The EcoNest Design and Building Philosophy

“To the extent that our indoor environments measure up to nature, in terms of air quality, light/color quality, acoustics, electro-climate … they will nurture us.”

In our commitment to design and build the healthiest and most ecological buildings possible we have embraced the Building Biology principles. Building Biology is a building philosophy and science that originated in Germany in the early 1960’s, as “Bau-Biologie”. At that time, long before we recognized building-related health problems in North America, Europeans discovered that a growing segment of their population was chronically unwell from being in the industrialized buildings that went up post WWII. By studying these buildings in comparison to the naturally-built predecessors they formulated 25 principles for creating nurturing environments.

The main focus of Building Biology is human health…and achieving deep ecology is a bi-product of this. A central concept of Building Biology is that “there is almost always a direct correlation between the biological compatibility of a building and its ecological performance.” In other words buildings that deeply nurture every aspect of human health in production, occupation, and post-habitation will also excel as models of sustainability. Why? … because the natural environment is the gold standard for human health and the ultimate model of sustainability. The role of our indoor environments is to temper nature’s climatic extremes and to keep us dry and safe from predators. To the extent that our indoor environments measure up to nature, in terms of air quality, light/color quality, electro-climate etc., they will nurture us. To the extent that we build as nature does, regenerating without waste or pollution we are ecological builders. We have discovered that, when the 25 principles are applied to our buildings, the resulting spaces fill most North Americans with awe and delight and most Europeans with a nostalgic longing for home! We invite you to visit an EcoNest and see for yourself.

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