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Landscape and Play with Biophilic Design

Landscape and Play with Biophilic Design

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 If two people could combat our growing urban disconnection, it is Adam White and Andrée Davies of Davies White Limited. I met them at our first Biophilic Design Conference at the Barbican, and immediately warmed to their infectious passion for better landscape design. Design which helps reimagine spaces from playgrounds to hospitals through a beautiful and playful biophilic lens, pulling on our emotional responses to nature. They construct, if you will, beautiful narratives of human-nature coexistence. Instead of viewing landscapes as static backdrops, they help encourage us to understand them as dynamic, living systems that actively shape human experience and ecological health. I think it’s the creativity I love most about their work. The balance of science, planning and artistry. Their approach is rooted in a deep understanding of ecological systems and human psychology. With projects ranging from micro-forest playgrounds to hospital gardens, each is designed to restore our biophilic fundamental relationship with the natural world. Take their recent West London micro-forest playground project. By densely planting trees and creating intricate ecological landscapes, they're not merely designing a play area, but constructing a living classroom. The project embodies their core belief: that understanding nature begins with immersive, tactile experiences. Those of us who live and breathe biophilic design, this philosophy aligns with scientific research. Studies consistently demonstrate that exposure to natural environments reduces stress, enhances cognitive function, and promotes emotional well-being. Adam himself references Florence Williams' "The Nature Fix", which explores how nature can make us "happier, healthier, and more creative". Also, their approach supports the positive economic argument for biophilic design. Their pocket park project in London demonstrated that nature-rich spaces can increase property values and biodiversity simultaneously. Plus, a collaboration with Anglian Water explored how housing developments could integrate resilient, nature-focused landscapes, and they are advocating a new “Resilient Garden” rating, which like the EPC rating on a house, could add value to a property if reported along with a house sale. I think this is a brilliant idea. It will get real estate developers and property owners totally thinking differently about their homes and land. This "resilient garden and landscape accreditation scheme" would be an ecological equivalent to energy ratings for buildings. This could revolutionise how we value and integrate natural systems into our built environment Policy is slowly catching up. The introduction of a Natural History GCSE this September (which they both, along with others, including Mary Colwell I interviewed a couple of years back) represents a significant milestone. "If children don't understand nature, they won't appreciate it, and if they don't appreciate it, they won't protect it," Adam recalls Sir David Attenborough telling him – a statement that has become a guiding principle for their work. "We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing," Adam reminds us, and their hospital design interventions are creative, beautiful and indeed playful. By creating gardens with living elements like water pumps, rabbits, and carefully selected native plants, they transform clinical spaces into healing ecosystems. These actively support patient recovery. As climate change accelerates, landscape architecture becomes a critical tool for resilience. Their designs are also adaptive systems that can mitigate environmental challenges while supporting human and ecological well-being. What I love about their work is that they challenge the notion that sustainable design is prohibitively expensive. By using creative, low-cost interventions like raised planting containers and willow pods, they demonstrate that ecological design can be accessible and scalable. I have to call out one specific example of climate resilience from their work, and that is at Nene Park Trust in Cambridgeshire. They used swales to manage water collection during heavy rainfall. These swales are designed to be both functional and interactive, with bridges and stepping stones that children can use to cross them. Their conscious approach to help with water management through strategically designed swales, planting of resilient vegetation that can thrive in changing conditions and creating a playful landscape that serves both ecological and recreational purposes really deserves visiting and using as an exemplar of best practice. They've been working with the park trust for 15 years, and when they revisited the site recently, they were impressed by how the planting had thrived in conditions that might typically challenge other landscapes. Andrée shared that we need a better understanding "nature's time" - recognising that landscapes ...
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