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Journal of Biophilic Design

Journal of Biophilic Design

By: Vanessa Champion editor Journal of Biophilic Design
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Welcome to our podcast series from the Journal of Biophilic Design, where we interview workplace consultants, futurists, interior designers, architects, urban planners and those working in healthcare, wellbeing and other industries to find out the latest on Biophilic Design. www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com

Content copyright Journal of Biophilic Design, opinions copyright the speaker. Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Beyond Carbon - Oliver Heath on Biophilic Regenerative Design

    Beyond Carbon - Oliver Heath on Biophilic Regenerative Design
    Oct 7 2025
    "We're facing enormous challenges - climate crisis, biodiversity loss, social and economic inequity. These are complex, interlinked issues that we cannot solve by simply focusing on embedded and operational carbon." In the urgent battle against climate change, the built environment stands at a critical crossroads. Oliver Heath, well known global biophilic design expert, explains how Biophilic Design offers a transformative approach that goes far beyond superficial sustainability efforts. Biophilic design represents a holistic solution, reimagining our built spaces as living, breathing ecosystems that support not just human health, but the wellbeing of all life. It's a radical departure from traditional sustainability approaches that narrowly target carbon reduction. Oliver argues that true sustainability requires a systemic approach. "We need to take a wider view, not just a carbon tunnel vision," he emphasises. This means considering interconnected challenges like resource scarcity, water crises, air pollution, and biodiversity loss. The key lies in understanding our fundamental connection to nature. Biophilic design recognises that humans have an evolutionary inheritance - a genetic predisposition to connect with natural environments. By integrating natural elements, patterns, and sensory experiences into our buildings, we can create spaces that simultaneously support human health and environmental sustainability. Addressing the greenwashing epidemic, Oliver suggests a multi-faceted approach. "It's not just about putting plants in a corner," he warns. Instead, organisations must consider the entire lifecycle of materials, from sourcing to disposal, and how each design decision impacts broader ecological systems. Practical implementation involves several critical strategies: 1. Pre- and Post-Occupancy EvaluationsCompanies can measure the real impact of design interventions. In one project with Knight Frank, targeted biophilic design interventions resulted in remarkable outcomes: an 18% increase in productivity, 22% improvement in meetings, and a 28% boost in overall wellbeing. 2. Diverse and Inclusive DesignRecognising that people experience environments differently, biophilic design creates spaces that support various sensory needs. "Over 15% of the population is neurodivergent," Heath notes. "We must design environments that support everyone's comfort and potential." 3. Comprehensive StandardsWhile current building regulations fall short, non-mandatory standards like the WELL Building Standard and Living Building Challenge provide frameworks for genuine sustainable practices. These standards look beyond carbon, examining air quality, materials, water usage, and community impact. The economic argument is compelling. Buildings designed with biophilic principles are more likely to retain value, attract talent, and reflect progressive organizational values. As Heath puts it, "Companies are recognising that nature connection isn't just aesthetic - it's a fundamental strategy for creating more successful, innovative environments." Case studies demonstrate the potential. A project with John Lewis transformed residential spaces by creating a "green thread of wellbeing" - integrating natural elements from external gardens through interior spaces, enhancing community connection and individual wellbeing. Education is crucial. Interior Design Declares, a movement Oliver helped establish, encourages professionals to commit to regenerative design principles. Their 12 pledges focus on raising awareness, sharing knowledge, and challenging traditional design approaches. "The biophilic future is already here," Heath argues, adapting a quote from author William Gibson. "It's just not very evenly distributed." For businesses, designers, and policymakers, sustainable design must be holistic, considering the intricate web of human and ecological interactions. Biophilic design offers a comprehensive framework that goes beyond carbon reduction, creating spaces that genuinely support life in all its complexity. As we face unprecedented environmental challenges, biophilic design isn't just an option - it's a necessity. It represents a profound reimagining of our relationship with the built environment, where every design decision becomes an opportunity to support, regenerate, and celebrate life. Oliver will be speaking at the Biophilic Design Conference London 2025 www.biophilicdesignconference.com https://www.oliverheathdesign.comDesign a Healthy Home: https://www.oliverheathdesign.com/our-projects/book-design-a-healthy-homeBiophilic Design in the Home course: https://oliverheathdesignschool.thinkific.com/ If you like this, please subscribe!Have you got a copy of the Journal? You can now subscribe as a member of the Journal of Biophilic Design or purchase a gorgeous coffee table reference copy or PDF download of the Journal journalofbiophilicdesign.comor Amazon and Kindle. Biophilic Design ...
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    57 mins
  • Playa Viva - where Biophilia meets Living Ecology

