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Charlotte Church - The Dreaming

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Charlotte Church - The Dreaming

Reconnecting with Nature: Charlotte' Church’s Biophilic Retreat offers Healing and Wonder. The Elan Valley, nestled in the heart of mid-Wales, is a hidden gem of serene beauty and wild grandeur. Here, the landscape unfurls in soft, rolling hills, dotted with ancient woodlands and heather-clad slopes, while the deep, verdant valleys are carved by the meandering course of crystal-clear rivers. The air is fresh, tinged with the earthy scent of moss and pine, and the sky, often painted in hues of blue or grey, seems endless above this tranquil expanse.

Here is where The Dreaming is.

The Dreaming, which is a haven and a place of retreat for everyone, is the creation of Charlotte Church. Charlotte. Is known to many as a singer, but maybe fewer know her as a visionary of this beautiful space in Wales. It’s a place where she is manifesting her vision to help people reconnect with nature, both inside and out, where biophilia threads through the hills, waterfalls, valleys and right into the house where you stay.

And it is this house which is the epitome of Biophilic Design. It is designed not only with heart and honesty, but has been a work of love by Charlotte and the designers who helped create this home. The former home of the designer, Laura Ashley has fallen into disrepair when Charlotte came across the land.

Turning her desire to make a difference in the world for people and planet, the land informed her decision to create a retreat centre, transforming the land and the house into a Biophilic haven.

In a secluded corner of the Welsh countryside, internationally renowned singer-songwriter Charlotte has created a sanctuary that blends the power of nature, music, and design. The Dreaming, her newly opened retreat centre, is a testament to her lifelong passion for the restorative qualities of the natural world.

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Reconnecting with Nature: The Biophilic Design Revolution

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Reconnecting with Nature: The Biophilic Design Revolution

In an age of increasing urbanisation and digital distractions, a growing movement is seeking to reestablish our innate connection with the natural world. At the forefront of this revolution is Martin Brown, a sustainability consultant and self-proclaimed "provocateur," who is challenging the way we design and inhabit our built environments.

Martin recounts his own journey, one that has seen him transition from a career in project management to becoming a leading voice in the world of regenerative design. "I think biophilia, rather biophilic design, was that sort of gateway to try attract more people and gain attention," he explains, describing how simple biophilic elements, such as living walls and textured wood panelling, can have a profound impact on both the occupants and the bottom line.

 

But Martin's vision extends far beyond mere aesthetic improvements. He speaks passionately about the concept of "kinship," a deeper, more spiritual connection to the natural world that draws inspiration from indigenous philosophies. This shift in mindset is essential if we are to address the pressing environmental and social challenges of our time. He laments the "disconnect" he observes in modern society, where people are quick to marvel at the "pretty lights in the sky" but equally quick to discard their litter.

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How our Brains respond to Biophilic Design

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How our Brains respond to Biophilic Design

In a world increasingly disconnected from nature, the principles of biophilic design offer a powerful antidote.

Chintamani Bird, an Australian designer committed to biophilic design, shared her insights on how Biophilic Design can heal both people and the planet. She emphasizes that biophilic design has a profound impact on the brain, reducing stress, improving cognitive function, activating the parasympathetic nervous system, and enhancing overall mood and well-being.

As the Journal of Biophilic Design expands to Australia in 2025, this is the first in a series of interviews with leading names in Biophilic Designers from that side of the globe and who champion the transformative potential of this design philosophy.

At the heart of Biophilic Design is the recognition that humans have an innate need to connect with the natural world. "Biophilic design has the opportunity to heal and heal through biodiversity, heal the soil, heal the environment, heal communities," Chintamani emphasized.

Listen and Read on...

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The Wave - Connecting us to our Blue Mind

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The Wave - Connecting us to our Blue Mind

Tying in with Issue 6, our Blue Mind edition of The Journal of Biophilic Design we speak with Nick Hounsfield, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at The Wave in Bristol. The Wave is an inland Surfing destination.

