ABSTRACT
The res publica, or the civic body of a community, needs places in which the interactions that support a public life can occur. The incorporation of biophilic spatial patterns – particularly prospect, refuge, awe is a fairly universal design essential for achieving meaningful biophilic experience in libraries, transit hubs, places of worship and other civic spaces. Civic spaces can be designed to impose the power of the state over the individual which can engender humiliation, rather than humility or they can be designed to create a sense of charitability and convivial behaviour. Biophilic characteristics of awe support the latter outcome. Biophilic places of worship almost always balance dynamic and diffuse light, prospect and awe. Many also successfully incorporate complexity and order, biomorphic forms and other natural analogues. Good civic spaces also support casual interaction at a variety of levels depending on an individual's state of mind. Public libraries have moved beyond being solely repositories for books.
