I have spent years working in biophilic design, and I can say without a doubt that the kitchen is one of the spaces where biophilic design can have the most profound impact. When it comes to biophilic kitchens, the principles of this powerful form of design could hardly be more relevant. The kitchen is not only a biophilic opportunity zone but also a place where design can have real-life consequences. That’s because the kitchen is not just the heart of the home but also a site of deep engagement, where mere mortals do work that connects them to family, friends, and the act of cooking itself. I will walk you through some of the most exciting biophilic kitchen ideas I have come across (or created) in my personal life and professional life out in the design world.
Materials and Textures—Introducing the Outdoors to the Indoors
When clients ask me about biophilic kitchen design, I always start with the materials and textures that will make up the space. Biophilic design isn’t just for places in nature; it can work just as powerfully in the kitchen when sustainable material choices and smart design lead to a kitchen that feels serene and natural. I remember a couple I worked with who were completely gutting their urban kitchen. They wanted an antidote to the city outside their windows. For them, the kitchen had to be a peaceful, tactile oasis.
We began with natural stone countertops. There’s something grounding about the cool, smooth texture of stone, especially when it’s left in its raw, unpolished form. The subtle imperfections of the surface add character to the space, serving as a reminder that nature doesn’t strive for perfection—it simply exists as it is, beautiful in its authenticity. The cabinets in this kitchen are made of reclaimed wood. Reclaimed wood is a warm and organic choice for a kitchen, but its use here also aligns with the principles of sustainability that are at the heart of biophilic design. Every plank of wood had its own story, complete with knots and grain patterns that made each cabinet feel unique.
I worked on another project where the goal was to use terracotta tiles for the kitchen floor. The client wanted a kitchen that reminded her of her childhood home in the Mediterranean. She grew up in a home with natural textures and earthly tones that gave her a warm, rustic feeling. I have to say that terracotta is a great choice for a floor. Unless you’re a real sadist, your kitchen health inspector is never going to declare that a floor tiled in beautiful, hand-painted scenes is unsanitary. On the contrary, research says that natural materials like terracotta are good for your health because they’re porous and can breathe. And terracotta ages. It develops a patina over time that makes it richer and more beautiful as it interacts with your home.
If a full renovation isn’t in the cards, there are still numerous ways to add natural materials to your kitchen. First off, consider replacing those metal and plastic cabinet pulls: Wood and ceramic hardware achieves a much warmer look and feel and take this space to the next level, install open shelving made from solid wood to display your biophilic kitchenware.
A personal favorite of mine is the live-edge wood kitchen countertop or table. Live-edge wood keeps the natural shape of the tree. It’s as if, underneath the high-gloss epoxy surface, there’s a raw tree waiting to be outfitted with kitchen tools. You touch it, and immediately, you think of the forest from which the tree came, and you have an urge to find an axe and head into the woods to chop wood for a fire.
Sunlight and Plants—Life in the Kitchen
Throughout my years of working with biophilic design, one of the most profound changes I’ve witnessed is the power of natural light and plants to transform kitchen spaces. Kitchens are often functional and utilitarian, but when you introduce natural elements into that space—like the warmth of sunlight and the softness of plants—the kitchen becomes a refuge and a restorative space, where you connect not only with yourself but also with anyone else who might share that time and place with you. I’ve watched clients fall back in love with their kitchens by simply making a few changes to allow nature to permeate that room.
Let’s begin with natural illumination. There is a reason why kitchens that are filled with brilliant sunlight seem more open and welcoming. Not only does sunlight brighten up a space, but it also has a significant effect on our mental and physical health. Working on a kitchen that expands in every conceivable direction is one thing, but what happens when you’re constrained by the historic nature of a home? One project I took on was with a kitchen in a historic home, where the previous kitchen had small portraits in bright daylight and inside was a blast of marginally brighter LED lights with a dimly lit section from the stove. We didn’t take a major step toward inappropriate window placement, and the sandwich we made worked from aesthetic and energy-efficiency angles. When it was time to order the floor-to-ceiling windows, you could sense the light pouring in from without.
