Biophilic Cities: Why Nature in Urban Density Is Our Real Design Challenge

Beautiful places, but not where we live

Listen to enough conversations about biophilic design and a familiar pattern starts to emerge.

The examples are inspiring: the planned community of Serenbe in Georgia, USA; the eco-resort Playa Viva on Mexico’s Pacific coast; the sculptural retreats created by Nomadic Resorts in far-flung, untouched landscapes. Even The Dreaming, a soulful Welsh retreat founded by former opera singer Charlotte Church, was recently featured on a podcast for its deep emotional connection to nature and sensory healing.

These places are stunning. They are human-centred. They restore, calm, and reconnect. They represent the best of what is possible when architecture and nature work together.

But they are all retreats.

Temporary escapes.

Moments of reprieve before we are sent back into cities that have long forgotten what nature feels like.

What I am hearing, again and again, is that biophilic design is easier when the land is already beautiful. Easier when you start with trees, water, birdsong, and space. The harder, and more important, work is bringing biophilic design into cities, where most of us actually live.

The city is the real test

It is one thing to design for rest, wellness, and harmony when your setting already does half the work. It is another entirely to weave those same values into an urban context, dense, noisy, fragmented, vehicle-dominated, and disconnected from its natural roots.

We cannot afford to treat biophilic design as a luxury reserved for eco-resorts or regenerative wellness destinations. The goal is not to escape the city to connect with nature. The goal is to reconnect the city to nature so that we do not have to escape it in the first place.

Because sprawl is not the answer. Even with the rise of remote work, disconnected subdivisions on city fringes still isolate people. They rely on cars. They reduce casual community interaction. They strain infrastructure and stretch resources. The antidote is not more space. It is better space.

And that means density done right, biophilic compact cities.

Compact cities are not just urbanism—they are equity

When we bring biophilic design into the heart of our cities, we are not just making things prettier. We are making them fairer.

Nature-deprived neighbourhoods often correlate with lower incomes, poorer health, and higher stress. Meanwhile, the greenest streets and shadiest parks often align with affluence. That is not by accident, it is by design.

If we truly believe biophilic design contributes to well-being, resilience, and belonging, then we have an ethical obligation to make it universal. Not just for those who can afford to stay at Playa Viva or move to Serenbe, but for those who rent an apartment on a noisy street and rely on walking to work.

We already know it works. A new pharmaceutical headquarters in London is gaining attention not just for its human-centred, biophilic interior, but for the why behind it. Staff retention, satisfaction, mental health, and reduced turnover. A recognition that disconnected people are bad for business, bad for cities, bad for the planet.

The same logic applies to our streets, our buildings, and our public infrastructure.

How do we bring biophilia into dense cities?

We start by embracing the compact city, a 15 or 20-minute neighbourhood where essentials are nearby, transport is efficient, and nature is woven into everyday life. Not a “smart city.” A feeling city. One that breathes.

Some strategies are obvious, others less so:

• Public transport that is efficient, electric, and intuitive

  Trams, light rail, and buses that move people without noise and fumes, reducing the need for private vehicles and restoring space to people.

• Walkable and bikeable streets

  With shade, visual interest, safe crossings, and priority over cars. Where journeys are not endured, but enjoyed.

• Pocket parks and green wedges

  Utilising left-over urban fragments, verges, alleys, rooftops, to create habitats, calm zones, and play spaces.

• Rain gardens, swales, and water-sensitive design

  Infrastructure that cools, cleans, and connects. Where stormwater becomes story, not just problem.

• Tree canopy and thermal comfort

  Shade in summer, colour in autumn, a daily reminder that we are not separate from the natural world.

• Noise-softened facades and surfaces

  Reflective glass and hard pavements are replaced by porous, textured, sound-absorbing materials. So we can hear the city’s quieter sounds, footsteps, birds, wind in the leaves.

• Green roofs and rooftop solar

  Every building contributes: to biodiversity, to cooling, to resilience. Every surface serves more than one purpose.

This is how we shift from architecture as object to architecture as ecosystem.

Cities doing it well

Some cities are already moving, imperfectly but ambitiously, in this direction:

• Paris, France – Transforming roads into bike lanes, reclaiming public space from cars, greening schoolyards and major boulevards under its 15-minute city plan.

• Singapore – A world leader in vertical biophilia: sky gardens, planted towers, and green bridges link dense areas to biodiversity corridors.

• Barcelona, Spain – The Superblocks model converts intersections into green, social, walkable plazas.

• Melbourne, Australia – Expanding urban tree canopy, green stormwater infrastructure, and rooftop greening in the CBD.

• London, UK – Alongside the biophilic HQ mentioned earlier, boroughs are introducing Ultra Low Emission Zones and “quiet ways” that promote slower, greener travel.

No city is perfect. But many are making bold moves. And that is what we need here.

It is time for cities that people want to live in

Our city planning cannot be about minimum compliance. It must be about maximum life.

The path forward requires courage: from our councils, our developers, our central government, and ourselves as citizens. Courage to prioritise people and place over parking. To demand longer-term thinking. To shift away from short-term convenience toward long-term connection.

Because cities can be wild again.

Cities can rustle, sparkle, surprise, and restore.

We just have to design them that way.