After working in the healthcare sector and realizing that not only one of the key aspects for people was that they were lonely but that they also were missing a connection to nature, Nick wanted to create something at scale that would have a positive impact. He also wanted to reach out to people who didn’t have access to a private healthcare system.

“How can we democratise this? How can we make it more accessible for more people?” Nick explains how he went on to create The Wave. He had a very clear purpose and mandate, wanting to appeal to everyone, be accessible in all seasons and ensuring he addressed barriers to accessing to green and blue space. “We have to break down those barriers through design, through great landscaping, a good business model, and also make sure that we're not destroying the planet and local ecology either.”

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Healing yourself at Home with Biophilic Design

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Healing yourself at Home with Biophilic Design

Tying in with the second issue of our magazine, our theme for this podcast is HOME. We speak with Award-winning Interior Designer Nuria Muñoz who tells us about her journey into Biophilic Design and why she decided to follow her dream path start her own company and do something good for the planet.

Nuria is a Wellbeing Interior Designer, Consultant, Speaker and Educator based in Valencia Spain and works all over the world. She founded Habitarmonia, a consulting and design studio that offers both B2B and B2C services, has won awards and is passionate about our beautiful planet, and designs interiors that respect our world and brings harmony and happiness to the families who live in them.

"We heal people by using Biophilic Design." Giving us an example where she transformed a home of a couple who had stressful jobs and children who were struggling on different levels, she explains the importance of co-creation, working with the family, asking them lifestyle questions, finding out their challenges, listening and also, and this is important, explaining HOW the design changes will help them.

"It's important to make people aware of the benefits of biophilic design. We create room and space, but our challenge as interior designers, it's not just about looking saying and showing it looks nice, it is important also to communicate that the Biophilic Design solution helps you with well-being and happiness."

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Feeling Alive

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Feeling Alive

As many of our listeners know, the concept of Biophilic Design brings our contact with nature closer into our lives in the built environment, whether that’s at home, work, hospitals, schools or our cities. In our podcasts we speak to people whose life’s work has been to design and work with nature and also to understand more deeply how and why our connection with nature is so profound and why it has a positive impact it has on us. The underlying factor is our inheritance from our ancestors, how for hundreds of thousands of years we lived outside, close to nature. We are still dependent on nature for our food, air, water, life.

In this podcast, we speak with Mary Reynolds Thompson, founder of Live Your Wild Soul Story, and who is an award-winning author, internationally recognized speaker, and a pioneer in the spiritual ecology movement, her focus is on the transformative power of landscape archetypes and nature metaphors to reveal our true purpose and right relationship with the planet. We discuss how the way we are living now alienates us from real life, from the living planet, from each other, and from our own authenticity. It’s not just a philosophy, it's proven that time in nature really heals you emotionally, psychologically, and physically, the effects are lasting – it has an accumulative benefit, extending into the stresses of the week. Therefore, simply put, the more connected we are to nature the happier we are.

“It’s an unfolding comfort, we feel the warmth or cold of the earth, almost like the heartbeat of the mother, security and happiness. For all of human history we lived outside, it’s part of our lineage, and we don’t just cut it off. We don’t lose that desire.” Mary goes on to describe a concept, Shadow wild – this disconnection which leaves such a gaping chasm that we tend to want to fill it with whatever is at hand because we want to feel alive (Joseph Campbell, the mythologist said – more than anything humans want to feel alive, and most of us feel alive when we are outside in the natural world.

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Sustainable Habitats for Sustainable Habits?

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Sustainable Habitats for Sustainable Habits?

When you climb up a tree, don’t we see life from a different perspective? We realise we part of something bigger than ourselves, we see an overview of everything and it helps us understand our place in the world more. It is also true, that generally many people and businesses seem to have a distorted relationship with nature, but as Environmental Psychologist and Design professional Anicee Bauer of “Humans in Trees” puts it: “we are nature”. Can Biophilic Design really encourage a more sustainable lifestyle, and why should the Workplace include Biophilic Design in order to help reach that NetZero target?

