Architecture is never neutral. Once we know that conceptually ‘good’ design can cause harm, we cannot in good conscience design as we once did. With the design industry’s increased awareness of the impact the built environment can have on occupant health and wellbeing has come a sincere interest in biophilic design, neuroarchitecture, and bioethics. Over the last decade, and particularly since 2020, the explosion in number of architects, designers and consultants claiming to be biophilic design experts and neuroarchitects is unprecedented. LinkedIn has an estimated 1,000–2,000 profiles boasting expertise in biophilic design and several thousand more offering biophilic design services. Before the COVID pandemic, there may have been in the ballpark of 100 profiles with such expertise.

A downside to this rapid growth is that generative AI candy and surface-level interventions reveal a shallow understanding of or focus on the opportunity, and sometimes even outright greenwashing. Owners and investors rely on experts to deliver, but inadequately informed design intents have led to design tactics that are superficial, poorly positioned or watered down, diluting the potential for architecture to have meaningful, positive health impacts to the occupants and the communities such buildings serve.

There is no lack of interest and skill; the design community is hungry for information and resources. However, architectural precedents and teachings tend to focus on additive design features or post-design critiques of a building’s ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, rather than leveraging design intent, design process or value creation to maximize creative and effective solutions. On the other hand, even seasoned practitioners with a robust understanding of the science and a clear design intent aren’t always able to ensure healthful design solutions make it through cost engineering exercises.

Biophilic design thinking needs to be introduced early in the architectural design process, and biophilic design strategies need to be embedded in the real estate pro forma and architectural solutions, so that occupant health can be valued rather than itemized—this is where The Nature Inside Initiative adds practical and transferable enrichment.

About Catie and Bill

Catie and Bill have been working together for 18+ years, collaborating on both building projects and writing projects. They are responsible for co-authoring a majority of Terrapin’s publications on biophilic design, including but not limited to “The Economics of Biophilia” (2012 and 2023), “14 Patterns of Biophilic Design” (2014 and 2024). See their other works on the publications page of our website: https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/publications/.

Terrapin’s own, Catie Ryan and Bill Browning, are launching The Nature Inside Initiative, a two-year independent effort to broaden awareness and deepen conversations about treating biophilic design as a public health concern. The intent is to extend biophilic thinking beyond the indoor environment; to push the industry to put nature and bioinspiration ‘inside’ every planning concept and design decision. Drawing on case studies from their new book—as well as the latest research in neuroarchitecture, architectural immunology and epigenetics, and bioethics—to inform creative problem solving for generous, net-positive built environments.

Objectives

The immediate objective is to expand the perspectives, tools, and replicable teaching models for motivated practitioners to their own projects or classrooms: Interpreting the bioethical obligation as more than “do no harm,” setting informed design intents early, identifying relationships between biophilia and other health and resilience priorities; and weighing value engineering decisions against long-term health and wellbeing. The larger objective is for health to regarded with intrinsic value in architectural and real estate decision making rather than itemized.

Project Structure

The second edition of Nature Inside was released in July 2026 by RIBA Publishing.

The project has two components. A public presentation draws case studies and lessons from our book Nature Inside: A Biophilic Design Guide (RIBA Publishing, 2026) and shares frameworks for engaging biophilic design in practice. As consultants, experience tells us that because biophilic buildings and communities require multidisciplinary teams, the presentation needs to be open to the public, not architects alone.

The practitioners’ workshop convenes the disciplines that touch the architectural design process, including engineers, real estate developers, and community leaders, for structured debate and problem solving. For students, early-career professionals, and the practitioners who mentor them, the material arrives at a formative moment: frameworks for teaching design and for approaching a design challenge, alongside the science needed to substantiate design solutions to clients and investors.