Have you ever walked into a hotel lobby or an office break room and felt happier, livelier?
That's why modern interior designers integrate biophilic elements when designing social spaces like office break areas, cafes, hotels, or spas.
Adding just a bit of shrubbery to a drab setting can instantly improve the aesthetics of a room and make it a lot more affable. In addition, it can act as a creative booster, reduce stress, and brighten up mood.
Here are some great ideas to add warmth and calmness to the design of any social setting.
Creating Theme-Based Seating Arrangements
A lot of cafes use plants as a workable element in the overall design of the place. It can be harmonized to play along the theme as well as lay down the seating arrangements.
Like creating an intimate corner for couples, or a picturesque wall for social media enthusiasts, making them comfortable, and encouraging them to stay longer.
Plants can be used to create an alley to guide customers to the dining or lounge area.
More commonly, cafes often use potting plants like Ruffles, Dracaena Medusa, and Kentia Palm. They act as staggering table or countertop focal points. Moreover, their radiant color and waxy leaves add brightness and flair to any milieu.
Breathing Life into Lobbies with Greens
When it comes to hotel lobbies, choosing the right design is imperative. It's the first thing a customer sees when walking in.
With this understanding, designers often go with plants like Aglaonema or Ficus Benjamina. These plants can easily perk up the space and blend coherently with any surrounding.
For larger lobbies, like those in hotels or a mall, adding pine or palm trees can be a practical way of using the space. Use these plants as screens or dividers and lend a natural essence to the area.
The alternative path to take is the minimalist one.
A terrarium on the welcome desk can be a painless solution. They are fit for almost any kind of decor and are easy to maintain too.
Using Shrubbery as Wall Decor
Instead of having a bald wall behind reception desks, an interesting way to make it more engaging and whole is to include plants. Also, lush greens help create a better balance of oxygen and humidity in the air while getting rid of harmful toxins.
What's more, it can lead to a more creative and healthier workspace. So, aside from the reception, it can also be an incredible wall decor for conference or break rooms.
Plants like ferns and Philodendron are the best choices as they can grow almost everywhere and require very little care.
Using Hanging Plants and Vines to Add Dimension
Using hanging plants as interior decor in restaurants and offices is a trend that's already catching on. You can use hanging plants or vines to add a lovely color and dimension to an otherwise bland space.
Plants like Boston Fern, Bird's Nest Fern, or even English Ivy can be a brilliant biophilic addition to any boring room or patio. You can also combine different plants to give the illusion of a hanging garden.
Using Biophilic Design to Drive Social Interaction
The simple concept of the biophilic effect is that humans crave nature. Just as humans socialize, they also connect with nature. The holistic impact of incorporating biophilic designs in workplaces shows significantly increased social interactions and enhanced activity levels.
A sky lounge, floor-to-ceiling windows, and expansive trees make way for iconic designs that are hard to forget. However, simply mimicking natural patterns like honeycombs in closed spaces can also be an excellent aesthetic.
Plants like River Birch or Kousa Dogwood can be great additions to rooftops. These are fast-growing trees and are extremely adaptable in nature.
Rethinking Resort Landscapes with Foliage
It's almost obvious if you think about it. Resorts can give a designer the greatest freedom to explore designing social spaces with plants.
Creating a landscape with Lily-pad ponds, rose gardens, or pavilions can be a great source of attraction for customers worldwide.
Many of the high-end resorts use unique foliage to stand out. However, for the displays to have the perfect impact, it needs to blend with the resort's theme and add to the experience.
Using Plants in Atrium Design
Whether it's an office, a mall, or maybe just a hotel lobby, leaving an atrium high and dry can never bode well. It's a huge space that needs covering.
Usually, the best route to go down for such a structure is using live plants. For example, you could use both sun-loving and low to moderate light plants.
Plants like Peace Lily, Chinese Evergreen, English Ivy, Boston Ferns, or Golden Pathos can be great choices in low-light surroundings. Also, these gorgeous and resilient plants require very little care.
On the other hand, Weeping Fig, Chinese Fan Palm, and Croton are popular choices for atriums with open spaces and lots of sunlight.
Tidying and Decorating the Empty Corners
When designing social spaces, filling up empty walls or spaces between seats is easy enough. But, unfortunately, it's the corners that most people miss out on.
So, one good way of making the dusty corners more presentable is by padding them with plants. Plants like Snake Plants and Fiddle Leaf Fig plants are great choices to pack some fullness into these corners.
If space is not a restriction, you could also use some floating shelves to stack up some succulents and books for a complete look.
In simple terms, humans enjoy the company of plants. Plants provide us with the much-needed tranquil space to decompress, relax, and engage in work or social activities.
Including plants in space-conscious ways does not always have to be drastic. You can create your own hemmed illustration of nature even in a tiny little corner.
The tactics we’ve discussed in this guide are practical, dependable, and immediately actionable. So, don’t procrastinate. Plan, begin, call us for advice, and in a week, your space will be something else.
