air quality index in chennai is still way below who safety standards this makes it important for us to take measures to improve the air quality in our built environment she says we practise what we call conscious architecture that focuses on creating spaces conducive to the evolution of human consciousness and that includes principles of biophilic architecture the essential idea of biophilic design is to allow the building to evolve as an extension of our environment says shashirekha it draws inspiration from natural forms from a pure design perspective which is to say the architect could just be inspired by the shape of a snail or a lotus and seek to design a building in that form she says she approaches biophilic designs from two perspectives bringing the outdoors in or vice versa the former is done by building a moss wall atriums with skylights or waterscapes says shashirekha what is even more exciting is to facilitate by way of design carrying out common indoor functions outdoors like a group discussion we do this by creating levels within the buildings as a mix of solids and voids in octave an office conceptualised by ssc the atrium covers all the floors and is covered with solarpowered skylight panels this brings the sunlight to the core of the building and is also engineered to generate renewable energy sources continuously says shashirekha adding that the receptivity of the project owners to biophilic designs has improved enormously postpandemic it professional manju n jose for instance wanted a house that blended with nature for her family of four the duo bought five cents of land in thevakkal and lijo designed the house that rains light the ground floor has an open design with the kitchen dining and living rooms and bedrooms opening into a garden there are plenty of skylights and a variety of flowering creepers and climbing vegetables that grow onto three large frames fixed on the building says manju life in flats had ruined our health but here we have fresh air and water she says