Season 2, Episode 5: Amanda Sturgeon

Sept. 9, 2021

“A biophilic building is not just a great connection with the outside. It's also about bringing us the peace and tranquility of nature -- the types of things that make us happy.”

This week we sit down for a deep conversation with world-leading sustainable architect and urban planner Amanda Sturgeon. Amanda is the founder of “biophilic design,” which connects people to the natural world through the built environment. For years she was a voice in the wilderness, her sustainable design ideas belittled and dismissed. But she was driven by her abiding love of nature and never gave up. She is now the foremost expert on sustainable building design. And she recently expanded her mission: she’s bringing her biophilic design principles to community planning worldwide in a race against the climate crisis. Amanda is currently head of regenerative design strategy at Mott MacDonald in Sydney, Australia. She formerly was CEO of the International Living Future Institute in Seattle where she led a team that built a global biophilic design movement. In our conversation, Amanda explains how buildings can be designed to produce more energy than they use. We discuss the joys of working and living in a building where you can see the changes in sunlight, hear the rain, and smell the garden. She shares her passion for designing whole communities using sustainable principles. And she takes us through her personal journey starting with a love of nature at a young age to the professional challenges she faced in bringing sustainability principles to the design field. This conversation will leave you convinced that biophilic design is essential to human health and happiness and a critical part of solving the climate crisis.

““Who are we as people on this planet? What’s our relationship with all other living systems and how are we going to change the way that we are in relationship with our world?” ”

— Amanda Sturgeon