Okay, so I’ve been seeing these photos on Instagram lately of high-rise buildings that look absolutely nothing like my sad pre-war brick box, and I had to dig into what’s actually going on. Turns out there’s this whole thing called “biophilic towers” – basically, architects who looked at the typical glass-and-concrete city skyline and said “what if we… didn’t make people feel like they’re living in a filing cabinet?”
These buildings are wild. I’m talking about entire walls covered in actual living plants, balconies that look like mini forests, and lobbies with water features that don’t look like they belong in a 1980s office building. One resident I read about said living in a regular high-rise felt like being “boxed in by concrete and glass” – which, honestly, describes exactly how I feel in my studio most days. But in these biophilic buildings? The lobby has flowing water and natural stone walls that actually make you feel calm instead of like you’re entering a prison.
The whole point is that we’re apparently hardwired to respond positively to nature – which makes total sense when you think about how much better I feel after spending time on our rooftop garden versus sitting under my harsh LED bulbs all day. Research shows that being around plants and trees reduces stress, improves mood, and even helps with cognitive function. So basically, these architects figured out how to hack our brains by bringing the outdoors inside.
What really gets me is how they integrate community spaces throughout these towers. Picture this: “living rooms in the sky” where residents can do yoga or just hang out, all surrounded by plants and natural light. Coming from someone whose idea of community space is occasionally running into neighbors in the hallway by our broken mailboxes, this sounds absolutely revolutionary.
One woman I read about was skeptical about high-rise living because she grew up in the countryside – I totally get that. But she ended up loving her biophilic tower because she could garden on her terrace. She talked about it being meditative and grounding, which makes me think about how much calmer I feel when I’m repotting plants or checking on Patricia (my first pothos, still alive somehow).
The thing that hits me hardest about all this is how it addresses something I didn’t even realize I was grieving – the complete disconnect between city living and any connection to the natural world. Like, when was the last time I heard leaves rustling that wasn’t from a tree I had to take public transit to visit? When did I last feel actual sunlight on my skin without planning a whole expedition to Lincoln Park?
These towers aren’t just throwing some plants in the lobby and calling it a day. They’re designing entire water collection systems that capture rainwater, filter it, and use it to irrigate rooftop gardens. They’re creating microclimates throughout the building. They’re thinking about airflow and natural light in ways that make my single sad window facing a brick wall seem even more ridiculous.
Of course, these projects take years to develop and probably cost more than I’ll make in a lifetime. The engineering challenges alone – keeping all those plants alive, managing water systems, creating sustainable growing conditions – are massive. But the fact that people are even attempting this gives me hope.
What frustrates me is knowing that access to these kinds of living environments is still going to be limited to people who can afford premium housing. The residents getting to garden on terraces and meditate in sky lobbies aren’t the ones currently living in studios with no natural light. It’s the same story as always – your income determines your quality of life, including your ability to live somewhere that doesn’t slowly crush your soul.
But maybe these biophilic towers will prove the concept enough that some of these ideas trickle down. Maybe developers will start thinking about tenant wellbeing as something worth investing in, even for us budget renters. Maybe we’ll see more shared rooftop gardens, better natural lighting, community spaces that don’t look like they were designed by people who hate humans.
In the meantime, I’m taking notes. The water collection systems these towers use could definitely work on a smaller scale – I’ve been thinking about setting up something to capture rainwater for my plants from the fire escape (if my landlord doesn’t freak out). The idea of creating community spaces around gardening is something we’re already doing with our rooftop project.
Reading about these biophilic towers makes me realize how much of what I’ve been doing in my tiny apartment – the grow lights, the vertical gardens, the obsessive plant care – is basically trying to recreate what these buildings provide naturally. I’m jerry-rigging biophilic design with Amazon purchases and sheer stubbornness because I can’t afford to live somewhere that was actually designed for human wellbeing.
The disconnect between city dwellers and nature isn’t just about missing pretty views. It’s about how living in environments that ignore our basic psychological needs affects our mental health, stress levels, and overall quality of life. These biophilic towers prove that urban housing doesn’t have to feel like sensory deprivation – we just design it that way because we prioritize profit over people.
For now, I’ll keep following these projects on Instagram, learning from their innovations, and figuring out how to apply their solutions to my reality. Because even if I can’t live in a tower with walls of living plants, I can still bring some of that biophilic thinking to my 400 square feet of urban chaos.
Robert is a retired engineer in Michigan who’s spent the past few years adapting his longtime home for accessibility and wellbeing. He writes about practical, DIY ways to make homes more comfortable and life-affirming as we age — from raised-bed gardens to better natural light.
