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Journal of Biophilic Design

Journal of Biophilic Design

By: Vanessa Champion editor Journal of Biophilic Design
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Summary

Welcome to our podcast series from the Journal of Biophilic Design, where we interview workplace consultants, futurists, interior designers, architects, urban planners and those working in healthcare, wellbeing and other industries to find out the latest on Biophilic Design. www.journalofbiophilicdesign.com

Content copyright Journal of Biophilic Design, opinions copyright the speaker. Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Jaime Jackson on Art, Nature and the Power of Creativity

    Jaime Jackson on Art, Nature and the Power of Creativity
    Nov 3 2026
    For artist Jaime Jackson, creativity is more than a way of making things. What happens when we stop seeing ourselves as separate from nature and begin to recognise that we are nature? For artist Jaime Jackson, the answer lies in creativity, collaboration and the simple act of paying attention. It is a way of rediscovering our place in the living world, bringing communities together and imagining a more hopeful future. Through his socially engaged art practice, Jaime brings together children, communities, scientists and fellow artists to explore our relationship with the living world. His work offers a refreshing perspective on the ecological crisis: rather than beginning with fear, guilt or a list of things we must change, it starts with our innate capacity for wonder, empathy and connection. Jaime describes himself as a relational artist. His practice is rooted in the idea that we are all related, not only to one another but to the plants, animals and wider living systems around us. It is Biophilia embodied. Drawing, painting, animation and collaborative workshops become ways of exploring those relationships, giving people the opportunity to express what nature means to them in their own words and images. We do not have to be professional artists to benefit from making art. Nor do we need to produce something beautiful or technically accomplished. The value lies in the experience itself. Nature connection and broadcastingJaime's relationship with nature began early. As a child, he joined Nature Trail, a local radio programme exploring the natural world with experts. Those formative experiences gave him the opportunity to encounter nature with curiosity, openness and a child's eye view. That sense of wonder remains central to his work today. He believes that our connection with nature never really disappears; it can simply become buried beneath the habits, expectations and pressures of everyday life. Art offers a way back to nature and to ourselves. When we slow down to draw a leaf, observe a tree or explore the patterns of the natural world, we become more present. We engage our senses and make space for a different kind of awareness — one that is felt as much as understood intellectually. Jaime suggests that creative practice can help us move beyond the assumptions we carry about ourselves and the world. Instead of being told what to think about climate change, we are invited to explore our own feelings and experiences, discovering connections through the act of making something together. This matters particularly when working with young people. Discussions about the climate and ecological crisis can provoke anxiety or leave children feeling powerless. A collaborative creative process offers another possibility: the chance to imagine solutions, exercise agency and experience the satisfaction of making something meaningful with others. The result can be a sense of wellbeing, belonging and, crucially, hope. A comic created by children, for childrenOne of Jaime 's most inspiring projects began when he took a group of children to a park and asked them what they wanted to create as a way of exploring climate change.Their response – let’s make a comic. Working over several months, Jaime helped the children turn their ideas into a story, using their own words, drawings and imagination. The result was a comic and animation featuring an extraordinary cast of characters, all conceived by the children themselves.The story follows a girl called Hope Spring, who wakes to the sound of a bird warning her of an emergency. As she begins to understand what is happening, she confronts a polluting factory run by the aptly named Mr Smoke. When she is dismissed for challenging him, the bird directs her towards a different kind of factory, where she meets Mr Breeze Carbon Cutter. There, she encounters characters inspired by the elements of nature — earth, wind, water and fire. These are not distant superheroes who arrive to solve everyone's problems. Their powers are innate in each of them and connected to nature itself, and to qualities that the children recognise within themselves. The children were not imagining that somebody else would rescue the world. They were exploring how transformation might begin within us and how we might work together to bring it about.Through a process involving around a hundred drawings, collage, storytelling and animation, the children built a world in which pollution could be challenged, wisdom could emerge, and change was possible. Their story moves towards resolution through awareness, action and the possibility of redemption. The response was deeply moving. When the animation was shown to the school's headteacher, she began to cry. For Jaime, the children's excitement and their feeling that the work genuinely represented their voices were equally significant.The project was subsequently featured by The Nature of Cities Festival, demonstrating how children's ...
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    41 mins
  • Dusty Gedge - What if we put Life back onto every Roof in our Cities?

