What is the Miyawaki Method?
Four decades of research on how plants affect people, and what that means for landscape design
Biophilic design is an approach to buildings and outdoor spaces that keeps people in regular contact with plants, daylight, water and other natural elements. The starting point is the simple observation that people feel better, work better and recover better when they spend time around the natural world. The idea is older than the term itself, and gardeners and designers have been describing the calming effect of greenery for centuries. What has changed is that research from psychology, public health and urban planning has caught up with the intuition.
The word biophilia comes from the American biologist Edward O. Wilson, who proposed it in 1984 to describe an evolved human tendency to seek connection with other living things. Humans had spent almost their whole existence in landscapes shaped by plants, water and other species, and Wilson argued that long familiarity had not vanished once people moved into cities and buildings. At the time the idea was largely evolutionary speculation. Forty years on, it has been tested in several disciplines and the research has held up well.
What was once a hunch is now written into the standards that shape mainstream construction. BREEAM and the WELL Building Standard both reference biophilic provision, and together they set the benchmarks for most new commercial offices, schools and healthcare buildings. Biodiversity Net Gain, made mandatory under the Environment Act 2021, has aligned ecological and human-health objectives in the same brief, since the planting that feeds pollinators and shelters birds is very often the planting that supports people too.
What the early research found
The single most influential piece of biophilic research was published in 1984 by an environmental psychologist called Roger Ulrich. He looked at patients recovering from gallbladder surgery in a Pennsylvania hospital, half of whom had a window looking out onto a small group of trees and half a window facing a brick wall. Apart from the view, the patients and their care were as similar as the hospital could make them.
The results were striking. Patients who could see trees were discharged on average a day earlier, asked for fewer doses of strong pain medication, and received fewer negative comments from the nurses about their mood. The study was small and the conditions specific, but it opened a door that has not closed since. Hundreds of further studies have looked at how access to nature affects stress, attention, mood and recovery, and the findings have been broadly consistent.
Two ideas that explain why
Researchers have offered two main explanations, and both shape how the principles are applied in landscape design.
The first is Attention Restoration Theory, developed by the husband-and-wife researchers Rachel and Stephen Kaplan. Office work, screen time and most of urban life demand a focused, effortful attention that is mentally tiring. Natural settings hold the eye in a softer way, with leaves moving in the wind, dappled light, and the slow shift of colour through a planted bed. This gentle, low-effort looking gives the directed-attention system a chance to rest.
The second is Stress Recovery Theory, developed by Ulrich himself. Studies measuring heart rate, blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol have found that all three drop when people are placed in natural settings, and faster than they would in equivalent urban surroundings. The effect can show up within minutes. Ulrich proposed that the human nervous system reads vegetation as a sign of safety and starts to wind down accordingly.
In Japan this kind of bodily response has been studied at length in the practice of shinrin-yoku, often translated as “forest bathing”, which simply means spending unhurried time among trees. The practice is now part of public health guidance in Japan and South Korea, with growing interest elsewhere.
What it does in everyday settings
In 2008, Marc Berman, John Jonides and Stephen Kaplan published a study in Psychological Science showing that participants performed almost 20 per cent better on a working-memory test after a walk in a natural setting than after a walk along a busy city street. The walks were the same length and the participants were the same people on different days. What changed was the environment around them.
In 2014, a field study led by Marlon Nieuwenhuis at Cardiff University took two real offices stripped of any planting and added leafy plants to half the floor area of each. Productivity rose by around 15 per cent in the planted areas, alongside improvements in concentration and air-quality perception. The study has been widely cited and replicated since.
A larger study by Mathew White and colleagues at the University of Exeter, published in 2019, drew on a sample of nearly 20,000 people in England. Spending around two hours a week in natural settings was associated with significantly better self-reported health and wellbeing. Less than two hours produced no measurable benefit; more produced more, plateauing between three and five hours. The two-hour figure has since become a public-health rule of thumb.
What plants do that the other elements cannot
Within biophilic design, which also covers natural light, water features and natural materials, plants do something the other elements cannot: they move and they change. Foliage shifts in the wind, light filters differently through a canopy at different times of day, colour and texture change across the seasons, and the slow rhythm of growth and decay is visible across years. That kind of low-stakes, naturally interesting visual stimulus is what the attention research describes as restorative.
Quality matters as much as quantity. Research on urban green space has found that how well a planted area is designed and maintained has a stronger link to wellbeing outcomes than size alone. A small, well-planted courtyard often does more for the people using it than a much larger but neglected lawn.
Varied texture, sound, scent and movement all help reduce stress, and a scheme that gives people something to hear, smell and touch will tend to perform better than one that is purely visual. Pollinator-friendly planting feeds bees, hoverflies and butterflies, and native hedging gives nesting cover for thrushes, blackbirds and other garden birds, with spring blossom and autumn berries supporting the food chain through the leaner months.
Plants that support a biophilic response
A handful of species illustrate the kinds of qualities the research consistently links with restorative outcomes: movement, scent, seasonal change, canopy structure and biodiversity value.
Betula pendula
Commonly known as silver birch, Betula pendula is a native deciduous tree with slender white-barked stems and small, triangular leaves that move easily in the lightest wind. The movement and the dappled light beneath the canopy give the species its biophilic value, with soft yellow autumn colour adding a clear seasonal marker. Useful as a multi-stem or in small groves on commercial sites where a light habit suits courtyards and street frontages.
