Oliver Heath
Most workplaces are still designed around square footage and cost per desk, not the physiological reality of the people inside them. Leaders see the wellbeing numbers, the absence rates, the engagement scores, and have no design language to act on them. The gap between an HR wellbeing strategy and the actual building it is delivered in is where productivity, retention and culture quietly leak.
Oliver Heath is an architect and biophilic-design specialist who helps organisations redesign offices and buildings around measurable human wellbeing, productivity and sustainability outcomes.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Oliver Heath
- He authored the Human Spaces report with Interface, the first global study quantifying the impact of biophilic design on workplace wellbeing and productivity, and brings that evidence base directly into the room.
- His design practice has delivered biophilic workplace projects for Apple, Bloomberg, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank and Knight Frank Investment Management, so the talk is grounded in live commercial fit-outs, not theory.
- He works at the intersection of design and research through projects like the BRE Biophilic Office, giving leaders post-occupancy data on what design changes actually shift staff behaviour and outcomes.
- He translates complex environmental psychology into specific actions a property, HR or facilities team can brief their architects on the next morning.
Biography highlights
- Founder and Director of Oliver Heath Design, an architecture and interior design practice focused on health, wellbeing and biophilic design in the built environment.
- Trained at Oxford Brookes and The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL (Postgraduate Architectural Studies, with distinction).
- Winner of the BBC Young Designer of the Year, 1998.
- Author of “Design a Healthy Home” (Dorling Kindersley, 2021) and “Urban Eco Chic” (Quadrille).
- Lead author and presenter of the Human Spaces global report on biophilic design in the workplace, in partnership with Interface.
- Television credits include BBC’s Changing Rooms, DIY SOS and Home Front, and a TEDxUCL talk titled “Biophilic Design: Supporting People and Planet”.
Biography
The argument for designing offices around human wellbeing used to sit on the soft side of a property brief. The Human Spaces report, written with Interface and based on data from sixteen countries, quantified what designers had been claiming for years: workplaces that bring in natural light, planting and views report measurable lifts in employee wellbeing and productivity. Oliver Heath was the lead voice behind that study.
His Brighton-based practice, Oliver Heath Design, has applied the same principles to live workplace projects for Apple, Bloomberg, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank and Knight Frank Investment Management. The work pairs design with measurement; the Knight Frank project, for example, was followed by a post-occupancy staff survey to evidence the shift in how the space supported its people.
He also sits on the research side. Oliver Heath Design has worked with the BRE on the Biophilic Office project, a long-running study of what specific design interventions do to occupant behaviour over time. That combination of practising studio and research collaborator is what allows him to brief a board on biophilic design without slipping into either jargon or hype.
His training is architectural: Oxford Brookes, then a postgraduate at The Bartlett, UCL, with distinction. He won BBC Young Designer of the Year in 1998 and has remained a public-facing voice on sustainable and healthy interiors since, through his books “Design a Healthy Home” and “Urban Eco Chic”, a TEDxUCL talk on biophilic design, and television work for the BBC.
Key speaking topics
- Biophilic design in the workplace
- Healthy buildings and occupant wellbeing
- Sustainable and regenerative interior design
- Workplace productivity and design strategy
- Post-occupancy evaluation and design evidence
- ESG and the built environment
- Healthy homes and residential wellbeing
Ideal for
- Heads of corporate real estate, workplace and facilities planning a major office redesign or relocation
- CHROs and people leaders linking wellbeing, engagement and physical environment
- Sustainability and ESG leads embedding human-centred design into net zero programmes
- Architects, interior designers and developers commissioning research-led briefs
Audience outcomes
- A clear definition of biophilic design and the specific patterns that have measurable wellbeing and productivity effects
- Quantified evidence from the Human Spaces report and BRE Biophilic Office on what design changes shift outcomes
- Named workplace examples, from Apple to Knight Frank, showing how biophilic design is actually delivered at scale
- A practical brief that property, HR and sustainability teams can take back to their architects and project managers
- A sharper view of how building design connects to wellbeing strategy, ESG reporting and talent retention
Talks
The TEDxUCL talk that frames biophilic design as both a wellbeing intervention and a route to deeper environmental engagement.
Key takeaways:
- Why human attraction to nature is a design variable, not a decorative one
- The patterns of biophilic design that translate into healthier homes and workplaces
- How designing for nature connection reinforces care for the wider environment
A workplace-focused talk built on the Human Spaces research with Interface, on how to design offices that measurably improve wellbeing, productivity and creativity.
Key takeaways:
- The headline findings of the Human Spaces global workplace study
- The design moves that produce the largest measurable shifts in staff outcomes
- How to brief, deliver and post-evaluate a biophilic workplace project