It can be quite comforting to stroll through a thoughtfully designed environment where nature holds sway. I think of biophilic landscape design not just as a profession or a passing trend but as a long-term commitment to enhancing human well-being through connections with nature. Whether designing a reason-out park in a large city or a small garden in a condo courtyard, I apply the principles of biophilic design to restore the bond with nature that is so important for my clients (and their clients) and for me.
Section 1: Nature’s Soft Touch in Urban Landscapes
One of my most cherished experiences in biophilic design is the moment I witness nature transforming an urban landscape into a green haven, which then serves as a dual sanctuary for humans and wildlife. I celebrate the simplest interventions—those that require the least human upkeep and the smallest resources—that work in concert with the forces of nature to alter the experiences of the many people who pass through an urban space. I think of a recent project in which I played a part, a public courtyard inserted like a padded cell into the bustling heart of a city.
Its design is a kind of anesthesia for the senses. People can pass through it and almost not feel their experience—on one side, a rigid wall of concrete; on the other, a light-filled cave of sorts, within which echoes the sound of gently flowing water.
Biophilic landscape design is about creating not just a connection for humans to the environment but also a true interrelationship between people and nature. This is accomplished in many ways, yet one of the simplest and most effective is to use native plants. Biophilia aims primarily at creating beneficial mental and physical effects on the people who experience the design. These effects are significant and well-documented. Giacomin, for example, cites studies showing that “a natural environment lowers stress, decreases blood pressure, and increases positive emotions and even feelings of connection to other people.” These are achieved in biophilic designs not just through aesthetics but through careful use of the five senses: What do you hear?
What do you touch? What do you smell? What do you see? What do you taste?
Section 2: Cultivating Connection Through the Elements of Water, Light, and Texture
Water is becoming one of my favorite elements to integrate into biophilic landscapes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood next to a small fountain or pond we have designed and watched people come alive—a spark that seems to go off in them as they pause by the water. It’s almost magnetic how water pulls people in and helps them find a moment of stillness in what can often feel like a non-stop, chaotic urban day. When we were designing a large urban park, we built a walking trail that cut through the sound of trickling water.
The stream we designed meandered beside the path, and we could see and hear people enjoying the moment as they walked by. It felt good to use the element of water in a way that seemed almost essential for both human survival and emotional well-being.
Light, too, plays an integral role. In biophilic landscape design, the natural power of light gives a great influence. Once, I had the opportunity to work on a green rooftop for a commercial building where space was tight and access to natural light was limited. But instead of seeing those shaded corners as a limitation, we embraced them, incorporating shade-tolerant plants and creating cozy nooks that offered refuge from the harsh midday sun. The interplay of light and shadow became a design element itself.
Another frequently neglected yet vital aspect is texture. Materials such as wood, stone, and even certain types of grasses can boost the tactile nature of a space. I still remember working on a sensory garden conceived as a full-body experience where every plant, surface, and path was an invitation to touch. Some parts featured smooth stones to encourage an absent-minded running of hands. Other areas had patches of grass that practically invited one to walk through them and experience the surprising firmness of THEIR base. Still other areas had plants whose leaves were so soft that touching them felt downright glorious.
Probably the only thing left out of the design was a Path of Shame to the nearest dewy-foamed dentist’s office, because a tactile sensory garden is full of germs.
Section 3: Biophilic Landscape Design for Climate Resilience Landscape architects face the dual challenge of creating spaces that are both beautiful and functional. Biophilic landscape design offers architects the opportunity to create spaces that are both. The key to thriving for both people and plants is to create a living landscape. This is one that is able to adapt to stresses of urbanization, climate change, and a variety of other “normal” ecological events such as floods and fires. The landscape architect can do this—can design to create both physical and ecological beauty in an urban space—for two reasons.
The first is that the biophilic effect is concentrically arranged much like an ecological relationship, with both center and edges.
I worked on a community park that had a chronic problem with flooding. Rather than trying to fight nature, we came up with a design that could absorb and channel the excess water. We planted rain gardens—landscaped areas specifically designed to capture and filter stormwater runoff. These gardens not only solved the flooding problem but also became a home for local wildlife. Over time, the park evolved into a thriving ecosystem, with native plants flourishing and attracting a dazzling array of birds, insects, and other animals. It became more than just a park; it became a microcosm of resilience.
