The streets of contemporary metropolises are a mesmerizing tapestry of existence, of sheer human energy and creativity, and of built forms that forever flirt with gravity. Indeed, even the gravity-defying edifices of our cities often seem to be in motion, curving, spiraling, and otherwise flowing through space. Yet, for all their beauty and boldness, many of our buildings and public spaces are often devoid of a key ingredient for their really being “alive”—plants. And this is where biophilic urban furniture comes in, not so much to save the day as to add to the natural character of our urban environments.
Strolling through a biophilic city carries a sense of the very different. I walk along paths edged by foliage—by greenery that might as well be shade, on a day when sunbeams angle down through the leaves, making the sidewalks nice and cool. I shuffle along at a pace somewhere between the leisurely walk of a tour guide and the uptight hustle of a public servant on an urban patrol. There is something “personally biophilic” about the furniture along this public-space path. The pieces in this park serve more than just a functional purpose when it comes to such things as human-to-human and human-to-environment interactions.
An example that always stands out in my mind is a metropolitan park in Singapore. This city-state seems completely committed to biophilic design. Singapore doesn’t just plant more trees or throw in some more planters next to a bench. They go all in and are weaving nature into the urban fabric. One key feature of our central business district’s transformation is that even though the area is denser than before, it is much greener. One day, while strolling past an unremarkable public space in a fantastic skyscraper row, I came across a series of benches that seemed to rise organically out of the ground.
These weren’t just places to sit but a kind of lean-to on the other side of a pair of unremarkable columns. I found myself drawn into the vaporous blue-green visual haze that hung around the structure and also to the soft sounds that surrounded it.
However, the design of biophilic urban furniture isn’t just about the “wow” factor. Its benefits go well beyond the purely visual or sensual. Time and again, studies have shown that including natural elements in urban spaces is a sure-fire way to decrease stress, boost mental health, and even elevate cognitive functions. So it’s no wonder that town planners and designers are turning to natural elements in their everyday urban furniture. They’re putting biophilia to work in bus stops, streetlights, bike racks, and benches.
Seeing unexpected applications of biophilic design brings me personal joy, especially when I spot them in public spaces. Consider, for example, bus stops with green roofs. The city of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, has installed such stops in various locations. The roofs are covered in hardy flowering plants and grasses that attract bees and other helpful pollinators. But are these roofed stops about beauty and novelty? I don’t think so. They serve an important ecologic purpose in an increasingly biodiverse world. And because standing under one of those green-roofed shelters can hardly be described as a monotonous experience, the biophilic bus stop can also be said to contribute to a more visually diverse urban landscape.
It also heartens me profoundly to see how biophilic urban furniture underscores sustainability. When the designers of a piece of urban furniture opt for materials like sustainably sourced wood or recycled metal, they imbue the object with even more ecological responsibility. But it’s not just about the materials. Many projects carry this sustainability narrative through to the end product’s life cycle. I remember a piece of urban seating that was designed to be modular, with the idea that you could replace or repair any one part without having to scrap the whole thing. This is a focus on longevity and adaptability that is all too often lacking in urban design conversations.
Section 2: Where Function and Nature Meet in Biophilic Urban Furniture
What I find really thrilling about biophilic urban furniture is that it’s not just beautiful and somehow “naturey” in a way that is pleasing to look at and be around; it’s also possible, and even likely, that the pieces of furnitecture—that’s a term designers use to describe street furniture in general—can be functional, and then some. They can be functional and serve as a canvas for natural elements. Can you imagine a trash bin that also invites squirrels, or a park bench that invites chipmunks? If squirrels and chipmunks become our new urban furniture—like it or not—that’s kind of a sign that we’ve eradicated those pesky “nature-deficit disorders” of our childhood.
One of the most astonishing instances I’ve encountered is in Copenhagen, where the use of greenery has been strategically and masterfully executed in public spaces, such as bike racks and public seating. In one public square, the bike rack bears a trellis and invites an appropriate climbing plant to grow as high as the “rack” allows. Aesthetically speaking, this is an improvement on the conventional bike rack. But functionally speaking, it’s an even better bike rack—one that serves the users’ needs without sacrificing the very lives of microorganisms, plants, or animals that help make our communities livable.
