Senior Capstone Project
Before this capstone began I knew I wanted the final deliverable to be a business that I’d created and I knew the key things I wanted to address were mental health and burnout and helping people reconnect with the natural world.
Throughout the next 8 months I worked to form my final project via research, informational interviews, and experimenting with different forms of landscape design.
What is Biophilic Design?
Biophilic design is a human-centered approach that integrates natural elements, light, textures, and forms into the built environment to foster a connection with nature. It aims to reduce stress, improve cognitive function, and enhance well-being in homes and workplaces by utilizing organic shapes, natural materials, and sensory experiences.”
The Idea
- Countless studies have concluded there's significant mental health benefits to incorporating greenery and flowers into workspaces. It lowers your cortisol levels, increases your serotonin, and actually the more stressful the space is, the greater the positive impact nature can have
- So how can we integrate greenery and flowers into corporate spaces where burnout and disconnection with nature is most common?
Current Solutions/Problems
- Fake Plants/Flowers: require no maintenance and never die but are extremely environmentally unfriendly. Plus our brains can detect that their fake so we don’t receive the biophilic mental health benefits
- Classic Indoor Plants: better than the fake alternative and there’s really nothing wrong about them. But what you gain in biophilic benefit and beauty, you lose in any savings. Implementing plants in the workspace can come with a high price tag especially when considering one of the primary costs, maintenance. Additionally, indoor plants can be generic, messy, attract bugs, and can be bad for allergies
- Cut Flowers: transform a space with the wide variety of types and colors they’re easier to customize. That said, regularly using cut flowers in offices can be not only costly but also have a huge environmental impact with very minimal lifespan. Companies pay a lot only for these flowers to last on average 10 days and then be thrown out and replaced.
THE SOLUTION...
Studio Flora is a company that builds beautiful, custom dried flower installations for corporate spaces to provide a more unique, cost-effective, eco-conscious way of improving mental health and reducing workplace burnout
Why Dried Flowers?
Not only are they gorgeous, dried flowers are also incredibly versatile, able to be used in a wide variety of designs plus they don’t even need to be flowers. If you’re looking for a more neutral option, equally stunning pieces can be made up of only dried, leafy stems or grasses.
Additionally, they’re considerably more cost effective even though their upfront price tag is slightly higher than traditional flowers, these installations can last up to 3 years compared to the average 10 days of flowers. Which also makes them more environmentally friendly because they interrupt the constant throwing away of flowers polluting waterways
And guys you wanna know what you have to do to maintain these? You have to clean the dust off them with a hairdryer on the coolest setting a couple times a year. That’s literally it. No watering, no pruning, and no cycle of dying and replacement. This reduces company maintenance costs significantly.
Plus all those mental health benefits; the lowering cortisol, increased serotonin, increased brain productivity leading to better problem-solving and creative thinking? Dried flowers have it all! So there’s no sacrificing the good stuff.
Target Markets & Key Company Activities
Creative/Marketing/Advertising Agencies
This market behaves differently than the other 3 do. Agencies care a lot more about their aesthetic and creativity, they’ll buy something if it aligns with the image they’re trying to create for the brand.
Everything within agency offices is not only designed to inspire their employees but also selected very intentionally to curate a specific, unique, and cohesive ‘vibe’. Offering custom installations in specific designs, logos, or brand colors will be really important for this group especially.
Health & Wellness
Overall there’s been a large shift in corporations who are now heavily focused on employee retention, investing in their employees, and creating a strong work culture.
With them, emphasize the ROI that the product gives employees/the company, how it promotes wellbeing, reduces stress, improves mood and productivity, etc. Wellness brands like Bloom, Aveda, Alo Yoga, and Lululemon are the perfect early adopters of Studio Flora because the mission alignment and desire is there.
When customers and employees are entering these spaces it’s because they have a desire to become better versions of themselves or help others do the same. Thus, the interior should reflect that mission as well.
Tech Companies
More and more technology companies specifically are looking to bring in Gen Z/Millenial talent and one of the largest attractions for them is seeing that a company prioritizes eco-initiatives. So it’s no surprise that tech has also been listed as one of the top industries prioritizing environmental sustainability.
People are becoming more aware of the negative impacts that technology especially is having on the environment, and companies are taking steps to reduce that effect.
According to an article published by Jobful, “The companies with the strongest Gen Z retention rates treat growth and wellbeing as infrastructure, not benefits.” Meaning creating beautiful spaces that promote productivity must also be done in a way that’s eco-conscious.
LEED Certified Companies
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification is the world’s most widely used, voluntary green building rating system. Companies who are LEED certified or looking to become certified must reach specific eco-goals which is where studio flora could be the perfect plant alternative to help them achieve both waste reduction in design and improvement of human health.
There’s also considerable overlap between this market and the others. For example, all the major tech giants: Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, Meta are all LEED certified as well as companies like Starbuck’s, Kohl’s, Best Buy, and Disney.
Consultation & Renderrings
When a company expresses interest in a piece from studio flora it begins with a consultation involving:
- What the client is looking for in terms of scale, shape, color, material, etc.
- Assessing the space, getting measurements and dimensions, etc.
The next stage involves drawing up a few rougher sketches of options for the client, narrowing it down, potentially creating a more in-depth detailed final version if the client requests, selecting a design, and collecting downpayment
Material Gathering & Creating
Just before or right after a final design has been selected, we work with key partners and suppliers to execute the client’s vision through securing the correct flowers and materials.
In a commitment to reduce environmental impact even more, Studio Flora only sources dried flowers from farms within the country with an emphasis on local vendors and requires no refrigeration for transport or on-site preservation and can be packed together super tight without damaging the product to reduce packaging waste.
Then comes the fun part: creating. We build the dried flower installation primarily with reusable chicken wire, floral foam, and the dried flowers themselves. Time to completion can range quite a bit depending on the size and complexity of the piece.
Transportation & Installation
Once the piece is completed comes transportation and installation which involves
- Packing up and delivering product, in sections if too large
- Personally installing and/or supervising the office’s designated installation team since sometimes for legal reasons we can’t personally install
- Teaching client and/or their team how to maintain and care for the piece
Post-install
After the piece has been installed the last stage includes:
- Final payment transaction
- Scheduling an annual check-up for touch-up of the installation
- Documenting, posting, and advertising new project on socials and website
prototype
This is a mock-up I created to give you a better idea of something Studio Flora might create. This piece was primarily designed to hang above a conference table, kitchen area, lobby, or in any other high-traffic space in an office.
The total cost of my prototype came to $365 in materials and around 10 hours of work. was made up of 30 bunches of dried flowers from a super cool farm on the west coast called Charles Little and Company, LLC whose flowers have become naturalized and require little to no weeding or pest control and they are always field grown, no use of hoop houses or green houses.
The colors were intentionally chosen as it's proven bright tones like reds, pinks, oranges, and yellows improve energy, motivation, and productivity
