Rethinking School Dining Environments

From biophilic design to behavioural impact and operational reality.

Simple on the Surface

When we talk about biophilic design, the images that often come to mind are:

Natural materials

Greenery everywhere

Trees. Lots of trees.

And yes, that would be wonderful in our schools. But unfortunately, reality tends to arrive fairly quickly.

Because designing a school dining hall is not the same as designing a café, a restaurant, or even a classroom. These spaces must serve hundreds of students in a short space of time, often within tight budgets and buildings that were never designed with atmosphere in mind.

So before we start filling canteens with plants and timber, it’s worth asking a simple question:

How realistic is biophilic design in school dining halls?

Why the Environment Matters

I’d like to start with a brief explanation of what biophilic design actually is.

Biophilic design refers to designing spaces that acknowledge humans’ innate affinity with nature. The Terrapin Bright Green framework, particularly their report “14 Patterns of Biophilic Design”, provides a fantastic and in-depth look at the subject and is something I often refer back to.

At its core is the idea that:

“Biophilia is the theory that humans are innately connected to nature.”

And when you begin looking into the research, it quickly becomes clear that this connection can have very real effects on wellbeing and behaviour.

Now imagine the typical school morning.

A maths lesson. Then English. Perhaps science or geography. By midday students have already spent hours concentrating, listening, processing information and sitting still. And then the bell rings.

Hundreds of students merge into the dining hall. Chairs scraping, trays clattering, chatter in the queues, voices bouncing off hard walls and ceilings.

For many children, lunchtime becomes one of the most overstimulating moments of the entire school day. In fact, some studies suggest the school dining hall may be the noisiest room in the entire building. And then they are expected to return to class, sit still again, and continue learning.

There is now a growing body of research looking at how environments affect students. Terrapin Bright Green explored this further in their report “Impact of Biophilic Learning Spaces on Student Success”, which found that biophilic design in learning spaces can reduce student stress and improve learning outcomes. Studies have also linked school environments incorporating natural elements with improved cognitive performance and emotional wellbeing.

But this research builds on earlier work. Roger Ulrich’s well-known studies, for example, demonstrated that exposure to nature could reduce stress and support recovery.

When we start looking specifically at school dining environments, the findings become particularly interesting.

• A study by Graziose et al. (2019) found that higher noise levels in school cafeterias were associated with lower fruit and vegetable consumption.
• Research by Ecophon (2022) found that students sometimes skip lunch when canteens are excessively noisy, with noise also contributing to reduced appetite and shorter lunch periods.
• Meanwhile, (Horton and Forsberg, 2020) found that the school canteen environment can influence students’ feelings of safety and social experience.

Taken together, the research suggests that the dining environment matters far more than we might assume.

Increasingly, schools are recognising the number of neurodivergent students, including those with autism and ADHD, who may be particularly sensitive to busy and overstimulating environments. Dining halls can combine noise, movement, bright lighting and visual clutter all at once, which can be overwhelming for some pupils. Thoughtful design that reduces sensory overload can therefore benefit not only neurodivergent students, but everyone using the space.

With all this evidence, we might expect school dining halls to resemble gardens of Eden rather than feeding stations. But this is where the reality of school dining halls begins to collide with design theory.

The Reality of School Dining Halls

And this is where we return to reality.

Because if it were as simple as adding plants and natural materials, everyone would already be doing it.

School dining halls operate under a number of very real constraints.

Serving hundreds of meals quickly

Schools often need to serve hundreds of students in a short space of time. Even where lunch is staggered, the space must cope with constant high throughput. Large tables, efficient circulation and robust furniture become essential.

Supervision

Staff need clear sightlines across the space for supervision and behaviour management. Queue management and circulation routes must remain visible and predictable.

Durability

These spaces are used every day by hundreds of students. Furniture and finishes need to withstand heavy use.

Multi-use halls

In many schools the dining hall is also used for PE, assemblies or exams. Furniture needs to be stackable or movable, and installations must not interfere with alternative uses.

Budgets

Perhaps the biggest constraint of all. Because of these factors, many school dining halls are designed primarily for efficiency rather than atmosphere.

So where does biophilic design fit in, without completely rebuilding the hall?

What Biophilic Design Could Actually Look Like

Fortunately, biophilic design is broader than simply adding plants.

There are many smaller interventions that can introduce elements of nature into dining spaces without disrupting operations.

Materials

In an ideal world we might use extensive natural timber. In reality, cost and maintenance can make that difficult. However, modern laminates with convincing wood grain can still introduce natural textures.

Pattern and texture themselves can also have psychological effects and help soften otherwise institutional spaces.

Colour palettes

School counters often appear in bright primary colours. It’s worth asking whether highly stimulating colour schemes are always the best approach in environments that are already loud, busy and full of movement.

There is increasing discussion around this. Research into autism-friendly environments suggests that colour and lighting can significantly influence mood, behaviour and cognitive response, with softer, muted tones often creating a more calming and supportive environment, while bright, highly saturated colours can contribute to sensory overstimulation for some individuals (Nair et al., 2022)

Natural tones and more considered colour palettes could therefore still incorporate colour while helping to reduce sensory load within the space.

