Biophilia

In this beautifully illustrated guide, best-selling author Sally Coulthard demonstrates how to transform your living and working spaces into places that put you in touch with nature.

Eight inspiring chapters cover key elements for the ''biophilic home'', including materials, views, colour and natural light. Each section explores the links between home, health and happiness, drawing on environmental research and neuroscience while making practical suggestions for bringing the natural world into your home.

Bring nature indoors with flowers and plants, rediscover the innate pleasure of real fires and fresh air, and learn how to improve your mood and sleep patterns with dynamic light. Create a space filled with natural elements, patterns, nature''s colours, fabrics and textures that lift your mood; find out why natural sounds and water are soothing; and learn how to make small changes that will inspire, invigorate and enrich your relationship with the natural world.

''As best-selling author and designer, Sally Coulthard, reveals in this guide, creating a ''biophilic home'' can have a huge impact on your wellbeing; improving your mood and encouraging healthier sleep patterns...Be it plants, materials, colour or light, it''s enlightening to see how small changes can make a big difference, while deepening your respect and correlation to the natural world.'' FORBES Magazine

''How to embrace the natural world by transforming your interior spaces with specific materials, colours, views and sounds.'' Gardens Illustrated

''Humans are mammals, programmed over millennia to respond to the natural world. We may be able to live and work in man-made environments most of the time. But according to a new movement of "biophilic" designers and enthusiasts, we are not thriving...writer Sally Coulthard likens it to the practice of keeping animals in captivity, in surroundings ill-suited to their needs. "We live in a world that is fundamentally mismatched to our evolutionary adaptation - we don''t see, hear and feel the things that we are programmed to respond to," she writes.'' Financial Times