What Is Biophilic Design and How to Implement It at Home?

Introducing nature into your home may seem “unnatural” to some. However, plants, light and water all create a more harmonious atmosphere. The health benefits of surrounding yourself with sustainability and natural healing are worth considering. Biophilic design is gaining popularity in various architecture and interior designs to promote better health.

Adding one or two ferns to your living space is a step in the right direction, but for a genuine biophilic design, you must invite as much nature into your rooms and home as possible. Discover what biophilic or nature-centric interior decorating can offer you and how to implement it.

What Is Biophilic Design?

A dictionary will tell you that “biophilic” means interacting with or closely associating with the living world. This love of life and living things probably caused humans to take flowers or plants into their homes for the first time.

Biophilic design creates an interior space that allows you to interact and associate with plants and living things inside your home. According to biologist Edward O. Wilson, using nature-affinity principles has a genetic basis. So include natural elements like plants, water, wind, light and stone.

How to Incorporate Biophilic Design Elements at Home

Introduce nature-centric strategies into your home by moving beyond the obvious. It’s about using the natural world in an eco-friendly way by merging the indoors and outdoors through living materials and elements. You can also use standard interior decorating methods to create the feeling of being outside.

1. Introducing Nature Through Environmental Features

The first way to use biophilia is to include a living natural element in your home. It can be with a wall of indoor plants, a small tree, and even a waterfall or water feature. Use this opportunity to change out old or tired windows for larger or newer ones that invite natural light for the plants and you to thrive.

Consider ponytail palms, yucca plants and philodendrons, which prefer indirect light but grow faster in brighter conditions. A trailing pothos plant grows in all conditions and does well in the shade. You can also add an indoor fishpond or cultivate various herbs and edible plants throughout your home, creating a sustainable space.

2. Recreating Nature Through Representation

If you can’t bring a huge pine tree into your home, you can recreate the idea of one. Consider large tree-like pillars, framed bark or trunk cuts as tabletops. Photos of the natural environment, such as large prints of the sky and forested landscapes, also help create a soothing atmosphere.

Consider adding glass jars of different-colored sediment or sand to recreate the Earth in a bottle. Textured walls that reflect nature’s tactile qualities, like coarse walls and leafy fabrics, are a great way to include the outside world when you can’t use real plants.

3. Incorporating Natural Shapes

Living things have free-form and organic shapes, unlike human-constructed structures with straight lines and hard corners. Revive your home with curved furniture and free-form geometry.

Buy curvy tables and use living wood for tabletops to achieve an irregular shape or line on furniture.

4. Adding Natural Processes

Rusted steel with a metal patina is a popular choice for interior spaces. It speaks of the passage of time, connecting you to a world that’s slowly changing. Add rusted planters and sheets with natural wood or driftwood pieces.

5. Playing With Light and Color

Light is life, and you should make the most of it in a nature-centric decorated space. Take down heavy drapery and steel blinds. Opt for natural bamboo blinds and bare windows that invite light and air into your home. Incorporate creeping vines inside and outside, blurring the line between indoor and outdoor.

Use a neutral color palette inspired by the living world. Think of rusty reds, deep browns, muted grays and leafy greens.

6. Exploring Human and Nature Relationships

The natural world and people often walk in conflict, but you can embrace cohesion in your home. Avoid cutting down trees or removing large boulders when building. Instead, create architecture that incorporates them as natural features. Why can’t a large tree grow from the side of your living room or a giant rock make the backdrop in your kitchen?

7. Breathing New Life

Ensure your space is well-ventilated by planning air drafts and opening windows accordingly. Clever planning will help you avoid heavy reliance on harmful HVAC or air conditioning systems. Allow the air to travel through the space, and avoid blocking it with small windows or window coverings.

Benefits of Biophilic Design

Studies on the benefits of nature-based design can be extrapolated to identify a connection between people’s interaction with the outdoor environment and benefiting from bringing natural elements indoors. A comparison of 39 studies on the effects of nature on humans showed that mental health outcomes improved in 98% of the studies, and cognitive abilities increased 75% of the time.

Introducing the living world into your home brings the same positives as you would experience outdoors. You can see:

• Improved mental health and calm through plant exposure.
• Reduced reliance on analgesics and pain medication because of sunlight exposure.
• Decreased anxiety when listening to the sound of water.
• Increased injury and postoperative recovery.
• Strengthened breathing with the introduction of indoor plants and improved indoor humidity control.

It’s Green, so It’s Good

Biophilic design is about more than just greening your home. While plants are a big part of it, the main focus is creating a space that pays homage to the natural world while distancing yourself from traditional interior concepts.

Open doors and windows, let the living world in and feel it touch your home life.