Sustainability derives not only from the overall design intent of a project but also from the breadth of the materials we employ in its construction and the stories they tell. More and more, I have turned not just to recycled materials in my work but also to those salvaged from the past. Be it reclaimed brick, wood, metal, or another material, using an object with history embraces the sense of place that architecture should embody. A park project I once worked on featured reclaimed cobblestones from a centuries-old street. You could tell they had lived and loved long before they entered the design, and they had as much history as any human.
Creating spaces that allow biodiversity to flourish is a fundamental aspect of biophilic landscape design. We’re not merely crafting residences for humans; we’re also constructing what might be best described as “habitats” for an array of not-quite-human occupants, in many cases, the erstwhile inhabitants of what have become our neighborhoods. My memory of one project stands out. In a limited space, we introduced not just a few, but an array of pollinator plants, all chosen for their potential to attract what our society, in its limited knowledge of the natural world, has come to idolize as a “desirable” insect.
Ultimately, biophilic landscape design is about fostering relationships—connections to nature, to our better selves, and to the transformative spaces of the built environment. It is about establishing bonds in diverse ecologies, stretching from our urban centers to the rural outskirts, and reaching down—into soils and rocks—and up—into plants, animals, and the microbiomes of our everyday lives. It is mind-blowing to conceive the number of connections taking place every second that we, purposefully or not, inhabit these diverse environments.
What I hope most people take away from biophilic landscape design is a notion that nature isn’t something that can or should be tamed or controlled. “Biophilic design” is an expression often used in connection with the notion of “wild nature” more recently incorporated into human-made environments. It is about nudging landscapes and the people who live in them in the direction of “nature integration” and increasingly toward “nature’s balance.”
Urban and suburban spaces can be invented anew through biophilic landscape design; that is, the design can be remade from the ground up and from the inside out. In the most recent iteration of the tired form of a cul-de-sac neighborhood, a long-finishing street circles round-a-bout to nowhere. In the remaking of this not-so-Great American place, one of the cul-de-sac’s enclosed useless front yards has been turned into a pocket park, where a bee hotel resides along with native flowering plants.
Biophilic landscape design faces its toughest challenges in urban and suburban environments, yet these are also the contexts that stand to gain the most from its implementation. Cities are where the disconnection from anything natural is most apparent, yet it’s these densely populated, paved-over contexts where we need biophilic landscapes the most. I happen to think part of the magic of biophilic design is that it can work its surprises in the most unexpected places and inject life and vibrancy into seemingly guaranteed lifeless locales.
A splendid instance of this is the work done at Millennium Park in Chicago. This enormous urban green space embodies many biophilic design principles. It has water features, plants, and art that engage all the senses. Visitors may not realize just how carefully these components have been put together to relieve the stress of city life. The Lurie Garden, in particular, occupies a space between the wild and the manicured. It has both native and adaptive plants that provide four-season interest and a pollinator habitat and that make it feel as if one is standing in a natural area.
In my projects, I always find the most effective and efficient ways to insert biophilia into urban environments, no matter how small or fragmented the available space might be. I have found that vertical gardens, green walls, and rooftop gardens are often the perfect solution in cities where ground-level space is limited. One of my most memorable projects was a rooftop garden on top of a corporate headquarters nestled in a dense urban area. We integrated a wide variety of plants, from tall grasses that swayed gently in the wind to striking perennials that lured birds and butterflies.
You can see in the picture (which is from a recent article about the project) that the space didn’t really have much of a natural look to it before the transformation.
I have a project close to my heart. We found an alleyway between two neglected commercial buildings; it was forgotten and unused. With careful planning, we put in a mix of native plants, cool wooden seating, and a water feature that made the space come alive. I was in the alley recently and the sound of fluttering pages and the presence of two people sharing a lunch made it feel like a moment of zen in the middle of the crazy city.
The design opportunities in suburban areas present the same level of excitement as those found in urban spaces. Although they often have more land at their disposal, designers working in the suburbs must contend with a largely undifferentiated landscape where even the plants fail to add much character. Asphalt, concrete, grass, and a few unremarkable shrubs go a long way toward making the suburbs feel like the suburbs. These are the challenges and opportunities my office confronts when we take on a residential project in a suburban context: How can we design a landscape that fits the life of the client and also contributes something meaningful, even surprising, to the local ecology?
Part 3: Introducing Naturalness into Any Landscape, Large or Small
An idea I frequently confront when I talk about biophilic landscape design is that one needs a grand, open area for it to really work. This simply isn’t true. Biophilia can be realized in any number of spaces, regardless of their dimensions or perceived limitations. Public parks and greenways can be designed with biophilic principles in mind, but so can close-to-the-ground, privately owned outdoor rooms like backyards and front porches, as well as the very smallest of small-space interventions, like window boxes and access areas to basement stairwells.
