The first time I came across a biophilic wall that was truly immersive, it felt as if I had entered a living painting. I wasn’t merely gazing at nature; I was encased in it. The wall wasn’t just a wall; it was a kind of access point to something more fundamental and comforting. This felt like more than decoration; it felt like an experience, in the way that any good work of art is an experience. And what I was experiencing was a quiet and powerful connection to the natural world in an unexpected urban setting. Biophilic wall design, it became clear to me, is about so much more than looking good. It may also have a better chance than anything else to help our brains remember the natural world.
One of my new favorite things to work with—and one of the quickest ways to make a space feel transformative—is biophilic wall design. When I say “wall design,” I mean the act of turning the cold, inert, flat surfaces that literally wall us in into something dynamic and alive. Whether the appearance and performance of a wall is accomplished through vertical gardens, creeping plants, or a living wall undulating with sound and movement, there’s a new can-do spirit toward what we can see and hear in every kind of room, even in our offices, and toward the quality of the air we breathe.
The biophilic wall I saw in a hotel lobby is one of the most unforgettable I have encountered. It was an installation that stretched several stories, filled with plants chosen for their “clear-air” and indoor-growing capabilities. This was not a wall that had any sort of “wow” factor, as in “look at all the different ways they made that thing function.” But it was a wall where you couldn’t help but look at the individual plants and wonder if they were doing their jobs as well as I hoped they would be. And for the people who walked by, trying to get to a room or an elevator, it was a wall that, once seen, one didn’t soon forget. Because it was a green wall, filled with life.
Harnessing Nature’s Vertical Power in Urban Environments
Urban space is limited; the only way to grow might seem to be upward. Yet I have long been interested in how biophilic design can work its way into a dense, vertical environment where life almost has to be imposed upon walls, stacked in ways that sometimes challenge both physics and aesthetics. A good vertical garden is a marvelous illusion; a bad one can leave an ugly, dripping wet wall behind it. Carolina Wren Press cofounder and editor Julie P. Cummings lives in a house within sight of one of Washington, D.C.’s, more dubious vertical gardens, an apartment building on G Street NW draped in Spanish moss. It seemed only fitting to ask her to write the preface to these stories of August-September 2016.
Cities can do an even better job of integrating nature into our everyday lives by installing biophilic walls. These walls, filled with living plants, are a testament to the medicinal properties of nature. Biophilic walls offer a path for nature to move into more unexpected urban spaces. When I traveled to San Francisco for a wedding, I entered a hotel lobby that was part of a building standing in the middle of an outer Sunset District block. Yet upon crossing the threshold, I quickly discovered an oasis: a 20-foot-tall wall filled with living plants, extending the entire height of the two-story lobby. That vertical garden got dinner guests one step closer to our shared San Francisco nature experience.
One aspect I love about biophilic walls is their versatility. These walls can accommodate many types of settings; the plants chosen can create a variety of appearances, depending on what the office or residence desires. For a dry climate, you might put together a wall of few succulents. If the space you’re working in is more humid, you might use ferns and mosses. I’ve seen some truly amazing installations that use a combination of the above, creating a wall that is literally and texturally dynamic—one that I would argue many offices would be better for having.
The beautiful benefit of biophilic wall design is just the beginning. These walls are good for you, and by you, I mean them and us: they help purify the air and improve its quality; they help regulate indoor temperatures; they help insulate sound (for you in your home, and for your neighbors outside; if you have a resonant ukulele, like I do); and they help create conditions for little ecosystems to thrive. Biophilic interiors may even reduce energy use. One of the first eponymous projects I worked on was a “living wall” at an apartment complex in North Philadelphia, just a few blocks from where I used to live.
Creating Unique Biophilic Murals for Spaces
What I love most about biophilic wall design is how it allows for endless customization. No two walls are ever alike, and that’s part of the magic. Whether you’re working with a massive corporate lobby or a cozy home office, a biophilic wall can be tailored to reflect the unique character of the space. One of my favorite personal projects involved helping a friend design a biophilic wall for their living room. They had recently moved into a minimalist apartment and wanted to add warmth and life without sacrificing the clean lines of the space. We created a living wall using a combination of trailing plants like pothos, which draped gracefully down the vertical surface, and compact, low-maintenance species like ZZ plants.
The outcome was remarkable. The wall became not only the room’s masterpiece but also instilled a sense of kinetic art, with the plants undulating ever so slightly as they caught the room’s subtle drafts. My friend later told me that being in that room felt different than before—like a hug, only from nature, with plants being the most perfect natural element to use. He said it was “more peaceful, more grounded.” It was (and is) a showpiece for biophilic design at its best, with an appearance-as-good-as-it-gets quality that carries profound effects for those lucky enough to be in its presence.
Another facet of biophilic wall design not yet mentioned is its ability to offer a sense of discovery. One project I worked on involved creating a biophilic wall for a local library. The wall was filled with small, detailed elements, like miniature succulents tucked into crevices and trailing vines that slowly climbed around bookshelves. Over time, visitors began to engage with the wall in unexpected ways. Children would search for new growth, marveling at how the plants changed over the weeks. “Almost like they were reading the wall,” one of the librarians said. The wall was also meant to serve as a kind of “lost and found paradise” off of which visitors could launch their intense engagement with ecosystems and the plants that inhabit them.
