Integrating architecture with nature to enhance restoration

(A CASE STUDY OF A CORPORATE RETREAT CENTER MIANGO-JOS )

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Author

Presented To

Department of Environmental Design

ABSTRACT
Corporate executives all over the world are under a lot of stress due to increasing competitiveness in the workplace, traveling and family demands. Stress costs companies in terms of employee’s health and reduced output and efficiency. Companies have realized the benefits of sending their executives on paid holidays to rest, recuperate and be rejuvenated; especially in natural peaceful environments, totally removed from the working environment. Mayo (1958) says that to be at rest an executive must be removed from the working environment but to deal with stress he must be exposed to at worst a simulated working environment. A corporate retreat is an ideal opportunity to manage stress because it is an environment without the distractions of everyday life that aims at increasing motivation by stimulating and rejuvenating the body and mind while allowing a corporate group to have exclusive use of a facility for team building, brainstorming, prioritizing, strategic planning and more. Various theories on the restoration of an individual are based on the exposure to nature, natural elements and processes. Kaplan and Kaplan (1989) in looking for a setting that helps people function better developed a model called the reasonable person model. This model is based on the framework that people are more reasonable, cooperative, helpful satisfied and constructive when the environment satisfies their basic informational needs. Their research indicates that aesthetic natural settings not only give pleasure and are satisfying to experience, they also: support human functioning, provide a context in which information can be managed effectively, permit people to move about and explore with comfort and confidence, and provide for recovery from mental fatigue. To them nature is seen as a restorative environment and an effective stress reducer because it provides a kind of cognitive quiet, necessitating fewer decisions based on external demands. The main function of a retreat environment is restoration, whether mental physical or otherwise. A natural environment is said to be a restorative one; this thesis aims to enhance the restorative elements of nature found in retreat environments primarily through the integration of nature and architecture.