Green Design in Living and Bedroom Spaces

Green Design in Living and Bedroom Spaces: Exploring Environmental Restorativeness and Affective Qualities of Spaces

Published in Frontiers in Psychology, October 2025 | University of Padua, Italy

This peer-reviewed empirical study investigates how the introduction of indoor greenery into domestic spaces — specifically living rooms and bedrooms — affects perceived restorativeness and emotional quality of those spaces. Uniquely, it compares traditional potted plants against an innovative approach of plants integrated directly into furniture, filling an important gap in biophilic design research focused almost exclusively on workplaces and healthcare environments.

Key Findings

• Across 304 participants, rooms with any form of greenery were consistently perceived as more restorative and associated with more positive emotional qualities compared to plant-free rooms.
• Plants integrated directly into furniture made spaces feel more fascinating and less monotonous than potted plants, but also slightly more chaotic and less coherent — suggesting integrated greenery excels at aesthetic engagement while potted plants score better on calm and coherence.
• Individual differences matter: people with higher openness to experience and a stronger connection to nature tended to perceive all environments as less chaotic, regardless of greenery condition.
• The study is the first to experimentally compare furniture-integrated greenery against potted plants in residential settings, providing evidence for an emerging design approach that simplifies plant maintenance while maximizing visual impact.

Future Directions

• Extend research to additional room types (kitchens, home offices) and test with participants actually living in biophilically designed spaces rather than evaluating images.
• Investigate long-term psychological effects of living with integrated versus potted greenery.
• Explore how cultural and demographic variables moderate responses to domestic biophilic design.

Key takeaway: Bringing plants into the home enhances how restorative and emotionally positive our living spaces feel — and this research shows that even innovative integrated greenery solutions work, giving designers and plantscapers a strong evidence base for residential biophilic projects.