If you can’t get real sunlight into your space, there are ways to mimic it and even ways to improve your artificial lighting so that it feels like sunlight. The best way to do this is by using warm, nature-hued lighting. This would be ‘layer 1.’ Layer 1 should still provide enough light to see what you’re doing while shouldn’t create any sort of visual distraction. I really, really don’t like seeing kitchen tasks lit with what I would describe as ‘moonlight.’ If your lighting makes the food you’re preparing look like it’s lit by the full moon, it’s time to reconsider those fixtures and the color of their light.
Next, let’s turn our attention to plants. One of the easiest yet most impactful ways to incorporate biophilic design into your kitchen is to add greenery to the space. Not only do plants occupy vertical and horizontal areas in the kitchen, but they also serve to punctuate certain moments in the design. I had a couple of clients who were avid cooks but often felt disconnected not only from the nature they loved but also from the city they lived in. So, for their kitchen, we did two things that really brought life and vigor into this closed space: First, we installed a massive window—essentially an opening for fresh air and sunlight to come pouring in. Then we created a living herb wall.
You can also introduce greenery into the kitchen with hanging planters or window boxes. I helped a recent client transform their window into a “mini-greenhouse.” From it cascaded several plants in hanging baskets, and lined the sill with small pots of greenery. It was a relatively simple addition to their space. But the impact it had was huge every time they stepped into their kitchen, which is now filled with a burst of fresh greenery. The kitchen feels much more tranquil and spacious than ever before.
If you’re pressed for space or concerned about the upkeep of your plants, I often recommend starting with small, low-maintenance selections such as succulents or air plants—both of which require nearly no attention.
Air plants, which need no soil to survive, are especially well-suited to the kitchen. They can be put in holds and displayed along with other decorations, on top of or just within reach of and around kitchen counters. Adding air plants brings life into the kitchen. And these space-age, low-tech flora require nearly zero effort—making them perfect for anyone with a busy schedule who still wants to bring a little green into the kitchen.
If one aspires to elevate their biophilic kitchen, then a hydroponic system may be the answer. I worked on a project not long ago where we installed a small, indoor hydroponic garden within the kitchen. It allowed the homeowner to grow an array of leafy greens and herbs at all times—from summer to winter—when outdoor gardening wasn’t an option. Hydroponics, which means “working water” in Greek, relies on that very element as a major ingredient of its system. Whether home or away, can a biophilic kitchen truly exist without a significant component of that most vital of substances?
In addition to plants and light, natural elements such as water should also be factored into kitchen design. I have encountered some astonishing biophilic kitchens that feature water elements, like small indoor fountains, that peacefully gurgle and bubble away in the corner. Indeed, the best biophilic kitchens take full advantage of water’s immersive, sensory qualities. Placed strategically, an indoor fountain or even a small aquarium could work wonders to relieve kitchen stress by turning up the calming natural effects of water.
Biophilic design, to me, is about much more than pleasing appearances; it’s about how you are affected when you inhabit a space. I have found that kitchens embracing natural light and greenery become places where people want to be—where they want to linger as they greet the day, sun warming the skin, or stir up a recipe after a long day. Kinas and peninsulas have become as appropriate for a botanical how-to demonstration as for culinary chemistry. The former space is reputedly almost as good as the garden in the way it allows for the sensory experience of working with plant materials.
Crafting a Sensory Experience—Making the Kitchen Biophilic Through Noise, Aroma, and Texture
A biophilic kitchen must be more than just a pretty place. It needs to engage the senses, to have, if you will, a kind of olfactory charm. Scenting the biophilic kitchen is as important as making it look delicious. Informed by a decade of working with clients on eco-luxe kitchen design, I will walk you through some truly sei(c)the Kitchen elements and give my take on why you’ll be better off enacting them. In the end, you may find that the charms of the biophilic kitchen are just too persuasive to resist.
Let’s begin with sound. An aspect of biophilic design that doesn’t always get its due is the influence of sound on our experience of a space. Kitchens are often places of hubbub, filled with the auditory energy of jumbled utensils, crackling stovetops, and whirring blenders. While we may not often consider it, these loud and lively sounds are just as much a part of biophilic design as the views from our kitchen windows or the textures of our kitchen countertops. In fact, there can be a big difference in terms of how calming or invigorating a kitchen feels depending on the sounds that are part of the scene. When we worked on one potential biophilic kitchen, we helped the occupants think through aural aspects of the design in order to make it more peaceful.
