Why Modern Workplaces are Failing – and How Nature Could Save Them

Designing workplaces today demands more than boosting output — it requires protecting the people within them.

As employees spend more and more time indoors, the quiet toll on mental health mood, and resilience is becoming impossible to ignore.

Research by Zhang et al. (2024) highlights that regular exposure to nature is fundamental to psychological restoration. Still, many workplaces cut people off from these restorative experiences, making it harder to recover from stress — and easier for burnout to take hold.

It’s clear: if we want healthier, more sustainable work environments, reconnecting people with nature isn’t optional. It’s essential.

Reconnecting People with nature

At its heart, design isn’t just about creating something beautiful — it’s about shaping the way people behave, feel, and perform.

With the World Health Organization reporting that we now spend around 90% of our lives indoors, it's no wonder that the true cost of disconnected, poorly considered workplaces is coming into sharper focus.

It’s not just about absenteeism or staff turnover. It’s the quieter, more corrosive effects — the gradual decline in focus, energy, and overall wellbeing — that organisations can no longer afford to ignore.

What Does It Really Mean to Reconnect People with Nature at the Workplace?

It’s not about token gestures like a few potted plants.

It’s about creating environments that allow people to feel, even in subtle ways, that they remain connected to the natural environment.

Greenery as a Daily Encounter

There are three primary ways to integrate greenery into workplace settings: Potted plants, hanging installations, and vertical gardens. Studies (Yildirim et al., 2024) show that greenery indoors can reduce physiological markers of stress – including heart rate variability, blood pressure, and cortisol levels while improving mood, concentration, and cognitive performance. In other words, plants are not just décor, they are active agents of wellbeing.

Simulating Nature Where Reality Falls Short

Few offices have the luxury of being surrounded by nature.

Yet research by Chulvi et al. (2020) found that even simulated nature – such as large images of natural scenes can evoke many of the same creative and restorative benefits as real gardens.

Where real exposure is limited, thoughtful simulations can provide an affordable and effective bridge between employees and nature’s restorative power.

The Power of Natural Materials

Stone, bamboo, terracotta, and rattan — materials that connect us back to the raw, tactile beauty of nature.

Exposure to these textures has been shown to lower stress responses and support divergent thinking, attention, and memory.

In an era where offices are often dominated by glass, plastic and synthetic finishes, bringing back raw, earthy materials can help balance the sensory experience of work.

Access to Semi-Outdoor Spaces

Where space allows, semi-outdoor areas such as   terraces, courtyards, or open-air lounges offer employees a deeper, more physical reconnection with nature.

Sunlight, fresh air, greenery and even water features have been linked to improvements in mental health, physical activity and emotional resilience.

The ability to step outside (even briefly) matters far more to wellbeing than it often receives   credit for.

Why It Matters

We weren’t built to spend our lives indoors, cut off from the world outside.

Yet most workplaces today make that disconnection the norm.

Over time, the absence of nature wears people down. Focus slips. Energy fades. Recovery from stress tales longer than it should.

Restoring that connection isn’t about adding surface-level features. It’s about designing spaces that breath again in ways that matter: through light, air, greenery, texture.

When workplaces bring nature back into the everyday experience, they give people more than comfort – they give them clarity, resilience, and the kind of energy that lasts well beyond the day’s demands.

References:

Zhang, P., Yu, Z., Hou, G., Shu, P., Bo, Y., Shi, Y., & Nie, R. (2024). Enhancing Cognitive Performance and Physiological Benefit in Workspaces Through Patterns of Biophilic Design: A Restorative Approach.

World Health Organization (2013). Multiple Environmental Exposures and Risks. [Online] Available at: WHO Website

Fukumoto, H., Shimoda, M., & Hoshino, S. (2024). The effects of different designs of indoor biophilic greening on psychological and physiological responses and cognitive performance of office workers. PLoS ONE, 19(7).

Yildirim, M., Gocer, O., Global, A., & Brambilla, A. (2024). Investigating restorative effects of biophilic design in workplaces: A systematic review. Taylor & Francis Online.

Chulvi, V., Agost, M. J., Felip, F., & Gual, J. (2020). Natural Elements in the Designer’s Work Environment Influence the Creativity of Their Results. Journal of Building Engineering, 28