    Playa Viva - where Biophilia meets Living Ecology
    Sep 18 2025
    Nestled along Mexico's Pacific coast, David Leventhal's Playa Viva is redefining hospitality through a radical commitment to regenerative design. More than just a boutique hotel, it's a living ecosystem where architecture breathes, nature flows freely, and every material tells a story of sustainability.Imagine waking in a treehouse suspended among palm trees, with no doors or windows—just an uninterrupted connection to the landscape. This is Leventhal's vision: hospitality that doesn't just minimize environmental impact, but actively regenerates it.The resort's structures are poetry in natural materials. Bamboo "bones" form parabolic roofs, carefully woven and raised by hand. Shower floors become canvases of meticulously placed pebbles, each stone positioned with artisan precision. Wall pigments are sourced locally—rich oranges and browns extracted directly from mountain landscapes, mixed with unconventional ingredients like hay, horse manure, and even turtle eggshells."We're not just building rooms," Leventhal explains, "we're creating experiences that transform how humans interact with environment."This transformation begins with radical design choices. Solar panels provide 100% off-grid electricity. Air conditioning is minimised, with innovative systems like the "Evening Breeze" technology cooling only specific areas. The goal isn't comfort through separation, but comfort through connection.The resort sits on 200 acres of regenerating landscape, including a critical turtle sanctuary. Local community members—many former poachers—now protect endangered turtle species, releasing hatchlings at dawn under careful supervision.The broader ReSiMar project demonstrates Leventhal's systemic approach to ecological restoration. Starting from mountain headwaters and extending to the coastline, this watershed regeneration initiative has already documented remarkable recoveries, including recent jaguar sightings in the Sierra Madre Mountains.What makes Playa Viva revolutionary isn't just its sustainable infrastructure, but its philosophical approach. Each design decision emerges from deep respect for place—understanding geological, anthropological, and ecological histories before a single structure is built.Guests aren't passive observers but active participants in this regenerative narrative. Yoga retreats, farm experiences, and community engagement transform vacationing from consumption to connection. The resort's B-Corp certification and recent Michelin keys underscore its commitment to excellence through ecological integrity.Leventhal's background in media and technology might seem an unlikely pathway to ecological design. Yet his journey reveals how personal transformation drives systemic change. "Change happens little by little," he reflects, "until it happens all at once."This philosophy permeates every aspect of Playa Viva. The manta ray-inspired treehouses, the infinity casita with its locally sourced manufactured wood, the organic farm—each element represents a deliberate choice to work with, not against, natural systems.For travellers seeking more than a temporary escape, Playa Viva offers a glimpse of possible futures. Here, luxury isn't about isolation and excess, but about deep, meaningful engagement with living landscapes.As climate challenges intensify, Leventhal's model provides a compelling blueprint. Regenerative design isn't a luxury—it's a necessity. By reimagining hospitality as a collaborative dance with ecological systems, Playa Viva demonstrates that sustainable travel can be both profoundly beautiful and transformative.The resort whispers an essential truth: humans aren't separate from nature, but integral participants in complex, interconnected living systems. And in that understanding lies our most profound opportunity for healing—one treehouse, one turtle, one thoughtfully placed pebble at a time.https://www.playaviva.comhttps://oceanfdn.org/projects/la-tortuga-viva/Have a listen to the podcast we did with Louis Thompson, partner of Nomadic Resorts mentioned by David. Louis and his partner designed rooms at Playa Viva https://journalofbiophilicdesign.com/podcast-journal-of-biophilic-design/nomadic-resorts-biophilic-design-hotels If you like this, please subscribe!Have you got a copy of the Journal? You can now subscribe as a member of the Journal of Biophilic Design or purchase a gorgeous coffee table reference copy or PDF download of the Journal journalofbiophilicdesign.comor Amazon and Kindle. Biophilic Design Conferencewww.biophilicdesignconference.comCredits: with thanks to George Harvey Audio Production for the calming biophilic soundscape that backs all of our podcasts. Listen to our podcast on Audible, Amazon Music, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and all the RSS feeds.https://www.facebook.com/journalofbiophilicdesign/https://twitter.com/JofBiophilicDsnhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/journalofbiophilicdesign/https://www.instagram.com/...
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    45 mins
  • Landscaping Play with Biophilic Design

