Biophilic Design in Architecture

Published 8 April 2020 · Updated 13 November 2026

The gist: Biophilic design gives people a closer relationship with nature through the spaces they use every day. Planting matters, but so do daylight, views, materials and the experience of shelter. Its strongest examples make those connections part of the building’s organisation, with the maintenance and environmental systems to sustain them.

A tree outside a window can do more for a room than a wall of plants positioned where nobody spends time. That is a useful starting point for biophilic architecture: the relationship between people, a place and living systems.

An approach, rather than a look

Biophilic design is not a period style with a prescribed façade. The term draws on biophilia, the idea of a human affinity with other life, popularised by biologist E. O. Wilson in his 1984 book. It gives designers a way to think deliberately about experiences that gardens, courtyards and shaded verandahs have long provided.

Terrapin Bright Green’s design framework distinguishes direct contact with nature, references to natural forms and materials, and spatial experiences such as looking out from a protected position. Daylight moving across a floor, a view into tree branches or a sheltered place to sit can therefore be as relevant as a planted roof.

This is a framework for design, not a guarantee that a green-looking interior will improve health or productivity. The useful question is what someone can actually see, touch and experience from the places where they spend their day.

The Jewel in Singapore. Photo by Joe Green on Unsplash.

When landscape organises the building

At Jewel Changi Airport, Safdie Architects brought a large indoor garden into a complex connecting airport terminals, shops and visitor facilities. Terraced planting surrounds the central Rain Vortex, allowing people to encounter the landscape from different levels.

The garden is the organising space: paths, views and places to pause are arranged around it. That distinction matters. Vegetation has a different role when it shapes the route through a building than when it merely fills leftover corners. Jewel also demonstrates the highly constructed nature of such an experience, housed within a substantial glazed enclosure.

Growing a façade

Milan’s Bosco Verticale, by Stefano Boeri’s practice, places trees and other planting on residential balconies. Its architectural effect depends on living material changing over time, rather than a façade remaining visually fixed.

The practice describes centralised irrigation and professional maintenance, including specialist gardeners working on the outside of the towers. These are essential parts of the design. A planted building is an ongoing horticultural responsibility, with questions of access, water and replacement that cannot be resolved by its opening-day photograph.

Bosco Verticale, two residential towers in Milan. Photo by Daryan Shamkhali on Unsplash

An Australian example: One Central Park

In Sydney, One Central Park combines Jean Nouvel’s architecture with Patrick Blanc’s vertical planting. Hydroponic walls, planters and climbing supports extend the landscape of the adjoining park onto the towers. The architect describes the vegetation as seasonal sun control, while loggias create intermediate spaces between apartments and the outdoors.

The conspicuous cantilever carries another response to the site: a heliostat that redirects sunlight towards the park below. Planting, shade and reflected light work at different scales. The project is useful because it shows that contact with nature involves the design of the whole building and its surroundings, not simply the amount of greenery visible from the street.

One Central Park Sydney by Jean Nouvel

What to look for

For a home, the starting point can be modest: a useful garden outlook, a courtyard beside everyday living space, or shade that makes an outdoor room comfortable. Ask whether the connection remains available from a seated position, through different seasons and as the planting matures.

Biophilic qualities and environmental performance should be considered together, but they are not interchangeable. A planted façade does not, by itself, establish low energy use or low embodied carbon. The strongest design brings the experience of nature into daily life and provides a realistic way to care for it.

Explore One Central Park on blueprint.

Related reading: Shinto Shrine Architecture · Parametric Design in Architecture.