Interacting with biophilic wall design makes it so fulfilling. It’s not just about visual attractiveness; it’s about creating an experience. I recall one person telling me the wall was “alive,” which is quite possibly the highest praise one could give to a biophilic design. It wasn’t serving as just a simple backdrop; it was really a part of the library’s everyday life, contributing to the space significantly and meaningfully.
Biophilic Wall Design: Issues and Concerns
Biophilic walls can have a very beneficial effect, but there are challenges in designing and maintaining them. One of the biggest obstacles is selecting the right plants. It seems an obvious point to make, but it’s critical: the look of the plants must be appealing, of course, but beyond that, the plants must thrive in the environment they occupy. For that to happen, the plants need to be carefully considered in the context of the “light” and “water” sides of the basic environmental equation. I’ve worked on several projects where the plant selection was obviously incorrect for the given environment, and I can speak from sad experience in detailing the maintenance problems that caused and the unhappy appearances of the plants that, in one case, necessitated a major reworking of the wall.
In a specific project, my team and I selected a number of tropical plants for a corporate, indoor biophilic wall. We thought it was going to be awesome—stunningly beautiful, really. The problem was that within a few months, we figured out that a wall facing into the building and not getting enough sunlight in a platform office wasn’t an adequate environment for beautiful tropical plants. So we had to learn. (Lesson number one: Work with the right species for the right environment, or your first project will be your last one.) After all, who wants a beautiful wall that works against the health of the plants?
Getting the watering system right is also vital. For larger setups, especially in commercial environments, the best choice is usually an automated irrigation system. For smaller, more domestic projects, however, hand-watering might be the better bet—better, that is, for the vertical garden’s human neighbors. I saw this in a small boutique hotel where the staff took care of the wall of plants next to the lobby. They watered it with a Kew Gardens-like routine that was a little bit crazy and a lot endearing. Every afternoon, the team misted the plants that had access to the sun, taking the time get to know each biospheric especial. (None of the esoectacular species were anywhere near as endearing as the Kew staff, by the way.
Ensuring the health and continued vigor of the living wall isn’t a simple matter of residual maintenance and intervention, either. A biophilic wall isn’t installed for a client to “set and forget”; it requires a level of commitment to ongoing care to remain the truly vibrant feature that so many people wish it to be. In fact, if a biophilic wall isn’t maintained, it risks becoming “the wall that almost was.” Care of a living wall isn’t horticultural magic; it is work that requires a knowledgeable and engaged crew to do well. Indeed, in some of the watering and pruning of one of the earlier biophilic walls I worked on, I both overwatered and overpruned, not fully appreciating that a living wall imperatively needs slightly more water than does a grounded plant and definitely needs some space to grow.
What Will Biophilic Wall Design Look Like in the Future?
The future of biophilic wall design holds great promise. The more people learn about the advantages of infusing nature into their homes and workplaces, the more they will understand what living walls have to offer. As relentless urbanization and an always-on lifestyle sweep across the globe, even a modestly sized wall of plants can serve as a lifesaving lungs within a city, inhaling carbon dioxide and exhaling fresh oxygen while offering other, less measurable, psychological benefits.
The most thrilling prospect for biophilic wall design is the eventual integration of advanced technologies. The potential exists for these systems to purify the air and regulate not just temperature but the whole spectrum of ambient conditions. Still, we’re a long way from seeing “smart” biophilic walls in action, and even further from having the types of innovations I dream about serve any kind of practical or artistic function. My most optimistic scenario has these developments happening within buildings that use these sophisticated biophilic systems to actually self-power and otherwise function in a way that saves the world.
Concurrently, I envisage biophilic walls evolving from their present-day functions in residences and workplaces to become essential components of our public environments. Imagine vast stretches of cityscapes where biophilic structures create greenery not just for looks but as a part of a community’s overall wellness. Such appearances could serve as nature’s air filters, and the immense square footage could allow the structures to serve as mufflers—that is, nature’s soundproofing—helping to curtail the din of urban life.
Environmental concerns and the demand for sustainable, invigorating living spaces are rising. Consequently, biophilic design, once an upscale trend, is now an expectation. And for biophilic spaces, walls that reference nature are hard to beat. Such walls evoke the kind of quiet contemplation one might experience before a majestic Himalayan salt crystal, while also integrating into our day-to-day lives the knowledge that we can take nature, in major and minor forms, with us wherever we go.
Thinking back on my encounters with biophilic wall design, I understand now that this is about way more than just a wall with plants in it. These walls—and other forms of biophilic design—address an even bigger trend that has a firm and fantastic hold on the design community and well beyond. They encourage a mindset that centers on more than just what an enclosed space looks like. Instead, we should consider what it truly feels like to inhabit such a space and whether it isn’t somehow hitting a “biological imperative” for human beings to feel connected to nature in any way that we can, given that our built environment is literally an environment we can’t escape.
Biophilic wall design is about far more than simply incorporating plants into building interiors. After all, “biophilic” means loving life, and these designs are a matter of fostering and nurturing life close to humans—even life as small as the bacteria and fungi in the soil of these walls. Returning to the “office” design problem, and thinking about the ideal workspace for humans, and for a variety of natural organisms, one can see why tethered offices high in the Air Tower of the M-City cannot scale Marr’s vision.
