Biophilic Design in the Built Environment: Trends, Gaps and Future Directions

What the study found

Maps a rapidly growing biophilic-design literature and identifies uneven evidence across interventions and outcomes.

Limitations

Bibliometric breadth does not equal causal strength; intervention definitions vary widely.

Neurodesign interpretation

The main value is cartographic. It shows where biophilic design research clusters and where the field has repeated ideas without equivalent causal evidence.

Possible design implications

Use the review to expand the corpus by mechanism rather than treating all 435 studies as equivalent.

Why it stays in the corpus

Retain as a source-discovery map for the larger biophilic literature.

Study design

Review of 435 studies

Population

Mixed populations

Setting

Built environment literature

Field

Biophilic design

Mechanism

Human-nature connection, restoration

Spatial variable

Biophilic design patterns

Keywords

biophilic design, bibliometric, built environment