Another perfect example comes from the squares of Bilbao, Spain, where public benches and chairs have been created to make room for native plants in the planters that sit beside them. They are a beautiful intersection of nature and function—bench, chair, plant, function, form. I have a hard time believing that anyone who visits these benches and chairs could possibly regret the time spent in their vicinity. The plants are brainless, but they look as if they were deliberately arranged for you to “reconnect with nature,” which I think is some secret urban-planning function that makes people feel good.
The enchantment of combining function and nature only increases when we consider multi-use urban furniture. What about benches that harness solar energy to power the devices of passers-by, all while doubling as a planter? In the last couple of years, I’ve seen these popping up in places like New York City, Paris, and even smaller cities looking to modernize their infrastructure. What I love about these installations is that they don’t only serve one kind of urban purpose—they contribute to the green energy movement, provide a resting spot for use-mizers, and offer a tiny patch of greenery in a Delightful Urbanism kind of way, all at the same time.
A trip to Melbourne, Australia, is the source of one of my most cherished memories. When I was there, I visited a district that is famous for its sustainability programs, and in that district, I found one of the most inspiring pieces of biophilic furniture I have ever seen: a large public bench made entirely of reclaimed wood that was fitted with planters that held an assortment of local grasses and wildflowers. What impressed me just about as much as the bench itself was the way it fit into its surroundings. It didn’t seem like something that had been half-heartedly plopped into the landscape; it seemed like an integral part of the park—something that could be counted on to bring humans and local flora together in an intimate and inspiring way.
I believe this design approach is the future of urban planning. We’re past adding nature to our cities; now we’re integrationist. And by “we,” I mean not just urban planners, architects, and landscape architects—who’ve long been in the business of integrating nature into the urban environment—but also Paul M. Steinberg, a vice president at the New York planning and design firm AKRF, who discussed how biophilic urban furniture can act as a bridge for people to connect with their environment.
What I find especially compelling about this biophilic undertaking is how it can confront some of the most urgent environmental predicaments of our time. By this, I mean that the designs and furniture of our cities could actually serve to cool them, which is particularly pertinent as our urban centers continue to heat up. The urban heat island effect is now well studied and understood, with heat-sensitive mapping demonstrating that neighborhoods with more tree cover are several degrees cooler. Part of the reasoning is that shade has an obvious cooling effect—that it simply takes the temperature down to a more bearable level.
Meanwhile, as trees and other plants do in fact transpire, the combination of perspiration (from us) and the tree’s sweat is enough to spawn a localized “cool zone.”
An example that springs to mind is the biophilic experiments the city of Boston carried out in public places. Part of their climate adaptation plan, these interventions included the creative redesign of some of the city’s benches. This kind of public seating is often overlooked in discussions of public space, mostly because it’s not often very comfortable and what right is there to more or less comfortable public space when our movement through it is often controlled, too? But the benches or, rather, the schemes to incorporate them into biophilic design, are a step in the direction of more pleasant and—this is crucial—more resilient public spaces.
I am confident that biophilic urban furniture will soon be playing an even greater role in how cities resolve environmental issues and meet the changing needs of our populations. What excites me most about this movement is the deeper level of community engagement it seems to promise. In some of the most successful biophilic projects I’ve experienced, the community has been an integral part of the design and upkeep of these spaces. And why not? They are the ones who live among and use these projects. That engagement could lead to a community-level sense of ownership of these very much place-specific designs.
Let’s consider the city of Portland, Oregon, which has long been at the forefront of sustainable urban design. One initiative that piqued my interest was the city’s “Green Streets” program. The program is a collaborative one; community members are invited to help design and maintain biophilic urban features integrated into public areas that capture, filter, and convey storm water. These biophilic features include rain gardens, bioswales, and planters that serve as public seating areas. Because the residents themselves are part of the process, they naturally take better care of these spaces. It is also an incredibly empowering thing to allow people to help shape their environment.