If a water element is impractical, other methods are available for including the sounds of nature in the kitchen. For one, I’ve told clients it’s perfectly acceptable to play soundscapes inspired by nature—like the sounds of birds, a forest, or ocean waves—through discreet speakers while they go about their culinary or dining business. For some reason, my nature sounds have tended toward more interior locations—like my kitchen—than either my dome or the walls of my sound booth. Can’t rightly say why. Still, it’s the same principle.
Scent is another potent sensory element in a biophilic kitchen. I’ve always believed that smell has an almost magical ability to take us somewhere else, and in a kitchen, scent is an essential part of the whole experience. Undoubtedly, the aromas of fresh herbs, spices, and cooking ingredients fill the air with scent, but why not take it a step further and incorporate fragrant plants into the kitchen? One of my favorite suggestions for my clients is to set up a lovely little indoor garden of kitchen herbs along a sunny window. They definitely are not the most high-maintenance plants, and the kinds of herbs you would actually use for cooking (like basil, mint, and rosemary, as shown above), look beautiful and healthy in the space. And get this—every time you brush against their fronds while reaching for a pan or pot, you’re releasing their fresh, scented oils and inviting a burst of kitchen biophilia into your life.
I recently collaborated with a family who was passionate about the idea of incorporating scent into the very essence of their kitchen. We had them hanging planters with lavender and jasmine just inside the entryway. The plants are texturally and visually beautiful and a great fit beside the kitchen door, but the presence of their calming scents as the family walks through the threshold every morning takes “greeting them at the door” to a whole new level. Scent has an incredible ability not just to permeate a space but also to prime the mind and body for what is to come.
Another key element in a biophilic kitchen is texture. In my experience, one of the most gratifying aspects of this design approach is creating a tactile connection to natural materials. When you reach out and touch the surfaces in your kitchen, the experience should evoke the warmth, beauty, and naturalness that’s biophilic in the best sense of the word. Generally, I guide clients to explore natural textures. Whether they choose rough-hewn wood, smooth stone, or a textured textile like linen, there’s a layering of the sensory experience that’s quite lovely and peaceful.
In one kitchen remodel, we implemented an unpolished natural stone backsplash that our client would run her fingers across while chatting with us. “It’s a piece of the earth,” she said. “It connects me to the kitchen.” While we were at it, we took the opportunity to give a couple of cabinets a paint job and refinish the wood countertops so everything had a complimentary look and feel. We grained the wood matte so it felt more like a natural surface that could have been hewn from a tree just outside the kitchen—or, better yet, just inside it, since various oaks can grow in temperate regions. I find the tactile experience of working with wood that has not been excessively polished or finished, or just pretty darned near raw, to be a greater mood lifter than many a happy light.
The utensils and tools you select can further enhance the biophilic kitchen. I’ve helped some of my clients swap out synthetic or plastic cooking items for tools made from natural materials. Think of warm, well-crafted wooden utensils, sturdy ceramic bowls, and beautifully crafted stone mortars and pestles. These well-functioning tools are not only biophilic, but are also part of the slow food movement—these natural materials connect us to the act of cooking in more intimate, tactile, and even historical ways.
Finally, let’s not overlook how essential the flow and layout of a kitchen are to its biophilic design. Individual components matter, of course, but the real magic happens when they come together as part of a coherent, nature-inspired whole. For me, this means an open, flowing layout that encourages movement and interaction with the space. I also prefer sightlines that go through to windows or access to pretty convincing outdoor spaces like gardens—or at least patios—that do a good job of pretending they’re part of nature.
One project we worked on involved a kitchen that opened directly onto a small garden through large sliding glass doors. Every time the client cooked, they could see the few steps that separated them from a garden alive with birds and in full bloom—one they could imagine strolling through to gather fresh ingredients. The architects of this kitchen, like the clients who inhabit them, are in the kitchen too often for comfort.
To sum up, biophilia in the home kitchen is sustainable—it’s not just a trend. It gives fuller meaning to the concept of the heart of the home. Kitchens are where nourishment happens—not just for taste and sustenance but also for mental well-being. Creating a kitchen where you want to spend time, with design as your servant, is sustainable; it’s not something you tire of in a year and remodel again. It’s a sanctuary at the same time, a biophilic haven of sorts. Making the decisions outlined here will help achieve that. And remember: While we’ve used “kitchen” as shorthand, these principles apply equally to any domestic space that serves you.