I have worked on projects as modest as pocket parks and private courtyards, where we integrated a few vital biophilic components that utterly remodeled the place. In one especially tiny courtyard, we installed a wall garden, seeded with ferns, ivy, and other flowering plants. Traditional landscaping was impossible in this narrow, lovely space, yet it is now a place of serenity and beauty because we thought outside the box and went vertical.
Biophilic design can even work in the tiniest of urban balconies. My smallest client space had barely enough room for a chair. Instead, we went vertical with a garden, augmented with a natural water feature that could hardly be called a pond but created sounds and sights enough to make the balcony feel “away.” Our place of refuge was a smidge over four square feet, and it was an oasis.
I have also observed amazing outcomes in corporate environments where biophilic landscape architecture has been applied. A recent endeavor involved the design of a biophilic courtyard for an office building. The courtyard’s purpose was to serve as a retreat for employees—an area to step away from their desks and recollect themselves. We achieved this by intentionally selecting native plants, incorporating a modest pond, and including wooden seating in the design—elements that contribute to a natural scenario untouched by the corporate world surrounding it. The effects have been immediate and positive. Employees use the courtyard as a “break room.” Reports attribute halfway decent improvements in productivity and an uptick in employee satisfaction to the presence of the courtyard.
In these many guises—large or small—we seek to do the same thing: to mix wildness with builtness. This, I think, is the ultimate expression of landscape architecture—that what we design is seamlessly interwoven with the realities of nature. When I practice landscape architecture, I often turn to natural ecosystems for inspiration. I think about how nature organizes itself; the different plants that grow together in harmony; the interactions of animals and insects with their environments; the ways natural elements like water and light shape landscapes; and above all, the “wild” quality of nature in what I design.
An instance of how I express my love for working with layers in vegetation to create gorgeous designs is in the way I create depth and interest in a space. When I have the pleasure of working in ample space, the way I use layers to evoke the feeling of depth mirrors how a forest is composed—using tall trees, followed in height by sturdy shrubs that are more distant in the planting than closer groundcovers (most of which here are native) that interact with our sense of hearing by rustling in the breeze. In closer, smaller spaces, I sometimes use flowering perennials to create interest as you walk by, only to surprise you with an experience of “wow” as you catch sight of their taller friends in the background.
And I do all this to create an ecosystem, not just pretty pictures.
At its core, biophilic landscape architecture isn’t just about the addition of greenery to spaces. It’s about the establishment of a connection to the natural world that can enhance the experience of inhabiting a space. Biophilic design principles can be applied to a range of scales, from the design of large public parks to the conception of small, intimate backyard gardens. Adding plants is, of course, a common first step in biophilic landscape design. Still, as William Browning and Catherine Ryan note in their 2014 paper, “Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life,” creating environments that are beautiful, restorative and life-enhancing is a more multifaceted process.
As urbanization accelerates, the requirement for biophilic landscape architecture grows. But what is “biophilia”? Etymologically, biophilia stems from the Greek and Latin words for life (bio) and love (philia). The creations of biophilic landscape architects promote personal wellness, sustainability, and a connection to nature and the larger world, using design elements appropriated from the natural realm. Whether in giant, elaborate city parks or tucked into the smallest of spaces—such as a balcony—landscape architects can offer to us what biophilia offers: vast opportunities to regain our connection to nature. And they can do it in ways that promise not only personal and communal wellness but also the kind of ecological and life-sustaining strategies that make a ruling corporation in a certain city not so callous and anthroparcentric.
Part 3: Biophilic Landscape Design—Its Future and Its Role in Climate Resilience
When we consider tomorrow, biophilic landscape design will assume an ever-more-critical role in confronting the most urgent problems associated with climate change and addressing the crucial need for climate resilience. Biophilic landscape design builds, not through mere artifice, but through the genuine processes of nature—strategy, systems, and shapes—resilience into the very hearts of our cities. The pathway forward is lit by beauty but built on something far more profound: the co-opted processes of climate-affected nature. Rising temperatures, intensified storms, and such other increased byproducts of the climate crisis put amenities, both natural and designed, under serious threat.
In recent years, “sponge cities” have emerged as a cutting-edge solution to some of the most complex urban ecological problems. These areas are designed to capture and reuse water from rainstorms, thus helping to mitigate the flooding and extreme weather that are risk factors for many urban areas. Biophilia is one of the key design principles behind sponge cities. This principle directs the use of infrastructure that resembles natural, green water-absorbing and filtering systems, like wetlands. The goal is to direct the water into an “absorb and filter” system rather than using hard, fast systems that reject water and funnel it quickly away in underground pipes.
