Biophilic Design in Schools (2024)

Written by Peyton Stuart

Children and their teachers spend 10,000 hours per year in school buildings, and these learning environments impact their health, well-being, and children's ability to learn and retain information.

Biophilic design can offer schools a low-cost, high-impact way to bring students and educators back to their roots, all while boosting test scores and improving students’ mental health.

What is Biophilic Design?

Biophilic design is the purposeful integration of humankind’s inherent desire for nature into the built environment. Stemming from the term biophilia – meaning a love for life and living things – this design practice spans across a variety of techniques to promote mental and physical wellbeing.

Biophilic design roots itself in practices such as the inclusion of environmental features, natural patterns, light, and human-nature relationships. Biophilic design can be integrated at both simple and complex levels, with projects ranging from plant installation to full floor-plan redesigns.

In addition to its practicality, biophilic design's flexibility makes it an ideal choice for schools that are looking to improve the day-to-day lives of their students. In schools, by creating spaces where students can feel connected with the world around them, it can revolutionize the way that education looks and feels, tapping into the innate desires of people to want to be outdoors.

Biophilic Design Benefits

Our intrinsic need to be connected to the natural world is rarely felt anymore. After thousands of years of human evolution where we were fully immersed in nature, today we find ourselves spending 90% of our time inside buildings, detached from the natural world.

Being surrounded by monotonous and brutalist designs and unnatural materials within our building environment can further detach us from natural patterns, leading to negative results on our mental and emotional well-being. In terms of physical health, older buildings tend to have poor indoor air quality and inefficiencies in their energy systems. Over time, this can have many negative effects on user health and well-being. However, biophilic design has demonstrated that the integration of natural designs into human spaces can provide innumerable benefits to a user’s mental, physical, and emotional health.

Natural elements are typically associated with an overall sense of calming – blue, green, and earthy tones, a decluttered space, and ample natural light. These factors are widely accepted as mood and performance boosters. Just the presence of life in the form of plants lowers stress levels and improves user immunity. Aarhus University in Denmark conducted a study where they brought together 1,000 Danish adults and analyzed their proximity to green spaces as children. Their findings concluded that students with more access to green spaces “have up to 55% less risk of developing various mental disorders later in life.”Using natural shapes and textures can also help immerse students and promote prosocial behavior. Classrooms that have mimicked nature through the scale and flow of the room have shown to produce fewer conflicts and kinder behaviors between students.

Passive exposure to the natural world through repeating geometric patterns and pictures of nature can improve memory and attention. Further, classrooms that utilize biophilic design enhance student creativity and support overall healthier development due to our biologically encoded connection to nature. Finally, in terms of academic success, biophilic design has produced higher test scores and found higher rates of focus from students. For more cognitive and physiological benefits of biophilic design, check out this article from urbanNext.

Strategies for Biophilic Design

It is widely accepted that there are 14 strategies that can be used to integrate biophilic design. They are divided into nature in the space, nature analogues, and nature of the space.

Nature in the space describes the presence of nature in a given space, whether it be visual or emotional connections. Nature analogues refer to non-living representations of nature such as through carpeting or wall designs. Finally, the nature of the space discusses the experiences that are created in the space that evoke feelings like those felt in nature.

Biophilic Design in Schools

The Nature Lab at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

The Nature Lab at Phipps Conservatory is one of the most successful examples of biophilic design found in the country. Not only is the building a SEED collaborative project, but it has also achieved Living Building Challenge Petal Certification.

As a SEED classroom, the Nature Lab acts as a dual-use space. It is used as a learning laboratory as well as a model for healthy learning spaces. The lab generates its own energy and recycles all water retrieved on site.

Scandinavian Schools

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, five schools in Scandinavia wanted to take an ambitious approach that would not only tackle the issue of Covid but create an innovative space for their students to learn and grow. The schools looked towards biophilic design as a solution because of their understanding of its benefits for the students’ health and well-being. Above all, the schools wanted to create a revolutionary space that would benefit users of the future and maintain sustainable excellence for decades.

In the methodology, the cohort had four primary goals: connect teaching processes with student education, create attractive and creative spaces, make the teaching flexible for spaces and cultures, and intertwine the natural and physical environments. They chose to use an appreciative inquiry approach, which incorporated the voices of students and teachers into the design process to promote positive, strength-based change.

For their biophilic design, they aimed to incorporate natural daylight, green elements and spaces, earthy colors, and creative classroom functions. The schools analyzed the connection between physiological and psychological interactions and biophilia. The cohort of students included 25 participants who learned the principles of biophilic design and then proposed ideas based on the biophilic goals of the study.

The students understood the importance of ample daylight in the classroom and dreamed up ideas such as large windows, adjustable lighting, and colored divisions of space. As for color in particular, the students placed a heavy influence on the use of blues, yellows, and oranges, while also looking towards smart mood lighting. Further, the students required a courtyard and the creation of physical space where they can immerse themselves in nature. Moreover, they wanted to incorporate the living environment (I.e., classroom gardens, fountains, aquariums) inside the classroom to promote healthy learning. Finally, they wanted creatively designed classrooms with moveable walls and multi-functioning spaces. Overall, the students wanted more green spaces inside and out of the classroom, more exhibitions of water around their classroom, and instruction that engaged and immersed them in nature.

There is a strong positive impact on human health regarding biophilic design. Not only are there boosts to creativity and cognition, but there is also an overall improvement in emotional health and well-being. Biophilia is shown to reduce stress and boredom, keep students engaged, and improve the academic success of students.

Integrating a culture of sustainability is critical for schools who are considering using biophilic design. The examples shared here demonstrate an important layer of incorporating student voices and opinions into the process as well. Other considerations to consider when starting the biophilic design process include curriculum alignment, maintenance, and safety. Biophilic design is a great tool for schools and can be applied on any scale and on any budget. When approached holistically, this process can support and align with other school goals as well.

Easy Ways to Incorporate Biophilic Design into Your School

If you are not sure where to start bringing nature and biophilic design into your school or classroom, here are some easy and cost-effective ways to get started:

Add plants to your room
Send your students on a nature photography shoot, have their photos printed and framed, and hang them around the room
Add a small electric fountain to your desk to incorporate the sound of water
Open the windows/ raise the blinds to bring in more natural light and fresh air, if possible
Have students create art using natural, earthy colors such as brown, blue, and green

If your school incorporates any of these or other biophilic design ideas into the campus or classrooms, please share them with Green Building Alliance!