” model states that human vision has adapted to process these mid-range fractals with ease. I will first discuss fractal fluency and demonstrate how it enhances the observer’s visual capabilities by focusing on experiments that have important practical consequences for improving the built environment. These enhanced capabilities generate an aesthetic experience and physiological stress reduction. I will discuss strategies for integrating fractals into building designs to induce positive impacts on the observer. Examples include fractal solar panels, fractal window shades, and fractal floor patterns. These applications of fractal fluency represent a fundamental and potentially impactful form of salutogenesis.

Aesthetics and Psychological Effects of Fractal Based Design

“…Driving nature's aesthetics, fractal patterns are prevalent across both microscopic and global structures in natural environments (Mandelbrot, 1982;Taylor, 2021). Fractals are comprised of self-similar patterns repeating across scale, with varying levels of recursion (number of repetitions across scales) and fractal dimension "D-value" (rate of pattern shrinkage between repetitions) that drive perceptions of pattern complexity by determining the relative contributions of coarse-to-fine structure for the overall pattern.…”

Visual Attention Software: A New Tool for Understanding the “Subliminal” Experience of the Built Environment

“…The face factor is a complex quality that incorporates more basic geometrical measures such as specific nested bilateral symmetries about a vertical axis. Abstract facial similarity can be codified using components of mathematical symmetry in what is defined elsewhere as the Biophilic Healing Index [8,[16][17][18].…”

“…These effects are to be attributed to features of their geometry, and such features are not only found in nature, but also in artificial environments, especially in pre-modern architecture of different countries, cultures, and styles. Exposure to this type of visual organization (organized complexity) may have the same positive effects, regardless of whether it is found in natural or artificial structures [6][7][8][14][15][16][17][18].…”

The Importance of Domestic Space in the Times of COVID-19

“…Some unfamiliar terms are explained here in a brief glossary. Biophilic design uses our instinctive attraction to biological forms-both animal and plant-and the artificial patterns that mimic them [7][8][9][10]; people connect psychologically to color surfaces, which influence mood, and could be painted, ornamental, or artworks [11]; natural forms show fractal subdivisions with nested components on every scale, while we hardly ever see any empty natural object [12][13][14][15]; interior spaces permitting easy and psychologically "protected" movement are abundant in traditional architecture yet absent from contemporary interiors that privilege abstraction in a floor plan; ornament on walls, moldings, and frames surrounding doors and windows implement richly complex designs [16][17][18][19][20][21]. Industrial-modernist typologies have the opposite aspects: colorless grey surfaces; frameless openings with no borders; glass curtain walls; oppressively low flat ceilings; sharp glass, metal edges, etc.…”