When a City Decides to Breathe:

Biophilic Design and the Singapore Story

What if the buildings around you were designed to make you feel calm, focused, and alive not just housed?

That's the question at the heart of biophilic design, and it's one that Nicla Diceglie explores with quiet passion. In our latest episode of Melting Pot, this Italian interior designer and founder of Studio Nicla (https://www.studionicla.com/about) takes us into a world where colour, natural materials, light, and living greenery aren't decorative after thoughts they're the architecture of wellbeing. Nicla believes that the spaces we inhabit shape how we feel every single day, often in ways we don't even notice. And one city, more than almost any other on Earth, has decided to take that idea seriously at scale.

A City That Chose Green

When Singapore gained independence in 1965, its founding vision was strikingly clear: Garden City. Not a city with a park. Not a city near nature. A city that was, itself, a garden. In the decades since, that philosophy has evolved into something even bolder City in a Garden and the results are visible at every turn.

What makes Singapore remarkable is not one iconic building or one famous park. It's the commitment woven into policy, architecture, and everyday infrastructure. Since 2008, Singapore has made green building standards mandatory, with a target of having 80% of all buildings certified as sustainable under its Green Mark scheme by 2030. Greenery isn't a luxury here it's a requirement.

Singapore

Nature at Every Level

The landmark examples are breathtaking. Jewel Changi Airport one of the world's most celebrated travel hubs opens its doors to a soaring indoor waterfall, tropical gardens, and over 50 living walls, wrapping nature around millions of travellers each year. Gardens by the Bay brings 101 hectares of sculpted landscape to the waterfront, anchored by the now-iconic Super trees: 16-storey vertical gardens that double as engineering marvels. And hotels like Park Royal on Pickering don't just add a rooftop garden they cascade greenery across every terrace, blurring the line between building and forest entirely.

But it doesn't stop at the landmark projects. Singapore's network of park connectors lets people walk, cycle, and jog between green spaces across the island. Rainwater is harvested to nourish the city's plants. Even tree trimmings are used to power biomass plants. The whole city, at its best, functions like a living ecosystem.

What Nicla Teaches Us About Our Own Spaces

Listening to Nicla on Melting Pot, you begin to see all of this with fresh eyes. She talks about how colour and natural materials can reduce stress and improve focus not as a design theory, but as something she witnesses in her clients' lives. She talks about moving beyond "safe" interiors toward spaces that genuinely reflect who we are and how we want to feel.

Singapore has done this at a city level. It has asked the same question Nicla asks of every room she designs: what does this space need to support the people inside it? The answer, in both cases, is more nature, more light, more connection to the living world around us.

The conversation with Nicla reminded me that biophilic design isn't a trend for the wealthy or the architecturally adventurous. It's a return to something ancient our deep, instinctive need to be near growing things. Singapore understood this early. The rest of the world is catching up.

Whether you're redesigning a corner of your home or simply thinking about why certain spaces make you feel more like yourself, this episode is a gentle, inspiring place to start.

Listen to the full episode with Nicla Diceglie on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Payal Nayar with Nicla Diceglie, founder of Studio Nicla