Understanding human physiological needs is a key factor in determining what actions can be taken to improve our surroundings efficiently.

All sentient beings primarily need energy for their organs to work, move, think, and keep the body warm. This energy mainly comes from oxygen that is breathed in and oxidizes the food that has been eaten. The food is additionally decomposed into various elements to build up the body. The distribution of energy and nutrients is ensured by the flow of water (blood).

The body temperature of around 37°C is hot enough to prevent fungal infection but cold enough to prevent the need to eat nonstop. Water is also used to cool the body through transpiration. Excess water and unused nutrients need to be expelled, and the brain requires some hours of rest for information structuring and recovery. In general, humans should avoid toxic substances or dangerous bacteria and viruses.

Here is an overview of the various physiological needs that humans have:

Breathing: A human breathes approximately 11m3 of air per day or equivalently consume 0.5m3 of pure oxygen per day (source).

Light: Light is needed to find one’s location and to feel safer. It is generally present during the day, but is needed on demand at night. Sunlight also provides a good feeling by releasing serotonin.

Eating: A human needs a balanced diet with approximately 2,000 kcal/day or 8,300 kJ/day. This represents roughly 500 g of dry food (400 kcal/100 g).

Drinking: A human needs approximately 2 to 2.5 liters of water per day, of which 1 liter is taken in with eating (Source). This represents about 1 cubic meter of water per year.

Rest: A fair amount of rest is required every day, ideally lying down on something soft in a calm environment for enhanced brain recovery. A calm environment also helps to promote clarity of thinking.

Health Support: A healthy body enhances the quality of life and facilitates a faster recovery when sick or injured.

Environmental Temperature and Humidity: Helping the body maintain a good temperature reduces the chance of getting sick and requires less energy and resources. Additionally, a certain level of humidity is necessary to prevent excessive evaporation while still allowing for transpiration.

Relations, Goals, Activities and Effort: These feel-good activities require time, freedom of movement, transportation, and education.

Toileting and Cleaning: Removing dirt prevents disease and provides better comfort.

Food

As a balanced diet is necessary, various types of crops need to be harvested. The industrialization of agriculture increases the yield from a given area while reducing the amount of human labor required. Yields vary greatly by region and by crop. For rice , the average annual yield is usually above 2000 kg/ha or 200g/m2 (source). Using this amount, everyone would need approximately 1000 m2 of land to satisfy their yearly energy needs. This value appears to be relatively safe when compared to other grain yields in France (Source). Additionally, nutrients are needed to grow crops. These can be obtained by mining new ones or (preferably) by reusing our waste.

To be efficient, agriculture needs a certain level of automation and knowledge. This requires people, the industrial development of tools and equipment, energy, as well as training and safeguarding of knowledge. Harvesting food also further requires processing (cleaning, sorting, peeling, cooking, storing, distributing) which benefits from a level of industrialization.

Water

On average, about 10 cm, 0.1 m3/m2, or 100 l/m2 of rain falls on land every year (source). This amount is sufficient for agriculture to grow. However, there are optimization techniques, such as Oyas, which can reduce the amount of water needed and only distribute the necessary water to the plants. In the worst case, about 100 m3 of water is needed per inhabitant to provide water to agriculture. In theory, closed-loop agriculture could prevent the need for additional water.

Human needs of 1m3 water per year can be halfly recycled as evaporation takes roughly its half. Water used for toileting depends on the infrastructure as it could be limited to 1l of water per day or expanded for ease of use (shower, drain…). Besides this water could relatively easily be recycled. Optimal water usage and its recycling demands as well industrial development of tools and equipment, energy, as well as training and safeguarding of knowledge. Water storage and distribution may help balancing out the rainwater variability.

Environmental control

Relatively stable and moderate temperature and humidity provides optimal support for the body to perform well. While a roof protects from the rain and walls from the wind, the temperature of the surrounding air can be controlled by heating or cooling, or increased insulation (using clothes). In general, a closed or semi opened building is found a good way to keep a good environmental control. Going outdoors generally requires clothes or mobile constructions (cars, bus…).

Indoor environments usually benefit from a good level of humidity which is enhanced by the presence of plants.

A certain level of exposure to outdoor climate is still beneficial for body resilience and experience to various environmental ranges, decreasing the sensibility to these same ranges.

•       Needs: Clothes (Cotton, Polymers), Roof, walls,
•       Nice to have: Air conditioning.

Toileting and Cleaning

Dirt removal helps living longer in better health, increasing individual wellbeing. Hand and body cleaning, but also clothes and living space cleaning provides increased protection from diseases. However, too much cleanliness reduces our resilience and therefore a balance got to be found. In general, access to water and waste disposal helps in separating the dirty from the clean areas. Waste deserves to be recycled as they are usually valuable resources. For cleaning, some cleaning agents can help but one needs to take care not to harm oneself and hence use cheap (low effort to make) agents which are as harmless to health as possible.

Rest & Focus

On top of daily sleep needed for brain recovery and settling, combining effort requires relations and activities to be performed, which benefit from preparation in a calm environment. Hence a sleeping (bedroom) and thinking (office room) environment benefits every individual wellbeing and productivity.

Besides indoor rest, outdoor connection with nature also provides a resourceful environment. Therefore, quick access to green and calm areas is beneficial. A small area in the living environment, and larger areas at medium distance and very large areas at long distance provides a good variety of options to connect with nature.

Relations, Goals, Activities, Entertainment, and Effort

Fruitful relations benefit from a safe yet energizing environment. Meeting rooms are usually dedicated for relation. Production activities are separated in separate places such as factory floor, manufacturing, or maintenance sites. Relation and entertainment are often combined like in entertainment centers (living room, cinema, sport arenas, concert, theater…). For these, special infrastructure is beneficial and should be accounted for in the resource split.

Additionally, knowledge sharing, and education can be done at locations or using data centers (internet) local access (using IT). Presential brings additional dynamics while allowing higher entertainment, but it imposes more transportation time and energy. A combination of the two is probably the ideal form.

Home entertainment allows release of endorphins while avoiding transportations. It requires some level of installation.

Important is that one person can only be at one place at a time. Meaning that they will require only 1 location to be at at a certain time. Considering a choice of 5 free activities and a lot of time spent at home or in nature, the entertainment area could be limited to 1/3 of a football field per person (approx. 200m2)

Health Support

The pain and impact of getting injured or sick can be decreased as much as possible by combining knowledge and tools. Specific locations, tools and medicine are beneficial and required for optimal living.

Level two needs:

Raw Materials: Can be found using mining or waste gathering. They often require further processing.

Industry and processing: Transform raw materials and energy into ready to use tools or usable energy. In general, these require space, energy, water, people, and materials to run properly.

Transportation & Distribution: For distribution of people, goods and materials, various transportation systems are useful. Currently road transport and or rail are mostly used and found sufficient. Sometimes, flight transport saves time and energy. Means of transportation are various, sometimes automotive, but very often require a lot of energy. While communities should thus be connected, care should be given that wildlife are not impacted regarding their freedom of movement and safety. Storage of goods and energy are often needed.

Administration Specifies the way all services are connected to best meet individual needs. This includes politics, financial system, redistribution

Energy: Directly from sun, from the Earth core, or indirectly via wind, water or plant, Energy gathering, and distribution enables to support individuals’ comfort, but also the industry and transport supporting it.