Exploring biophilic building designs to promote wellbeing and stimulate inspiration

Xing, Y ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5374-7269, Stevenson, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1875-5519, Thomas, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1661-4221, Hardy, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9068-946X, Knight, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8478-9656, Heym, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2414-8854 and Sumich, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4333-8442, 2025. Exploring biophilic building designs to promote wellbeing and stimulate inspiration. PLoS ONE, 20 (3): e0317372. ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

Biophilic designs aim to promote health and wellbeing by incorporating nature-based features into internal and external built environments. Three theories have previously been proposed (i.e., Recovery, Attention Restoration, Refuge, and Prospect) regarding the impact of biophilic features on psychological and physiological health, but with little empirical evaluation. This current study tests these three existing theories, alongside a novel biophilic theory proposed in this paper, as that biophilic environments stimulate inspiration. A public survey was conducted, and participants completed an online stress-induction task followed by images of building interiors that systematically varied in perceived biophilic quality—ranging across four levels (from 0 = no clear biophilic features to 3 = very high biophilic features). Participants rated their psychological states associated with each of the proposed theories before and after each trial’s stress-induction and biophilic phases. Results support a positive effect of exposure to biophilic design on self-reported psychological states (including inspiration), whilst designs without biophilic quality tended to have an adverse effect on psychological states. Furthermore, findings support the extension of the current three theories to include the impact of biophilic designs on stimulating inspiration.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	PLoS ONE
Creators:	Xing, Y., Stevenson, N., Thomas, C., Hardy, A., Knight, A., Heym, N. and Sumich, A.
Publisher:	Public Library of Science
Date:	4 March 2025
Volume:	20
Number:	3
ISSN:	1932-6203
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1371/journal.pone.0317372 DOI 2394470 Other
Rights:	© 2025 Xing et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Melissa Cornwell
Date Added:	07 Mar 2025 10:29
Last Modified:	07 Mar 2025 10:29
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53203

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