    Dusty Gedge - What if we put Life back onto every Roof in our Cities?
    Oct 26 2026
    What if every roof in London that could support nature became a living habitat? What if, instead of recreating the gardens and meadows we have always known, we designed our cities around the life that can actually thrive in them? For Dusty Gedge, pioneering green roof advocate and urban biodiversity expert, this is more than an appealing idea. It is a practical vision for the future of our cities, challenging the way we think about green roofs, urban nature and the role of biophilic design. As climate change brings increasingly extreme temperatures, heatwaves and intense rainfall, we need to rethink what we plant, where we plant it and what we expect nature to do. In our conversation for the Journal of Biophilic Design, Dusty made one thing clear: the objective is not just to make our cities “green”, it is to put life back into them. And just like the Journal here, he encourages us to go back to the original meaning of Biophilia to help us understand the bigger picture. Dusty’s journey began with a rare bird in Deptford. His interest in birdwatching led him to brownfield habitats and the possibility of recreating them on rooftops. This inspired the concept of the “brown roof”: not necessarily brown in colour but designed to replicate habitats that support wildflowers and wildlife. Yet, too often, green roofs are treated as products designed to deliver a particular appearance. We imagine lush meadows, manicured lawns and verdant gardens lifted into the sky. But these are not always the most appropriate habitats for rooftops, particularly as our climate changes. Dusty points instead to vegetated shingle, cockle-shell beaches, sand dunes and alluvial river gravels. These environments are exposed to wind and sun, with limited nutrients, much like many rooftops. Their vegetation may be sparse, but it can be remarkably well adapted to challenging conditions. A cockle-shell beach in Kent, he suggests, provides an excellent model for an extensive biodiverse roof in London. Nature does not always need to look lush to be thriving. A roof that appears brown in places may be supporting plants adapted to survive heat and drought, without constant irrigation. Designing for a changing climateAs heatwaves intensify and rainfall becomes increasingly unpredictable, our approach to urban planting must evolve. Landscapes that depend on regular watering to remain verdant may become less sustainable, while buildings and cities need better ways to manage intense rainfall. Dusty argues that we must start by understanding the conditions plants will face. Substrate depth, drainage, water retention, exposure and structural loading all matter. So does choosing plants that can survive the environment rather than those selected purely for their appearance. Some of the most resilient plants are small and understated. Others grow much taller than a designer might expect. Rather than forcing plants into rigid planting schemes, we should create the right conditions and allow nature to find its own balance. This requires a shift in thinking, from controlling nature to working with it, to make design more intelligent, informed by ecology and the realities of a changing climate. Biophilia is about our connection to lifeFor Dusty, biophilia is about how people connect with nature. He recalled meeting a man in Saudi Arabia who spoke emotionally about wanting to touch a palm tree in Riyadh. The palm represented an oasis, something meaningful in a predominantly desert landscape. The story illustrates why nature cannot be reduced to a single aesthetic. A desert can be beautiful. So can a windswept rooftop filled with wildflowers, or a patch of vegetation supporting insects and birds among concrete and glass. Biophilic design should respond to the nature of a place, its climate and its cultural context, rather than impose an idealised image of an English garden everywhere. A truly biophilic city is a city that makes room for life.Dusty encourages us to see a city as a network of habitats rather than a collection of isolated buildings. He compares the urban landscape to a mountain range, with different conditions at different heights. Higher roofs are exposed to more wind and sun and may suit dry, sparsely vegetated habitats. Lower levels can support different planting, including shrubs and trees. Balconies, courtyards, gardens and roadside verges all contribute to the wider picture. By creating a mosaic of habitats, we can support greater biodiversity while helping to cool cities, manage rainfall and improve building performance. There are opportunities to combine these benefits with renewable energy, too. Dusty describes projects exploring biodiverse roofs alongside solar panels, showing how energy generation and habitat creation can work together when designed from the outset. The challenge is to consider these benefits collectively, rather than maximising one at the expense of everything else. Designing ...
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    40 mins
  • Mindful Designing - Freyja Sewell on Biophilia, Neurodiversity and Positive Futures

