What is biophilic architecture? Our guide explains all

Biophilia (and biophilic architecture, as a result) expresses the innate human urge to connect with nature that even the industrial era has failed to sever. For more than 99 per cent of our history, humans have evolved in response to natural forces and other life forms, yet the mass move to urban living and the densification of our cities have drastically curtailed our exposure to them, impacting our health and wellbeing.

What is biophilia and biophilic architecture?

The term biophilia – derived from Greek and meaning ‘love of life’ in all its forms – was coined by psychologist Erich Fromm and popularised by biologist Edward Wilson in his book Biophilia in 1984. Examples of biophilic architecture stretch back millennia, however, long before the term came into usage. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon – built in 600 BC in Mesopotamia and featuring terraced rooftops that evoked a lush, green mountain in an urban landscape – are an early example. But it was the late social ecologist Stephen Kellert who attempted to put a framework around what he called biophilic design, in a series of books and papers.

‘Biophilic design seeks to create good habitat for people as a biological organism in the modern built environment that advances people’s health, fitness and wellbeing,’ he said in his 2015 paper, The Practice of Biophilic Design, co-written with architect Elizabeth Calabrese. Many interpretations in the last few decades have involved green façades and shoving the odd shrub inside a building, but Kellert insisted that biophilic architecture ‘requires repeated and sustained engagement with nature’ – a more holistic strategy that embeds plants, natural materials, daylight and (more lately) environmental intelligence into the entire experience of a place.

Biophilic architecture’s three defining characteristics

Biophilic architecture requires three key attributes, as Kellert defined it: ‘the direct experience of nature’, meaning actual contact with environmental features, such as natural light, plants, water and landscape; ‘the indirect experience of nature’, which refers to exposure to images of nature, natural materials and forms inspired by the natural world; and ‘the experience of space and place’, which encompasses spatial features characteristic of the natural environment that have advanced human health and wellbeing – views, a sense of safety, way finding and easy mobility.

Boston-based architect Moshe Safdie – one of the pioneers of biophilic architecture – puts it more simply. ‘For everyone a garden’ has been his guiding philosophy since his outset as an architect, inspired by his childhood playing among the fertile terraces of Haifa (then part of Palestine) in the 1940s, before the city densified.

With Habitat ’67, his much-lauded (and criticised) project in Montreal, he went on to rethink high-rise housing so that each apartment would feel like a house with a garden, open streets and communal spaces rich with plant life. His more recent Habitat Qinhuangdao project in the eponymous Chinese city – completed in 2024 – furthers those ambitions with 16-storey stepped residential blocks, staggered and offset to give way to terraces, balconies and solariums. It’s an example of how nature can be the organising framework of the building and guide spatial experience, rather than being an afterthought.

Safdie believes that dense urban environments ‘must be integrated with nature in such a way that the old dividing line between city and countryside becomes blurred’, as he put it in a 2022 issue of the Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly. This involves re-examining what optimal density really is – ‘one of the most important challenges facing cities today’, says Nguyen Hoang Manh, principal architect of Vietnam practice MIA Design Studio, which has embedded biophilic architecture principles into projects that range from residential developments to hotels.

‘We seek to reduce a building’s footprint to the minimum, allowing more space for vegetation, water features, biodiversity, and communal areas. We see nature as an essential urban infrastructure, just as important as transportation, utilities, or energy systems.’ Biophilic architecture has evolved from just being about integrating greenery into buildings to a more all-encompassing idea in which each project is conceived as ‘a complete ecosystem, where architecture, climate, landscape, and people coexist and support one another’, as Nguyen explains.

The health benefits of biophilic architecture

Most of us can attest to the restorative power of being immersed in nature but research now backs this up. A UK study in 2019 involving nearly 20,000 people found that those who spent at least 120 minutes a week in greenery were significantly more likely to report good health and higher psychological wellbeing. Meanwhile, another 2019 study by Aarhus University, Denmark, found that children who grow up surrounded by abundant green space have up to a 55 per cent lower risk of developing psychiatric and mental health disorders later in life compared to those with the least exposure to nature.

A systematic review of the ‘Restorative Effects of Biophilic Workplace and Nature Exposure during Working Time’, published in 2023, found that exposure to nature in work settings – including plants, natural light, views of nature, and green breaks – is linked with improvements in worker wellbeing, motivation and performance. But the pressures on our cities are becoming increasingly intense. By 2050, the UN expects two-thirds of humanity to be city dwellers, compared to just three per cent as lately as 1800, which underscores the urgency for biophilic architecture that puts nature at the heart of urban centres.

