The impact of Biophilic Built Environment on Psychological Restoration within student hostels

Abstract

The students of technical educational streams are exposed to many aspects of stress and anxiety which burdens their psychological persona and puts them in a state of mental fatigue. Although it is not entirely possible to eliminate the sources of stress and anxiety in regular life of students, several attempts are made to introduce students to certain natural environments which can recover their depleted mental resources and improve fatigued cognitive functions. Attention Restoration Theory (ART) and the Biophilia Hypothesis provided a stable base as Biophilic Design for this aspect of human psychology to be explored with respect to nature. Individual researches have presented evidence in favour of these propositions and this paper examines the impact and the significance of each Biophilic Environment Variable in Psychological Restoration of students within the built environment of hostels. To address this question, student hostel rooms at two institutes (105 km apart) of National importance in foothills of Himalayas (India), were surveyed under major categorisation of Biophilic Environment Variables: Nature in the Space, Natural Analogues and Human Nature Relationship alongside the dwelling student’s response on Plutchik’s emotional stability wheel and the aspects of Perceived Restorativeness: Being Away, Fascination, Extent and Compatibility. Results stipulate that the students in Hostel rooms which have higher qualitative and quantitative score of biophilic environment variables (connection with nature) report greater Perceived Restorativeness and also possess better self-reported emotional stability.