    Mindful Designing - Freyja Sewell on Biophilia, Neurodiversity and Positive Futures
    Oct 21 2026
    There are many places where we can feel an overwhelm, for some of us, the overwhelm can be, well, overwhelming and trying to find somewhere to recalibrate can be difficult. So how can design help us feel safe, connected and able to participate in the world? Designer and interdisciplinary artist Freyja Sewell begins with nature, sensory experience and a willingness to imagine things differently. As a neurodivergent designer herself, Freyja is founder of HUUS Design, where she brings together art, technology, nature and sensory design to create gorgeous woven soft felt pods and other products including digital capability to help create environments that support human experience better. Her work is also woven by an ambition to make positive futures tangible. From lived experience to inclusive designFreyja’s journey began with her own experience of feeling overwhelmed by certain environments. As an autistic designer, she understands how noise, stimulation and a lack of privacy can make everyday spaces difficult to navigate. Rather than treating this sensitivity as a limitation, she has increasingly come to recognise how it can inform her creativity. That perspective led to the development of the HushPod, a freestanding, closable felt structure that creates a small, private retreat within a larger environment. Developed after university, the original concept emerged from her need to find somewhere peaceful to go when the world became too much. Freyja experimented with different materials before discovering thick wool felt. Its combination of strength, softness and tactility offered the qualities she was seeking, namely a beautiful object that could provide both physical enclosure and a sense of calm. Inspired partly by the womb-like quality of the form, the HushPod offered an alternative to retreating to a toilet (which a lot of people do!) or withdrawing entirely from public life! The response from others was also positive. People recognised their own need for quiet, privacy and space to regulate their emotions and senses. A personal design solution had revealed a much wider need. Bringing the forest into our everyday spacesNature has been a constant source of inspiration for Sewell, and biophilic research and principles now underpin both her artistic and design practice. She describes the forest as a genuinely immersive experience. The sensation of walking on the ground, the smells, the sounds, the air and the textures all contribute to an encounter that engages the whole body. Yet not everyone can easily access these experiences. Physical barriers, socioeconomic circumstances and the realities of urban life can all limit opportunities to spend time in nature. Her approach seeks to distil some of nature’s qualities into environments to meet people where they are. Through sensory spaces, including an art therapy pod developed in collaboration with Ebony Easley, she explores how design can bring elements of nature into settings where people may need additional support. These spaces can offer an introduction to nature’s restorative qualities, while encouraging a deeper connection with the living world beyond their walls. A different vision of the futureFreyja’s thinking is also shaped by her experiences in Japan, where she has lived three times. She is fascinated by approaches that understand nature and technology as interconnected rather than opposing forces. For her, a positive future is one in which these relationships become reciprocal: technology exists in ways that support a healthier balance between people and the natural world. This vision depends on creativity and diverse ways of thinking. Repeating familiar approaches, she suggests, is unlikely to produce fundamentally different outcomes. That makes neurodiversity an important part of the conversation about the future of design. Making room for everyoneWhere would she like to see her designs make the greatest difference? In restaurants and bars, where quieter retreats could help neurodivergent people participate more comfortably in social life; in educational settings, where young people could find opportunities to regulate and contribute; and in hospitals, where patients, families and staff may need moments of calm amid stressful surroundings; and environments in which more people feel able to belong. Perhaps that is one of the most important lessons biophilic design can offer, noteably designing for wellbeing means looking beyond how a space appears to consider how it feels to inhabit it. By listening to different experiences of the world, embracing sensory diversity and drawing inspiration from nature, we can begin to imagine places that work for more of us. Explore further: Discover the Journal of Biophilic Design’s Neurodiversity Issue, featuring research, science and inspiration for creating spaces that work for everyone. To learn more about Biophilic Design and how it can help support neuroinclusivity, ...
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    29 mins
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