Sponge cities do this using “green streets” that are lined with bioswales and rain gardens. I worked on a project that created such a green street in a city that had suffered repeated flooding.
This not only lightened the load on the city’s stormwater system but also enhanced the local groundwater’s quality and brought new green spaces for the people living in the area to enjoy. Projects like this one underscore how efficient biophilic landscape design can be in addressing multiple issues—flood risk reduction, water quality improvement, and liveability—in an urban setting. A second area where biophilic landscape design can make a difference is in countering the urban heat island effect. When a city grows, it typically replaces natural vegetation with heat-absorbing or heat-retaining materials like asphalt and concrete, yielding higher surface and air temperatures.
And that can intensify the impacts of heatwaves and drive up energy costs for cooling if demand spikes in the aftermath of an unseasonably warm winter or in the middle of a summer heat dome.
Incorporating more vegetation into urban landscapes—through trees, vertical gardens, and other forms of greenery—gives us the opportunity to ease the suffering of our citizens and help them live healthier, more dignified lives. I am particularly proud of a project that I worked on during a group internship last summer. At grad school, I learned the importance of not just imagining what a design should be but also considering its real-world consequences. One summer day, as I was stepping out of my apartment in the Mission District of San Francisco, I couldn’t help but think about the plaza at 16th Street and Mission Street in the same unbearable way that my friend David thought about the shade he missed in a library on an August afternoon.
The project showcased how beauty and functionality could coexist in biophilic design, even in the hottest conditions, like those in southern Arizona. … Besides enhancing aesthetics, this way of designing can also bolster the region’s precarious biodiversity, according to [lead researcher and project landscape architect]… To accomplish that, CityLab had to propose habitats for creatures that don’t currently reside in the area—insects, songbirds, and small mammals like bats, which are crucial for maintaining temperature and humidity… and also pollinating many of the plants in this scheme.
Not just biodiversity, but the full living presence of nature in our daily lives—this is what my most rewarding projects have worked toward. Consider the suburban wildlife corridor. Yes, the “wildlife” part may seem like a stretch in a suburb, but when the corridor connects a series of fragmented, overgrown patches of what could pass for a green space, that’s a win for biodiversity. My involvement with this project, from inception to completion, brought many joys. One of them was working alongside volunteers and other project partners, who planted dozens of native trees and shrubs in the “corridor.”
With time, the variety of species in the corridor made it a powerful wildlife habitat. The humans in the surrounding neighborhood felt a sense of companionship with their natural world. This was a potent affirmation that even in the suburbs, it is possible to conceive of and create landscapes that serve the dual purpose of accommodating both humans and a diversity of wild creatures. And so, what was an undermined, rundown small-scale wildlife corridor became a Green Suburb, as we see it in the map of biophilic design options ahead.
When considering the built environment, Chelsea offers a compelling example of biophilic design for a number of reasons. For one, it is a small city that hugs the shoreline of the wide and majestic Chelsea River, which offers a kind of biophilic amenity that most other small municipalities can only dream of—if they can even afford anything like the riverfront city park found in Chelsea. The river also affords its residents and visitors commercial and recreational opportunities that, again, many other cities might envy. Whether seen from the land or the water, the facades of the buildings that line the river are evidence of American capitalism, along with its mixture of success and failure, on a vibrant parade of material culture that Chelsea shares with cities throughout the nation.
It’s more than just appearance; it’s about crafting areas that are sturdy, sustainable, and meant to last for the enduring well-being of both people and the planet. Biophilic landscape design has enormous upside potential. I’m thrilled to be part of a growing community of designers, architects, landscape planners, and everyday people who are committed to restoring nature to our lives.
Whether we realize nature through huge public works or tiny gardens, every little bit of nature we reclaim from our built environments makes for a somewhat more sustainable future. The projects I have worked on and the impact they have had do make me feel optimistic about the future, just as the future demand for biophilic design and with it, the opportunity to create beautiful landscapes that also serve as ecosystems that support large numbers of species and mitigate the impacts of climate change makes me feel a bit hopeful.
I am deeply convinced that with every new project, we are achieving something worthwhile, and that biophilic design is progressing steadily toward being the standard and the commonplace. There is still much work to do and many projects left to push in this direction, but each biophilic design seems to instill in me not only a hope but also an increasing confidence that our ambition is absolutely achievable.
