All About Biophilic Design
If houseplants make spending time indoors pleasurable for you, biophilic design can bring that feeling to every room in your home.
Biophilic design uses the natural world for inspiration in all interior design decisions to create spaces that feel alive. Your connection to nature becomes the focal point rather than any individual element or decoration.
There are plenty of wishy-washy definitions for biophilic design. It’s simply a method for designing spaces with nature to enhance well-being, perhaps to mimic the feeling of walking in the woods or visiting a tropical island.
Houseplants are crucial in biophilic design as living, breathing focal points. They rely on your care to thrive, creating an intimate connection as you nurture them through watering, pruning, and tending to their needs.
However, biophilic design isn't about adding a lone plant — it's about creating an entire environment that feels connected to nature.
Join us below to learn more about biophilic design.
What is Biophilic Design?
Biophilic design brings nature into your modern built environments, where you spend most of your time, to satisfy your innate need for natural connection.
Your indoor space will focus on elements that have historically benefited human health and well-being to make you feel good.
For instance, large windows provide natural light and views of outdoor greenery, indoor plants purify the air and add life to your space, and natural materials like wood and stone create a sense of warmth and connection to the earth.
Your habitat will feel like a refuge zone or an open-yet-protected area, like the natural shelters our ancestors sought for safety and comfort.
An overarching point of a biophilic design is that your habitat shouldn’t have an isolated occurrence of nature — so sticking one plant in the corner of a white room that’s otherwise sterile isn’t an example of biophilia in action.
What is a perfect example of biophilia is a space that delivers repeated and sustained engagement with nature. Each visual and physical touchpoint in your space should provide a natural stimulus to reinforce your experience.
Craving Nature
It’s natural to crave nature when much of the modern world keeps us inside artificial and sensory-deprived spaces like office blocks, supermarkets, schools, warehouses, malls, and shopping centers.
A lack of natural light, greenery, fresh air, and views beyond walls can cause us to become detached from nature and feel overwhelmed when finally exposed to it.
You probably know this feeling well when you enter a beautiful outdoor space and never want to leave. Sitting behind a desk or being stuck inside a bland, gray space instead of being in nature will make you sad.
Biophilic design helps bridge this gap by bringing natural elements and patterns into your built spaces to satisfy your biological need for nature contact.
You can achieve this with direct experiences (e.g., houseplants), indirect experiences (artwork), and clever use of space (e.g., transitional spaces) to build an indoor environment that reminds you there’s more to life than four walls.
The Health Angle
You probably feel happier, healthier, and more like yourself in nature. And you aren’t imagining it – you are hardwired to respond positively to natural environments.
This biological connection is the foundation of biophilic design. Studies show that small exposures to nature, even indoors, can reduce stress, lower blood pressure, improve cognitive function, and boost mood.
What it means for you is you're not just decorating with biophilic elements; you're creating an environment that supports your physical and mental well-being.
Examples of Biophilic Design
Jewel Changi Airport
A beautiful example is the Jewel Changi Airport in Changi, Singapore, home to the world’s largest indoor waterfall and over 2,000 trees, palms, and 100,000 shrubs covering an impressive 21,000 sqm.
The Jewel is built over Changi Airport Terminal 1. Its indoor forest provides walking trails, gardens, relaxation zones, and modern facilities for shopping and leisure. It’s a wonderful space with biophilia at its heart.
Bosco Verticale
Bosco Verticale is a sustainable, residential high-rise building built to regenerate the loss of natural habitats in Milan. It’s an architectural delight where trees and humans co-exist, using biophilia to bring nature to concrete and glass.
Its walls of plants and trees, including Wild pear and Parico calico, are natural biological habitats for birds and insects. Different seasons bring unique colors and growth in an ever-changing, living example of biophilic design.
How to Embrace Biophilic Design at Home
Houseplants
Houseplants will give you a living connection to your space and boost your well-being through their presence and the nurturing care they require.
If you choose an easyplant, the self-watering pot only needs refilling once monthly, with a wick delivering water when your plants want it.
Look around your home and consider where you could add plants – windowsills, countertops, shelves, room corners, hangers, and indoor trellis panels (for climbing plants) are decent options for small and large plants.
You can then choose individual plant species and collections, such as Heartfelt Harmony and Nature’s Trifecta to furnish your home.
Low-maintenance options include the golden snake plant and the black ZZ plant – these aren’t fussy about light, temperature, or humidity.
Water Features
The sound and sight of trickling and moving water will add a welcome layer of sensory, natural depth to your biophilic space.
Small fountains and aquariums are perfect for reinforcing your connection to nature at home without taking up loads of space.
You don’t necessarily need to trickle or move water — a scent diffuser that vaporizes the air can provide similar relaxation effects.
Another way to incorporate water into your interior spaces is indirectly through artwork or wall murals depicting water scenes.
Natural Materials
Wooden furniture and flooring, stone countertops, woven rugs, knitted textiles, cork wall panels, natural clay, and terracotta pottery will give your space a grounded and earthy feel that enhances your biophilic space.
All the main touchpoints in your home, such as your chairs, doorknobs, lighting, and curtains, are prime opportunities for natural materials.
Swap out anything artificial, such as plastic switches and plants, and add new natural materials that are pleasant to touch and use to create a repeated and reinforcing experience of nature. That’s the key to biophilic design.
Summing up
Biophilic design is the best answer to your interior design woes if your home feels disconnected from nature.
Adding a few easyplants, natural materials, and water effects can make all the difference to make a happier space, but biophilic design goes further by making each touchpoint natural or beneficial to your health.
The exciting part of biophilia is transforming your space with new things, and there’s certainly no shortage of houseplant choices.
easyplant offers a stunning range of exotic plants that need watering only once monthly thanks to the ingenious self-watering pot – refill the reservoir, and water moves slowly up a wick to the roots for optimal watering and plant health.
You can check out the latest easyplant collections here.