Projects that raise the bar for biophilic architecture

Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore, by Safdie Architects

Jewel Changi Airport blurs the boundary between airport infrastructure, shopping mall and botanical garden. Watching the world’s largest indoor waterfall – the 40m-high Rain Vortex – plunge from the ceiling of the glass bagel-shaped building while awaiting a flight is an instant balm to travel stress, as this writer can attest. Safdie described its toroidal inverse dome as creating ‘a new kind of spatial experience, a daylit vast landscaped garden, combined with seven levels of shopping and airport facilities’, at the time of its opening in 2019. Incorporating natural daylight, extensive indoor forestry and passive environmental strategies, it puts nature at the core of the experience.

The Park in Vinh City, Vietnam, by MIA Design Studio

Five low-profile pavilions emerge from the landscape in this public service facility completed in 2023 and overlooking a lake in Vinh City, Nghe An Province, Vietnam. It was imagined as a vertical ecosystem rather than a conventional office building, with nature extending through the entire spatial experience thanks to large sky gardens, naturally ventilated communal spaces, shaded terraces and interconnected landscapes. ‘What makes The Park particularly meaningful is the continuous dialogue it creates between people, vegetation, climate, and architecture,’ says MIA Design Studio’s Nguyen Hoang Manh. ‘Moving through the building feels more like walking through a landscape than occupying a traditional workplace.’

Habitat Qinhuangdao in Qinhuangdao, China, by Safdie Architects

Private terraces, sky gardens, rooftop landscapes and over 16 hectares of public gardens are woven through Habitat Qinhuangdao, a cluster of over 1,800 homes sited 200 miles east of Beijing. Moshe Safdie has reimagined his Montreal housing project Habitat ’67 as a high-density coastal community of staggered residential blocks linked by skybridges, creating a porous form that maximises daylight, natural ventilation and views of the Bohai Sea. It opened in 2016, with phase II – which more than doubled its size – completing in 2024.

Amazon Spheres in Seattle, USA, by NBBJ

Retail giant Amazon reimagined how an office could look, feel and smell with The Spheres, sited beside its Seattle HQ. American firm NBBJ designed three conjoined glass orbs filled with ‘cloud forest’ gardens comprising over 40,000 individual plants. Instead of sitting at desks or cubicles, workers can amble along pathways for walking meetings, make use of treehouses for collaborative conversations and enjoy sundecks and suspension bridges. ‘Studies suggest that spaces that embrace biophilic design can inspire creativity and even improve brain function,’ said an Amazon blogpost when The Spheres opened in 2018. The entire structure is covered in 2,643 panes of clear, tessellated glass, beneath which is a layer of film to limit infrared radiation and keep the interiors cool, although some have questioned the impact of the high humidity levels on productivity. The Spheres are also open to the public.

BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by WOHA

Singapore-based studio WOHA transformed a polluted inner city swamp in Dhaka into a lush public park and campus for BRAC University in 2023 – recently scooping one of the RIBA’s 2026 International Awards for Excellence. The campus layout is inspired by the Sundarbans mangrove forest, mimicking its vertical and horizontal ecosystems to combat Dhaka's dense urban heat and monsoon climate. It is separated into open-air public zones and private, sheltered academic areas. These are blanketed with over 26,000 sq m of vertical and horizontal landscaping, including sky terraces and hanging gardens. The building is designed to ‘breathe’, with horizontal breezeways that channel wind and enhance airflow. Meanwhile, the ground-level park includes a bio-retention pond and native plants.

Bosco Verticale in Milan, Italy, by Boeri Studio

Stefan Boeri went further than the ‘green wall’ – now deemed questionable from a fire safety perspective – by creating a vertical forest across two residential towers in Milan, planted with 800 trees, 15,000 perennials and 5,000 shrubs. Completed in 2014, Bosco Verticale offers the equivalent of 30,000 sq m of woodland and undergrowth, according to the architect. Planting was specific to each floor, with over 60 varieties of trees chosen to boost biodiversity and the health of residents, while regulating internal temperatures. The leaves of the deciduous trees shade the full-height glazing in the summer before they drop in the autumn, allowing more sunlight and heat into the building as temperatures drop.

Urban Farming Office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, by Vo Trong Nghia Architects

Vo Trong Nghia Architects created a hybrid office and vertical urban farm in Ho Chi Minh City in 2022, providing fruit, vegetables and herbs that are irrigated by stored rainwater. Serving as the practice’s own HQ, the structure is built using an exposed concrete frame. The wall of plants – which completely swaths the concrete building's glazed southern side and is supported by a shelving-like external structure of thin steel – filters sunlight and air, preventing overheating and creating a shaded microclimate for staff. Workspaces are arranged around a central atrium, and sliding glass doors open onto balconies. A rooftop garden provides further space for growing plants.