Dr Alia Fadel

Find out more about the positive experiences of Marjorie, Valentin and Mika, all of who studied Landscape Architecture at Leeds Beckett as exchange students. In this blog, they share what they enjoyed about studying with us and how they adjusted to living in a different part of the world.

High-density cities embody the human and urban capacity for sustainable and economic growth. However, regular contact with nature remains a critical challenge to support the inhabitants’ health and achieve an urban green equality. Urban population lives through accumulative stressful stimuli on daily basis affecting people health, wellbeing, productivity, and sense of societal belonging and pleasure. These challenges are exacerbated by Covid 19 pandemic placing all humanity at a survival mode and evoking further distressing incentives. Aiming at green inclusive recovery in high-density cities, this chapter introduces Interval Biophilic Restoration (IBR) as an integrated eco-therapy process stimulated by healing moments of multisensory encounters with nature at diverse urban scales. It investigates the therapeutic value of weaving an urban green fabric, from threads of serendipitous stress-alleviating opportunities, to support the urbanites’ physiological, psychological, and emotional health. Anchored in the theoretical premises and empirical studies confirming the health benefits from nature-based restoration, this chapter introduces, defines, and investigates IBR as a new theoretical contribution to the notion of Biophilia, Biophilic Cities and Urbanism by focusing on the curative potentials of minor, periodic, and transitional encounters with biophilic moments to stimulate the restorative state of healing serendipity amongst the urban population in high-density cities.

PhD Interdisciplinary Research Seminars, Leeds School of Arts, Leeds Beckett University 2021

2018 PhD Best Dissertation Award presented to Alia Fadel at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, USA.