MEET TODAY’S GUEST
Saloni Mehta,
Architect & Interior Designer
We caught up with Saloni Mehta, a globally trained architect, interior designer, and urbanist whose work spans from cozy homes to vibrant workspaces and retail environments. With a master’s in Sustainable Systems Management, Saloni brings a thoughtful, people-first approach to design, crafting spaces that not only perform well but also feel good to live and work in.
Talking Natural Design with Saloni
We spend 90% of our time indoors, yet we long for the natural world. Today, we see a growing trend towards embracing the outdoors and living a more natural life. Biophilic design offers the perfect opportunity for this balance: a way to weave nature back into the places we live, work and play. So let’s talk about it.
What Is Biophilic Design?
The concept of Biophilic design is rooted in the Biophilia Hypothesis, which tells us that humans innately search for connections with nature. This was noted by American sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson in his 1984 novel Biophilia. Stephen Kellert, a professor at Yale, helped to establish biophilic design as an innovative way to intertwine nature into the built world.
At its core, biophilic design is the intentional integration of natural elements into the built environment of all forms. To explore both biophilic design and various sustainability-related topics, reFern sat down with internationally-trained architect and interior designer Saloni Mehta, who describes biophilic design as “a design philosophy”, not just an aesthetic choice.
While the visual benefits of biophilic design are obvious, its greatest potential lies beyond aesthetics. Studies show that spaces rich in natural elements, views of greenery, indoor plants, ample daylight, water features, or even nature-inspired patterns, can reduce stress, improve focus, and enhance cognitive performance. Mehta has seen these benefits firsthand, and research backs her up.
One global study found that employees in plant- and daylight-filled offices reported a 15% increase in productivity. Another linked access to daylight with an 18% drop in absenteeism, tied to better overall physical health.
A 2018 study further revealed that exposure to biophilic environments can lower blood pressure and skin conductance (a stress indicator), boost short-term memory by 14%, and increase positive emotions. Remarkably, even virtual simulations of natural environments have been shown to produce similar physiological effects; highlighting how powerfully our minds and bodies respond to natural cues.
But as Mehta stressed, this isn’t about tossing a few plants into a room.
When we incorporate natural materials, we can transform the way it feels - often making it more calming and restorative.
More Than Just Plants and Daylight
Biophilia isn’t just decorating with nature: it’s designing around it. It’s about creating a kind of micro-ecosystem indoors that keeps people connected to nature’s rhythms.
We feel Mehta’s passion as she tells us, for example, how a timber feature wall can bring the warmth and texture of wood inside. Layouts can be designed to ensure every occupant has a view of the outdoors. It’s a shift in mindset. We go from designing spaces as static containers to shaping environments that echo our dialogue with nature.
Biophilia at the Urban Scale
Biophilic design doesn’t just apply to buildings, it can also shape how we imagine entire cities. One influential framework explored by our co-founder and CEO, Jessica Dulku, during her graduate studies in urban systems at the University of Toronto is the Natural City System Theory, which proposes that cities should function as ecosystems — not isolated, artificial constructs.
Instead of separating the built environment from the natural world, this approach calls for blending them: integrating green spaces, biodiversity, and natural energy and water flows directly into the built environment. When we look at cities through this lens, it isn’t just a collection of roads and buildings, it’s a living, dynamic system with trees, wildlife, soil, weather patterns, and even its governing structures. These include the planning policies, zoning laws, and civic systems that determine how (and whether) nature is allowed to thrive. Just like rivers or root systems, governance plays a vital role in a city’s ecological health - shaping everything from how green space is distributed, to how climate resilience is built, to whether citizens have access to nature in their daily lives.
Designing with this mindset helps create more resilient, sustainable, and responsive communities, especially in the face of climate change and rapid urbanization. These ideas echo the work of urban scholars like Timothy Beatley, who champions the concept of biophilic urbanism: the belief that nature isn’t a luxury in cities, it’s a necessity. In his view, integrating nature into the places we live, work, and gather is essential to our health, creativity, and emotional well-being. A truly livable city is one where the natural world is not treated as a separate feature, but woven into how the city functions, grows, and makes decisions.
Design in Practice
Others are more ambitious. Take The Jewel at Singapore’s Changi Airport: a breathtaking dome that transforms one of the world’s busiest transport hubs into a lush, indoor rainforest. Beneath a glass-and-steel canopy, The Jewel features a towering waterfall centerpiece surrounded by elevated walkways, tropical gardens, and nature-immersed gathering spaces.
It’s not just a marvel of engineering: it’s a living, breathing sanctuary designed to ease stress, delight travelers, and reconnect people with nature, even mid-journey. There’s a reason this airport is often called by visitors the “most beautiful airport in the world”.
We see examples of this on a broader urban scale too: spaces like Central Park in New York City demonstrate how biophilic principles can be embedded into a city’s identity. Far more than a patch of green, the park functions as an ecological and social lung. It offers biodiversity, clean air, and a mental health refuge in the middle of a concrete metropolis. Its intentional integration into the city grid shows how nature can coexist with density, providing space to breathe, reflect, and restore.
These real-world projects remind us that biophilic design is not just about aesthetics, it’s about improving human experience at every scale.
The Future of Biophilic Design
On both the micro and macro scales of human habitation, the power of biophilic design is profound. It enhances our physical and mental well-being when applied to homes, workplaces, schools, and hospitals and it strengthens cities when embedded in urban planning. From reducing stress to lowering energy usage, it offers a clear path toward spaces that support both human life and planetary health.
Biophilic design isn’t a trend. It’s a response to stress-saturated lives, to buildings that disconnect us from what sustains us, and to cities that have forgotten their roots.
At every scale, from a sunlit corner in a home to a rainforest suspended in an airport, design has the power to recalibrate our relationship with the natural world. And it’s not just about beauty. As Saloni puts it:
Good design isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about how a space makes you feel and the footprint it leaves.
This is the shift: toward spaces that heal rather than deplete, that sharpen our minds and soften our stress, that recognize human well-being and environmental resilience as one and the same.
Biophilic design is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. In the weeks ahead, we’ll dive into the future of interior environments. We explore how healthy materials, artificial intelligence, circadian lighting, and inclusive practices are reshaping the places we live, work, and gather.
Design is no longer neutral. The question now is:
What kind of world do we want it to build?
Credits:
This article was co-developed by Jessica Dulku, Samuel Kamalendran, Saloni Mehta, and Ola Elkhatib, as part of reFern’s ongoing exploration of design that supports both people and the planet. 🌎
About reFern🌿
reFern empowers designers to build healthier, more sustainable environments by connecting them with conscious materials, transparent data, and like-minded local suppliers.
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1 Header Image credit: Vasyl Cheipesh/Getty Images