In this podcast, she shares with us the three fascinating levels in her consultancy process. We touch on Wabi-Sabi design strategies, Aristotelian intellectual moral virtues, spirituality, reconnecting with the fun we feel in nature and Einstein… come join us…

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Rooted in Nature - how Biophilic Design helps us flourish

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Rooted in Nature - how Biophilic Design helps us flourish

Can we make the world a better place by design? Nicole Craanen definitely thinks so (and so do we). Nicole is founder of Rooted in Nature and believes that connection to nature, especially through Biophilic Design supports human wellbeing. Quoting E.O.Wilson “the crucial first step to survival in all our organisms is habitat selection. If you get the right place, everything else is likely to be easier”, she explores in this podcast, just how we are rediscovering how we can design close to nature to help create better spaces for us to live and work in, and this is especially true in healthcare.

We have many studies proving just how beneficial Biophilic Design is, which underlines that deep innate connection that we have to the space around us. All this research is helping us determine habitats that support us in the built environment. It is also helping advocate the environmental stewardship aspect of Biophilic Design as a sustainable design practice.

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What can we learn from Ancient Roman balneology?

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What can we learn from Ancient Roman balneology?

In Biophilic Design we speak about the importance of how the environment we are in affects our senses. This sensorial approach is a key feature of a human-centric mode of design. Why we would consider designing spaces which harm our minds, physical health and negatively affect our ability to focus or be creative is beyond me. Thankfully, this disconnect between understanding how to create spaces harmonious to our senses is losing ground, with the advent of the Biophilic Design movement.

This was one of the main reasons I was excited to interview Dr Giacomo Savani, who specialises in ancient Roman balneology. What is that you might ask? Balneology, as he explains in this podcast, is the study of baths and bathing, how water, springs and spas also can heal. Readers of our Journal and listeners to the podcast, will probably have some understanding of the concept of the “Blue Mind”, how water has such a positive affect on us. Dr Savani has taken this a few steps further and looked at the physical and sensorial aspects of ancient Roman bathing, and we discuss in this podcast, how we might learn from their experiences and design practices and bring aspects into our designs today.

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My Green Pod - How to have a Biophilic Lifestyle

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My Green Pod - How to have a Biophilic Lifestyle

The journey of My Green Pod founder, Jarvis Smith, is a fascinating one, and one that is inspiring to fellow environmentalists. We chat to Jarvis about his Shamanic training, his epiphany on the set of an observational documentary on a rubbish tip and how we can each make conscious decisions that will help this beautiful planet we are living on.

We also look at his office which was designed by Biophilic Design expert, Oliver Heath, and explore some of the features, from the living wall to the paint colours and materials used, and importantly what it feels like to work there.

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Designing for Extremes

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Designing for Extremes

Designing for extremes for the benefit of the mean, creates a solution that’s good for us all. 69-90% of our time at work is focussed on what we call, “deep work”, as little as 40-10% on collaborative activities. Of course depends on your job, but that’s some averages that are worth considering. Having 15 minutes to recharge is really important. Somewhere which gives you acoustic relief as well as some “you” time is important, somewhere you don’t have to be “on” or be in the spotlight or be judged. Personalising your workspace is really important, and this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that we’ve discussed how human-centric design is paramount to creating better places for us to work in…

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Technobiophilia - Life, Nature and Technology

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Technobiophilia - Life, Nature and Technology

There are many metaphors of nature in cyber space which we use without even thinking about it: clouds, streams, webs, and so on. Dr Sue Thomas has conducted research on how we can use technology to enhance our connection with nature. In this podcast we talk about how the huge amount of research and environmental science data has shown the benefits of nature on our wellbeing, including reducing blood pressure and other measurable benefits. Sue has also studied research on the effects of engaging with nature on devices, through technology, such as watching wildlife shows and even playing video games. She shares her concept of Technobiophilia. We talk about a real mix of things, ideas you can do on your commute or at your office desk, from plants, to stones, alpacas on Instagram, Farmville, live streams from eagles nests, fixed nature webcams, and lots more...

