Biophilic Office Design: Bringing Nature Into the Workplace

By 2007, more than half of the world's population was living in cities. Urban dwellers keep growing in number and global urbanization keeps rising, while green space and natural environments in city centers keep shrinking. Biophilic design aims to restore natural stimuli in the environments we build and design, in order to protect, sustain, restore, and enhance our physiological, cognitive, and psychological connections with the natural world. As a pathway to healthier living, biophilic design can catalyze landscape architecture to play a central role in improving public health in urban environments.

As the workplace has evolved, the principles of biophilic design have come to the fore, because the benefits they bring — lower employee stress levels and reduced absenteeism — have become impossible to ignore. With boosting corporate productivity an imperative, the trend of biophilic office design is increasingly popular here.

1 What is biophilic office design

Biophilic office design refers to the trend of bringing the outdoors inside — or more precisely, into the workplace. A common misconception is that biophilic design means adding lots of plants and shrubs; it's far more complex than that. In this style of office design, a natural aesthetic is preferred. It encompasses green cleaning policies, smart lighting systems, open spaces and natural views, sound, aromatherapy, indoor plants, living walls, and much more.

2 Why do we need biophilic office design

(1) Injecting new energy into work

A wealth of statistical data shows that plants help people feel happier, more energetic, and healthier — improving productivity and well-being.

Of course, the elements of biophilic design go beyond plants to include water, breezes, sounds, scents, and other natural elements. For example, we can use wood, bamboo, cork, stone, or recycled glass within an office space to express the beauty of biophilic design.

(2) Building holistic spaces with a shared vision

Beyond making an environment more beautiful, biophilic design can play multiple roles in our office space design. The concept is more complex than simply arranging plants indoors — it also involves the ideas of the senses, atmosphere, and well-being, so that our touch, sight, smell, and hearing can all be stimulated by the power of nature.

Here, touch matters as much as hearing and sight. Nature-close rocks, soft lawns, and verdant pines form a complete, organic ecosystem.

(3) A link in sustainable development

Reforming office environment design is an important step toward building the cities of the future. This industry may be just one link in the chain of sustainable development, but it can inspire other industries to change in the years ahead. The advantage of biophilic design isn't just external beautification — more importantly, it offers our offices a new kind of design that is healthier, smarter, and more resilient.

Overall, as eco-friendly office space design spreads, natural elements are being applied ever more widely in office design. In the design process for interior spaces, we should fully consider the actual needs of office workers, take sustainable development as the design philosophy and human-centeredness as the design principle, and make sensible use of natural elements such as plants, natural light, and organic materials to design the space ecologically — working to improve the comfort of the office space, thereby raising office workers' efficiency and creating more value and benefit for society.