9 Biophilic Homes That Blend the Outdoors and Indoors

There's a word designers keep reaching for lately: biophilic. It sounds technical, but the idea behind it isn’t too different from sitting on a porch at dusk: We're wired to feel better when nature is close, so let’s bring the outdoors closer.

The best indoor-outdoor homes take that instinct and build it right into the architecture, with walls of glass that frame a mountainside; panels that swing open so a living room spills into the fresh air, or courtyard; and screened porches that make inside and outside feel like the same space.

We’ve found 9 very different takes on this idea — from a New Orleans modernist landmark with literal moving walls, to an Earth-sheltered retreat tucked into an Ozark hillside. Some are glassy and dramatic, while others draw you outward with porches and river views. All of them treat the surrounding landscape as the main event.

The house with moving walls

In this New Orleans 1960 modernist home, the boundary between the outdoors and indoors is something you can adjust whenever you want. This property is known as "the house with moving walls” because it has 12-foot teak panels that swing open to merge the living room and the glass-walled family room — all the better to get a view of the trees and sky at a moment’s notice. The home’s soaring ceilings, skylights, and banks of windows pull daylight deep inside the interior spaces, too. 

The cabin suspended over the river

This Tennessee cabin is nestled along a river in the Great Smoky Mountains. Its upper porch is cantilevered so close to the water that you can hear it rushing beneath your feet, giving you a front-row seat to the  current. Expansive decks, a firepit gathering space, a private river beach, and an outdoor shower carry daily life outdoors and down to the water's edge. 

The Hobbit house in the gorge

This Earth-sheltered Hobbit house trades glass for storybook vibes. A circular front door, stone masonry, and custom woodwork make this two-bedroom home feel like it sprouted out of the hillside, not built on top of it. The hand-built round door opens to a cozy living area with a real stone fireplace and a raised ceiling that keeps the space feeling airy instead of cramped, which reinforces the biophilic point that "burrowed into the Earth" can still be warm and filled with light.

The off-grid Earthship with a jungle inside

This house takes a different approach to “biophilic.” Just outside Taos, New Mexico, sits a community dedicated to Earthship homes — self-sustaining, off-grid houses focused on being environmentally-friendly and connected to nature. This house in particular holds an interior greenhouse that runs the entire front of the home. In the listing, you can see banana trees, citrus, and cooking and healing herbs grown inside. Built from Earth and stone with mud-plastered walls, passive cooling, solar power, and rainwater catchment, this home runs on nature.

The creekside cabin

A home doesn’t need to have shifting walls or movable glass to be biophilic. Above the year-round waters of Crooked Creek in Arkansas sits a multi-level home that has lots of nature-inspired features. It includes an airy atrium with skylights, expansive windows that frame the scenery from every angle, and a limestone bluff trail that leads from the patio right down to the creek.

The Wisteria-draped retreat

This subterranean home makes its best case for indoor-outdoor living when you step outside: a patio shaded by a canopy of wisteria, its vines tumbling over the pergola and framing sweeping mountain views. It's a pretty unique ceiling to have over your head when you’re watching the sunset over the horizon. The house itself is built into the Earth for more even temperatures, and it comes with a pond and mature fruit trees. A walk around this property means a home-grown snack awaits.

The Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired hideaway

Inspired by the style of famous mid-century modern architect Frank Lloyd Wright, this Missouri home welcomes nature inside and out. Wright was big on using organic architecture, which is the idea that a house should be in harmony with its landscape rather than dominate it. Tucked into the woods, this octagonal home lets you see the towering timber trees all around as you enjoy some coffee outside. And if you’d rather connect with nature inside the home, you can visit the dome-lighted atrium at the center of the structure.

The home in the sky

On 33.5 private acres of Ozark landscape in Missouri, this custom-built treehouse lets you live up in the branches. Rich wood finishes and expansive windows frame sweeping views of the Ozark hills, while the floors — reclaimed from the property's original 1970s barn — root the elevated design in the land's own history. A big covered pavilion extends the living space back outdoors, so being one with nature comes easy.

The glass-and-steel house

High on 30 private acres in Park City, Utah, this home as a whole is made of three separate structures linked by bridges, with sweeping, curved glass walls that dissolve the line between architecture and the surrounding Quarry Mountain landscape. In some of the structures, the glass walls can open to extend the living room or dining room to the outside, so you can keep the conversation going indoors or out. 

Bringing the outside in, wherever you land

Whether a biophilic home to you means teak walls that slide away over Lake Pontchartrain, a bridge-linked glass pavilion in the mountains, or simply a deep porch facing the trees, the goal of such a home is the same: to live a little closer to nature every day.

If one of these homes (or something in the same spirit closer to home) has you daydreaming and you’re ready for next steps, consider getting pre-qualified with Zillow Home Loans. In just a few minutes, you can learn what you may be eligible for.  Then, lean on BuyAbility℠ to keep your home search within budget. You can also save your favorite listings on Zillow, so you're ready the moment the right home appears. You can start browsing whenever — but nature's waiting.