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Your Life Nature

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Your Life Nature

When was the last time you took a “nature break”? Hobie Hare, founder of “Your Life Nature” encourages us not only to take some time and get out into nature but also to bring Biophilia into our homes, with reminders of positive emotions, maybe it’s seashells from the beech, or a photograph that conjures an emotion that resonates with you…

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Botanic Shed 10 minute tip - 1 Soil

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Botanic Shed 10 minute tip - 1 Soil

In the first of a series of short 10 minute podcasts with our partner Lara Cowan at The Botanic Shed, School of Nature, where she shares tips and science on why and how nature is good for us. Today we talk about Soil. You will learn some surprising facts about soil, from he smell, the bacteria, the negative ions therein and more. She also suggests a few things you can plant out at the weekend, from Broad beans to leeks… to get you out of the house and engaging in the gorgeousness of soil..

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From Veterinary Science to a Wellbeing Biophilic Economy

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From Veterinary Science to a Wellbeing Biophilic Economy

Fascinating and positive conversation with Glen Cousquer, covering biology, philosophy and the concept of the self, we talk conservation medicine, experiential education including getting outdoors, and exploring the concept of listening not only for human relationships but also listening to the living world around us. He is a qualified Vet, but after realising how there were underlying issues affecting different eco systems he moved away from the traditional veterinary model into developing a more holistic approach to health and welfare concerns…

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Botanic Shed - School of Nature

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Botanic Shed - School of Nature

When was the last time you felt stressed? Sometimes things in life can be a wee bit too much, or there's just one too many things to do, or just too much on your plate for whatever reason. We speak with Lara Cowan, founder of the Botanic Shed - School of Nature….

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Oliver Heath - How to create Happiness, the benefits of Biophilic Design

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Oliver Heath - How to create Happiness, the benefits of Biophilic Design

Biophilic design principles allow us to bring elements of nature into the built environment, especially into those places where we experience a great deal of stress. Our connection to nature can unlock so many benefits, stress washes off us, we become different people, we can think more holistically about our life and where it’s going. The impact the buildings we inhabit and work in have an enormous effect on our lives, especially now with the restrictions placed on us as a result of the Covid epidemic. With an onset of almost cabin fever, we are recognising the fact that the building we surround ourselves with has a huge impact on our physical, mental and emotional states. Nature can play a valuable role, the benefits of plants and greenery, adding personalisation, direct influence over a space, improve air quality, sunlight, fresh air, easy to improve spaces. S..

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Forest Therapy

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Forest Therapy

When was the last time you took a walk in the forest? We all recognise the positive power that being in nature has on our wellbeing and mindset, and some of us also are familiar with the Japanese ‘art’ of Shinrin Yoku, or Forest Bathing. What you might not have known is that there are “NHS Forest” hospitals. In this podcast we discuss whether there is a need for a nature-based health strategy to be…

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Unblocking Creativity and aiding Healing in Times of Change - Nature, Retreats and a Haven in London

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Unblocking Creativity and aiding Healing in Times of Change - Nature, Retreats and a Haven in London

Sharing a space in silence can be uplifting, revelatory and inspiring, sharing a space in nature can be an even more powerful experience. Allowing your brain to think in different ways by taking time away by being in a different space unblocks creativity, it can help you shape a different way of thinking, a different ways of being. This is important in times of change, career change and stress. Doing this surrounded by nature compounds the effe..

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Nature's Tonic

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Nature's Tonic

Research has shown that contact with nature has a psycho-therapeutic effect. It also has been proven that being surrounded by nature, with all the multi-sensory effects it has on us, increases our immunity, improves resilience and improves our mood. In fact being in a calm environment allows part of our brain to rest. Mindfulness is a way of being present without judgment and research has shown that brainwaves change when people practice this too.

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