Acoustics

Reducing noise can have a significant impact.

Even small changes can help. Simple additions like chair glides to stop scraping, acoustic wall panels, or suspended acoustic features can reduce sound levels dramatically. Many manufacturers now offer these in a wide variety of colours and forms.

Light

Daylight is one of the most effective natural design elements. Where possible, maximising natural light helps connect the interior environment to natural rhythms.

Even simple strategies like diffused or dappled lighting can evoke natural conditions.

Visual connection to outside

Biophilic design doesn’t need to happen entirely indoors.

Even something as simple as placing planting outside dining hall windows can change how the space feels inside, creating a visual connection with nature without disrupting the layout of the room.

Form

Not everything needs to be square or straight.

Even elements such as acoustic panels can incorporate organic forms inspired by nature.

The Food Connection

One area I find particularly interesting is how we might connect nature to food within the dining environment itself. This is where things start to become exciting. (I’ll admit it. In this section my rose-tinted glasses are firmly on).

Biophilic design could become more than decoration. It could support education and engagement with food.

For example:

Herb walls
Students could help care for herbs used by the kitchen.

Edible planting
These could even be linked with food technology classes.

Student art
Artwork exploring food, farming and nature could be displayed in the dining hall.

Seasonal displays
Even simple seasonal displays can help students connect food with the natural cycles of the year.

In many school canteens every square metre of space is used, so opportunities may be limited. But even small interventions can start to bring food and nature into the dining environment. Encouragingly, some schools are already beginning to explore this, and it’s something we’re seeing more of.

A Different Approach to School Dining

Interestingly, some schools take a completely different approach to dining altogether.

In countries such as Japan, students often eat lunch in their classrooms rather than in a central dining hall. Meals are brought to the classroom, where students serve one another and eat together with their teacher. This creates a very different dining environment. The experience is calmer, more structured and more social, with food becoming part of the learning experience rather than a break from it.

In fact, it goes further than this. It introduces children to the principles of hospitality from a young age. Serving and being served, eating together, understanding food, and engaging with routine and ritual. In this context, lunch becomes becomes something with meaning.

There is plenty written about Japanese school lunches, and it’s a topic worthy of an entirely separate piece. But for now Two Weeks of Japanese School Lunches offers a brilliant and entertaining insight into how it works in practice.

It raises an interesting question. If the challenges of noise, crowding and overstimulation are inherent to large dining halls, is it the service model itself that needs rethinking rather than simply how it is designed?

Closing Thoughts

In an ideal world, the structure of school dining might look very different. Students would enter the dining space in smaller groups. They would have time to choose food thoughtfully, sit in calmer environments, and perhaps even reflect on where their meal has come from before returning to class. Environmental psychologists sometimes refer to this as “attention restoration”. This is the idea that exposure to natural environments can help the brain recover from sustained concentration. But schools operate within very real constraints: time, space, budgets and the practical challenge of feeding hundreds of students every day.

Biophilic design will not turn every dining hall into a forest with comfort areas for peace and relaxation… but it doesn’t have to. Even small changes – materials, acoustics, lighting, visual connections to nature – can help create environments that feel calmer and more supportive for students. And perhaps the real opportunity lies in improving the dining experience without breaking the system or the budget.

Written by Giorgia Lardner

 

References:

Graziose, M.M., Koch, P.A., Wolf, R., Gray, H.L., Trent, R. & Contento, I.R. (2019). Cafeteria noise exposure and fruit and vegetable consumption at school lunch: A cross-sectional study of elementary students. Appetite, 136, pp.130–136. DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2019.01.026.

Determan, J., Akers, M.A., Albright, T., Browning, B., Martin-Dunlop, C., Archibald, P. and Caruolo, V. (2019) The impact of biophilic learning spaces on student success. Terrapin Bright Green. Available at: https://www.brikbase.org/sites/default/files/The%20Impact%20of%20Biophilic%20Learning%20Spaces%20on%20Student%20Success.pdf (Accessed: 21 March 2026)

Browning, W.D., Ryan, C.O. and Clancy, J.O. (2014) 14 patterns of biophilic design: Improving health and well-being in the built environment. New York: Terrapin Bright Green. Available at: https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/reports/14-patterns/ (Accessed: 21 March 2026)

Ecophon (2022) Students skip lunch when canteens are noisy, new study finds. Available at: https://www.ecophon.com/en/about-ecophon/newsroom/students-skip-lunch-when-canteens-are-noisy-new-study-finds/ (Accessed: 21 March 2026).

Horton, P. and Forsberg, C. (2020) Safe spaces? A social-ecological perspective on student perceptions of safety in the environment of the school canteen. Educational Research, 62(2), pp. 1–16. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338673548 (Accessed: 21 March 2026)

The Japan Guy (n.d.) Ten days of Japanese school lunch. Available at: https://www.thejapanguy.com/ten-days-japanese-school-lunch/ (Accessed: 21 March 2026)