After months of cooler temperatures, we’re all craving a taste of nature. The solutions: head outdoors or take on a little biophilic design.

What is biophilic design? Biophilic design seeks to incorporate elements of nature into our personal spaces to enhance our mental and physical well-being. According to Integris Health, the myriads of benefits of biophilic design include: increased productivity and creativity; stress reduction and improved cognitive function; and mental and physical health benefits.

From house plants to potted herbs in the kitchen, bringing greenery into our spaces is one of the easiest ways to apply biophilic design. But it is more than just introducing plants into our homes (although that’s a good start). “It involves thoughtful consideration of natural light, materials, colors, textures and spatial configurations” (Integris Health org).

Lights & Space

SK Westchester new build

SK Mar Vista build

Light plays an integral part in both our connection to nature and our overall mood. The use of large sliding doors, floor-to-ceiling windows, and skylights allow light to filter through rooms creating a sense of harmony with nature and providing vistas to the outdoors. These strategies aren’t reserved for just living rooms. Spanning the entire length of the bathroom wall, the skylight in SK’s recent new build gives the effect that there is no boundary between bathroom and sky. Additionally, spaces can be designed around the sun’s orientation and configured in ways that bring the outdoors into the indoors through open floor plans, direct access to patios and backyards, and roof gardens. SK utilized large bifold glass doors and skylights in this Mar Vista home to blurs the lines between indoors and outdoors.

Materials

Photos courtesy of Milton & King

Photo courtesy of Philip Jeffries

SK artist retreat

From linen pillows and rattan baskets to wallpaper with floral and fauna motifs, fabrics, paint colors and wallpaper offer an affordable means to incorporate natural motifs and a creative way to express your individual style. Today’s floral and fauna wallpaper patterns aren’t your grandparents’ prints. Milton and King’s “Overgrown Wallpaper” is colorful with an abstract feel while their “Festa Wallpaper” transports you to the Amazon with bold colors, wild animals and exotic flowers. Consider decorating a room in a single-species or floral wallpaper. We love the Ellie Cashman wallpaper with large peonies we used in the powder room at the SK Santa Monica’s Artist Retreat renovation. Technografica Italian wallcovering was so inspired by the olive branch that actual branches were painted and turned into a “stamp” to create striking silhouettes. When it comes to paint, earth tones dominate (a 2025 design trend) in biophilic design with subtle colors like ochres, mossy greens and soft browns.

Furniture

Photo courtesy of Elan Atelier

SK Sunset Park custom home

Photo courtesy of Gieves Anderson House Beautiful

Furniture inspired by elements of nature can become focal points or accent pieces. Elan Atelier’s Moyogi floor lamp draws its name and shape from the Moyogi style of bonsai tree trimming and is both elegant and thoughtful. Nature inspired the artistic Herculaeum II Suspension lamp “in the guise of branches of white leaves” SK used it our Sunset Park Custom Home project. Martha Stewart recommends natural shapes - think curves (another 2025 trend)- such as rounded sofas and cocoon-like swivel chairs. The recently opened New York branch of the Paris luxury retailer, Printemps, took nature inspired design to the next level with a whimsical shoe forest “which looks like something Alice from Alice in Wonderland would design if she had a thing for expensive shoes” (HouseBeautiful.com). Although not technically biophilic design, a shoe forest would cure me of the winter blues!

Biophilic Design