Quercus URBAFLORA® ‘Grace’
A climate-resilient oak hybrid combining English and Iranian oak genetics, reaching around 18m at maturity with an 8m spread. The canopy structure gives the kind of overhead shelter the biophilic research links with feelings of safety beneath. Tolerates drought and flooding once established, and contributes to air purification, carbon sequestration, and food and habitat for insects, birds and pollinators in urban schemes.
Betula pendula
Quercus URBAFLORA® ‘Grace’
Liquidambar styraciflua
Liquidambar styraciflua
Commonly known as sweet gum, Liquidambar styraciflua is a deciduous tree grown principally for the colour of its star-shaped leaves, which turn vivid red, orange and purple in autumn. The slow turn of colour gives a planted space several weeks of seasonal change. Prefers a sunny position and a moist but well-drained soil.
Lonicera URBAFLORA® ‘Precipice’
An evergreen groundcover honeysuckle producing sweetly scented golden-yellow tubular flowers in June and July, held above a dense carpet of dark glossy leaves. The scent is the reason to specify it in a biophilic scheme, since fragrance is consistently linked to lower self-reported stress. Tolerates full sun to full shade, drought tolerant once established, and self-roots along its stems, which makes it useful on slopes or against retaining walls.
Lavandula angustifolia
Commonly known as English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia is a low evergreen shrub with narrow grey-green foliage and dense spikes of fragrant blue-purple flowers from early to mid-summer. The scent, the colour and the long flowering period combine to make it one of the most reliable sensory plants in commercial planting, and bees, butterflies and hoverflies feed heavily on the flowers. Prefers full sun, well-drained soil and a light prune after flowering.
Lonicera URBAFLORA® ‘Precipice’
Calamagrostis × acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’
A clump-forming deciduous grass with strong upright stems and feathery flowerheads that turn from green to buff and stay standing through winter. Moves audibly in the lightest wind, which adds sound to the sensory palette of a planted space, and holds its form well through the off-season when most perennials have gone over. Suits the middle of a mixed border, prairie planting, or rhythmic drifts along a building frontage.
Cotoneaster URBAFLORA® ‘Urban Carpet’
An evergreen groundcover with small glossy green leaves and a low profile at around 20cm in height, carrying white flowers in May and June and bright red berries through autumn and winter. The flowers feed bees and hoverflies in early summer, and the berries provide colour and food for thrushes, blackbirds and fieldfares through the leaner months. Tolerates full sun to full shade, and stays drought tolerant once established.
Crataegus monogyna
Commonly known as hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna is a native deciduous tree or large shrub used widely in hedging and as a single-stem specimen. Carries dense white spring blossom that feeds bees and hoverflies, followed by deep red autumn berries that feed thrushes, blackbirds and fieldfares through winter. As a native species it supports a wide range of associated invertebrates, which puts it among the more ecologically active plants available for commercial schemes.
Calamagrostis × acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’
Cotoneaster URBAFLORA® ‘Urban Carpet’
Crataegus monogyna
Where it shows up in practice
Most new commercial offices now include biophilic provision as a matter of course, with planted terraces, internal green walls, views onto street trees and access to outdoor space written into briefs as standard. What was a high-end differentiator ten years ago is now an occupier expectation across most of the office market.
In healthcare and education the case is older and the evidence deeper. Ulrich’s hospital study has been followed by research in dementia care, post-operative recovery and inpatient mental health, all supporting consistent benefits from access to nature. School grounds have been studied in similar detail, with findings that children pay better attention and recover from stress more quickly when they have proper outdoor space to use.
In residential development, studies have repeatedly found positive associations between proximity to good green space and mental health outcomes across different income groups and types of neighbourhood.
What the evidence suggests in practice
Variety helps. A planting palette with a mix of texture, colour, scent and seasonal interest will tend to perform better against wellbeing criteria than a simpler scheme. Mixing canopy trees with mid-layer shrubs and varied groundcover gives the layered structure that supports both wildlife and the human response.
Canopy structure matters. People tend to feel calmer and safer in places that combine overhead shelter with clear views into the middle distance, a spatial pattern designers sometimes call “prospect and refuge”. Tree planting that creates this structure supports the response in ways that lower planting alone cannot, and produces more comfortable microclimates around the building too.
Proximity matters as much as scale. Brief, regular contact with planting tends to deliver more benefit than a single visit to a large but distant park. Courtyard planting, green roofs, planted entrances and street tree canopy reach occupants and visitors in their daily routine, which is when the small effects add up.
Long-term plant health is part of the design. A scheme that is planted well but allowed to deteriorate will not keep delivering the benefit that healthy planting can. Realistic species selection, proper establishment and a maintenance plan the site can actually deliver are what turn the evidence into a result on the ground rather than a brochure picture.
The research behind biophilic design has come a long way since Wilson first put his idea on paper. It now offers a solid foundation for choices that were once made on intuition alone, and aligns the case for quality planting with the standards already shaping new construction. Planting that is varied, well-placed and properly maintained gives the people using a site real and repeatable benefit.
For more information about biophilic design and the plants that support it, speak to the G Team today.