    Landscaping Play with Biophilic Design
    Sep 1 2025
    If two people could combat our growing urban disconnection, it is Adam White and Andrée Davies of Davies White Limited. I met them at our first Biophilic Design Conference at the Barbican, and immediately warmed to their infectious passion for better landscape design. Design which helps reimagine spaces from playgrounds to hospitals through a beautiful and playful biophilic lens, pulling on our emotional responses to nature. They construct, if you will, beautiful narratives of human-nature coexistence. Instead of viewing landscapes as static backdrops, they help encourage us to understand them as dynamic, living systems that actively shape human experience and ecological health. I think it’s the creativity I love most about their work. The balance of science, planning and artistry. Their approach is rooted in a deep understanding of ecological systems and human psychology. With projects ranging from micro-forest playgrounds to hospital gardens, each is designed to restore our biophilic fundamental relationship with the natural world. Take their recent West London micro-forest playground project. By densely planting trees and creating intricate ecological landscapes, they're not merely designing a play area, but constructing a living classroom. The project embodies their core belief: that understanding nature begins with immersive, tactile experiences. Those of us who live and breathe biophilic design, this philosophy aligns with scientific research. Studies consistently demonstrate that exposure to natural environments reduces stress, enhances cognitive function, and promotes emotional well-being. Adam himself references Florence Williams' "The Nature Fix", which explores how nature can make us "happier, healthier, and more creative". Also, their approach supports the positive economic argument for biophilic design. Their pocket park project in London demonstrated that nature-rich spaces can increase property values and biodiversity simultaneously. Plus, a collaboration with Anglian Water explored how housing developments could integrate resilient, nature-focused landscapes, and they are advocating a new “Resilient Garden” rating, which like the EPC rating on a house, could add value to a property if reported along with a house sale. I think this is a brilliant idea. It will get real estate developers and property owners totally thinking differently about their homes and land. This "resilient garden and landscape accreditation scheme" would be an ecological equivalent to energy ratings for buildings. This could revolutionise how we value and integrate natural systems into our built environment Policy is slowly catching up. The introduction of a Natural History GCSE this September (which they both, along with others, including Mary Colwell I interviewed a couple of years back) represents a significant milestone. "If children don't understand nature, they won't appreciate it, and if they don't appreciate it, they won't protect it," Adam recalls Sir David Attenborough telling him – a statement that has become a guiding principle for their work. "We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing," Adam reminds us, and their hospital design interventions are creative, beautiful and indeed playful. By creating gardens with living elements like water pumps, rabbits, and carefully selected native plants, they transform clinical spaces into healing ecosystems. These actively support patient recovery. As climate change accelerates, landscape architecture becomes a critical tool for resilience. Their designs are also adaptive systems that can mitigate environmental challenges while supporting human and ecological well-being. What I love about their work is that they challenge the notion that sustainable design is prohibitively expensive. By using creative, low-cost interventions like raised planting containers and willow pods, they demonstrate that ecological design can be accessible and scalable. I have to call out one specific example of climate resilience from their work, and that is at Nene Park Trust in Cambridgeshire. They used swales to manage water collection during heavy rainfall. These swales are designed to be both functional and interactive, with bridges and stepping stones that children can use to cross them. Their conscious approach to help with water management through strategically designed swales, planting of resilient vegetation that can thrive in changing conditions and creating a playful landscape that serves both ecological and recreational purposes really deserves visiting and using as an exemplar of best practice. They've been working with the park trust for 15 years, and when they revisited the site recently, they were impressed by how the planting had thrived in conditions that might typically challenge other landscapes. Andrée shared that we need a better understanding "nature's time" - recognising that landscapes ...
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    Less than 1 minute
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