Laura Light, Concept Design Team Leader at Interface, explains how incorporating biophilic design in the workplace beyond planting alone can not only promote wellbeing for staff, but also nurture productivity for clients.
Organisations are increasingly acknowledging that workplace design plays a critical role in employee wellbeing. With a growing focus on supporting neurodiverse colleagues, many businesses are now acting on this insight by rethinking their office environments to better accommodate diverse needs.
Bringing the outside indoors
People spend up to 90% of their lives indoors, with most jobs being done indoors onsite. Office workers are expected to see less than an hour of sunlight each day in winter, with a lack of sunlight causing issues ranging from interrupted sleep to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). SAD can lead sufferers to have low mood and energy, as well as difficulty concentrating, and with stress-related illnesses accounting for 22.9 days of sickness absences from work in 2024/25, tackling poor mental health is paramount for organisations.
In urban environments it can be difficult to access serene, natural spaces – with 68% of the world’s population predicted to live in urban areas by 2050, this issue is only set to increase. Access to nature is proven to improve mental health, as being outside in nature can aid in regulating the nervous system. With this consideration in mind, it is necessary for businesses to look inwards at the design of their workplaces to understand how they can best remedy their employees’ lack of time in nature, as this can greatly aid in promoting wellbeing and staving off stress-related absences.
Biophilic design
Biophilic design is all about integrating natural elements into the built environment to improve wellbeing, productivity, and sustainability. Adapting the built environment with biophilic principles can be approached in different ways, including:
- Direct contact with nature
- Maximising natural light
- High air quality
- Natural analogues (indirect connection forms such as patterns, textures and colour)
- Prospect (creating enticing sight lines throughout spaces)
- Recuperative spaces to retreat into
While adding trees or water features can be a great way to incorporate biophilic design into the workplace, it can be as simple as choosing naturalistic hues and textures for walls and flooring.
Employees and businesses greatly benefit from this, as workers in biophilic offices are 6% more productive and 15% more creative compared to workers in non-biophilic offices, and report a 15% higher level of wellbeing.
Human nature
By incorporating more of the outside world into workspaces, architects have the ability to create a significant, positive impact on employee wellbeing. Experimenting with texture, colour and sources of light when designing commercial spaces can encourage employees to feel a greater sense of calm, thanks to our innate attraction to the natural world.
Understanding which aspects of commercial spaces negatively impact wellbeing is crucial in deciding how to incorporate biophilia into interior design for the workplace. For example, harsh, artificial lighting can both interrupt circadian rhythms and have negative effects on mental health, increasing the likelihood of depression, mood disorders and cognitive impairment. It can also prove overstimulating for employees, especially neurodiverse colleagues, which can lead to a lack of engagement, reduced productivity, and increased likelihood of employee burnout.
Likewise, plain, uninspiring interior design may seem cost-effective and practical, but the reality is that incorporating biophilic design into the workplace does not have to be costly, and can be as simple as designing spaces with more natural materials in mind.
Flooring is the foundation of interior design, and when selected mindfully, it can aid in curating calm spaces that avoid contributing to sensory overload. Flooring can be used as a wayfinding tactic in commercial spaces, through the use of different textures, patterns and shades to delineate separate zones. This can further aid in reducing sensory overload in the workplace, as employees sare able to intuitively move throughout the space without experiencing a barrage of information.
The impact of prioritising more natural elements and neuro-inclusive design choices is that increased employee wellbeing may save businesses money long term, as they are able to retain happier, healthier workers who take fewer sickness absences and feel more engaged and productive in their surroundings at work.
Natural choice in future
As businesses continue to learn more about how they can support their employees, selecting thoughtfully and sustainably designed floor coverings and decor that take inspiration from the natural world is a simple yet highly effective way to bring organisations closer to their goals of encouraging and developing their employees and businesses for the better.
Laura Light is the concept design team leader at Interface