Colour, scale, proportion, shape, number, size, dimension, materials, orientation and location can all have a psychological effect upon us, whether it is conscious or unconscious. The effect that these factors will have upon us will be enhancing or healing if they are derived from the greatest source of good design – the natural worlds. All buildings have energies and atmospheres, partly caused by the design and partly created by the activities that go on inside of them.

The process of healing can be considered to be the recovery journey back to the well-being of our natural selves – a journey to the well-being that is inherent within the natural design of ourselves as human beings.

A rich source of design can be found within the profound template of how nature works so exactly throughout every living thing, and from the awesome and incredible ways we as human beings have been profoundly designed.

Ecologies can therefore be designed according to the natural patterns and sacred geometries which have a natural resonance and sympathy to the true human-ness of all that we are.

Design can therefore be an effective way to heal and re-integrate our wholeness as human beings, with a respect and reverence for the design realms which we live within.

This concept is well known to many architects and designers throughout history, but has today become neglected and abandoned. For instance, the designers of the great gothic cathedrals, such as Chartres, had a deep respect and reverence for the fundamental laws of nature which do not change, and endeavoured to design and arrange their buildings in harmony with these very important examples of natural order.

Architectural form was often inspired by the belief that the human form is the most sacred of all temples, and was, indeed, itself, an expression of a greater natural order. Sacred geometries have indeed been used for centuries.

Numbers, for instance, can be considered to be the sacred patterns of this natural order, inherent within the design of all living things. Therefore our buildings, if designed according to the patterns of this greater design, can be tuned into a sympathetic resonance with this natural order.

The 21st century we are creating has largely become adrift and cut off from the permanency of all that we live within and therefore much of all that we have designed and created in the modern world appears to be alien to the natural design of ourselves.