Tokyo is another city where community-driven biophilic design thrives. In the busy Shibuya district, a public park was developed in partnership with the local schools and organizations. It has urban furniture that doubles as planters. The park is constantly evolving. Students from the nearby schools help to replant flowers and to take care of the greenery throughout the year. These petite green interventions have become a focus for the community, where people of all ages come together to relax and engage with nature. I feel like the community is taking care of their space. And, if the space is taken care of, there’s a good chance it’ll be beautiful.
There are many ways to interpret this grassroots connection to biophilic urban furnishings. But one thing is for sure: it signals a movement in urban planning, from the top-down, to something more like personalized, user-centered design. This is a moment of unprecedented agency for urban dwellers. We are not merely the consumers of urban spaces, but can actively participate in designing, and thus reconfiguring, our environments. Biophilic urban furnishings offer one obvious route, but there are others, towards engagement with the design of the city.
Biophilic design is not just confined to the beauty of nature, encountered mostly when one goes for a walk on the beach. We are also witnessing some pretty incredible technological advancements in biophilic design, especially when it comes to urban furniture. These advancements will completely change the way we think about the built environment. For instance, advancements in material science are allowing for the creation of “smart” materials that respond—hopefully in a positive way—to environmental conditions. Imagine benches that adjust their temperature based on the weather. Otherwise, those seated on them in summer (as I have had the misfortune of doing) might find some of the wood to be too uncomfortably hot to touch. Most “smart” materials are not actually “smart” in the conventional sense.
I envision a future in which urban furniture participates in the circular economy. Right now, a lot of cities are trying out furniture from recycled materials. The next step seems to be to make that furniture into something like disassemblable “life-stage” furniture, pieces we can not only recycle but also reimagine: a bench that can become a planter, not a shoo-in for the next art installation, but inextricably useful to the city. And tapping into what we know about life-cycle assessments and what recycled materials can withstand, this approach can also reduce waste, ensuring adaptability to the changing needs of even a rapidly evolving space.
Yet another urban design question is how to create not just places but also adaptable ones—spaces that can evolve alongside the city. Biophilic urban furniture has a clear shot at this challenge because it focuses on flexibility and integration with natural systems. I dream of cities populated by modular urban furniture, quickly reconfigurable on an as-needed basis based on the singular uses of particular spaces at particular times. This would allow a plaza, perhaps, that bustles with foot traffic and street vending during the week to transform, over the weekend, into a more tranquil green space, with no moveable parts (or people) in it that might be nearly as good as a bench in the plaza during the week.
A personal story about biophilic furniture took place during a trip to northern Italy. The town I visited had recently implemented some modular urban furniture that could be rearranged with ease to suit the various events that took place there. I saw this furniture in action, as it had been moved to create informal seating areas near the pop-up market stalls of a local festival. But I was even more impressed by the “second act” of this furniture, a week later, in the same public square—where the benches and planters had been repositioned to create quiet reading nooks and cozy shaded areas to relax in.
This kind of fluidity, in design and in events, is what biophilic principles allow for. And I hope to see a lot more of this forward-thinking, adaptable approach in design, particularly in furniture.
Biophilic urban furniture can potentially make our cities more beautiful and sustainable, but also pay more attention to the human dimension of urbanization, of being human in our cities. And as our cities face the many problems that come from urbanization and environmental decline, these small pieces of “furniture,” if you will, remind us that nature can and should be part of our experience in the daily urban environment, what some have called a “naturalistic necessity.” From this standpoint, they aren’t just, quote unquote, beautiful; they’re an important part of the overall city experience.
To conclude, the design of urban biophilic furnishings is a more-than-just trend—a movement even—aimed at making cities friendlier to both people and biodiversity. Projects like the Living Architecture initiative in the U.K.—which aims to install bioreactors on buildings across Britain—emphasize the oft-overlooked capacity our structures have to interact with the natural world. Whether through technological innovation or old-fashioned, place-based ingenuity, urban biophilic design aims to integrate our cities with the kinds of living systems that make them healthier, more resilient, and more pleasant to inhabit.
