The Stanley family insider their biophilic designed home (Image Credit: Jenelle Stanley / Telus StoryHive)

By Liam Verster

Biophilic Design

Local filmmaker exploring impacts of certain interior design models

Jun 24, 2026 | 3:56 PM

A local interior designer is putting her passion of developing spaces that benefit people’s quality of life onto the screen.

Jenelle Stanley, who lives in Armstrong, has been granted $10,000 from the Telus StoryHive program to make a six-part docu-series called Design for Healing, exploring the concept and benefits of biophilic design.

“For most of human history, reading our environment was survival: light told us the time of day and openness, shelter told us if we could rest or stay alert, and material told us what was safe,” Stanley told Vernon Matters.

“Biophilic design is environmental psychology applied to space, so designing to conditions that our biology still responds to. It’s bringing that psychology into our built environment.”

The designer and filmmaker went on to say the design model could incorporate features such as windows and skylights to let in natural light, having living plants in those spaces, proper air flow, natural and textured materials to touch, and enough space to allow people to feel comfortable.

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The filmmaker says indoor spaces where people live and work shape their nervous systems, stress levels and sense of safety.

“As humans evolved, we now spend 87 per cent of our lives indoors, and our evolution hasn’t quite caught up yet,” Stanley explained.

“This [series] is exploring how the buildings we live in in 80 per cent of our life are affecting our overall well-being.”

She noted studies have found there to be benefits to people’s physiological, emotional and psychological wellbeing when they live, work and visit spaces that have been built with this design model in mind. Other studies have shown workplaces that incorporate the biophilic design see worker’s productivity increase.

The filmmaker added she wanted the series to change how people think about design and find ways to incorporate these elements to best meet the need of those who live, work and visit the buildings.

Stanley studied biophilic deign and environmental psychology in university, and then took that approach to her work where she helped with the design of the Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver. Later in life she needed to access the services at the facility for her young child, and experienced the concept first hand.

She took that concept in designing her own home in the North Okanagan, and will be putting it into action again as she will be part of the design team for a new Ronald McDonald House for long-term occupants near the B.C. Children’s Hospital . These and other spaces she has worked on or found to have incorporated the design work will be showcased in the series.

Stanley said other builders and designers were already incorporating this model into their projects, and expected it would become more of a trend in the coming years.

Filming of Design for Healing was expected to begin in August, and the funding from Telus would mainly go towards travelling to and shooting at the locations that have incorporated the biophilic design into their spaces.

The first episode will air through the Telus Optic service in the mid- to late-fall.

by Liam Verster

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