A landmark collaboration between The Forest Bathing Institute (TFBI) and Petrow Harley Landscape Architects asks an important question: how can meaningful contact with nature become part of everyday life, rather than something reserved for occasional visits to distant woodland?
- From Forest Bathing to Forest Pockets: A Joint Position Paper, The Forest Bathing Institute and Petrow Harley Landscape Architects, 2026.
- From Forest Bathing to Forest Pockets: Press release
Their 2026 joint position paper, From Forest Bathing to Forest Pockets, brings together two complementary perspectives. TFBI contributes experience in forest bathing, research, education and wellbeing. Petrow Harley contributes expertise in shaping places that can welcome, support and sustain those experiences.
Together, the organisations propose a practical bridge between the felt experience of nature and the physical conditions that make it possible.
“Forest bathing starts with a simple proposition: when people are given time, permission and a thoughtful invitation, nature can become a meaningful part of how they feel, think and recover. Forest pockets take that proposition into the places where daily life already happens.”
This is more than a discussion about planting or small urban parks. It is a position on how we design places for attention, recovery, biodiversity and care.
Forest Bathing Experience
Why nature connection matters
We have never been more digitally connected, yet many people are increasingly disconnected from the natural world. Urban living, time pressure, limited mobility, transport barriers and financial constraints can all make regular access to woodland difficult.
Forest bathing offers one response.
Originating in Japan as shinrin-yoku, forest bathing means spending unhurried, mindful time in nature and engaging with the forest through the senses. It is not primarily about distance, destination or exertion. It is about slowing down and allowing the forest to become the focus of attention.
During a forest bathing experience, participants may be invited to notice:
- The movement and colour of leaves
- Changes in light and temperature
- Birdsong and other subtle sounds
- The texture of bark, moss or soil
- The scent of plants and the wider forest atmosphere
- Feelings of ease, curiosity or quiet connection
Forest bathing does not require specialist expertise. It begins with noticing.
This distinguishes it from activities that use nature as a backdrop for another purpose, such as running, cycling or simply travelling through a park. Those activities can be beneficial, but forest bathing offers a different invitation: to pause, engage the senses and notice the inherent qualities of the living world.
Research from Japan and elsewhere has linked time in nature with reduced stress, improved mood, relaxation and beneficial changes in measures such as heart rate and blood pressure. Forest environments may influence the autonomic nervous system, cognitive function, immune activity and psychological wellbeing.
For TFBI, however, the value of forest bathing extends beyond individual health outcomes. In a period of biodiversity loss, climate change and habitat degradation, people need opportunities to develop a relationship with the natural world. Technology and policy are essential, but long-term environmental action also depends on people caring about what is living around them.
From forests to forest pockets
Not everyone can reach a forest. Meaningful nature connection therefore needs to be supported in more of the places where people already spend time: hospitals, workplaces, housing developments, schools, neighbourhoods and civic routes.
This is where the concept of the forest pocket becomes significant.
A forest pocket is not a miniature forest. It is a compact, carefully considered place that makes nature more present in everyday life. It might sit beside a workplace, within a neighbourhood, at the edge of a learning environment or along a route through a town.
Its purpose is not to reproduce woodland in miniature. Instead, it creates the conditions for a different kind of encounter:
- A moment of arrival
- A shift in pace
- A glimpse of seasonal change
- A place where the senses can settle
- An opportunity for attention to widen
- A reason to return and notice something new
The central design question is not simply, “How much planting can fit into this space?” It is:
What would help someone feel more able to notice, value and care for the living world around them?
What good forest pocket design holds
The paper identifies several qualities that can help a forest pocket become more than an attractive landscape feature.
1. A threshold
A forest pocket should offer a clear transition into a slower, more attentive mode. This does not need to be dramatic. A change in surface, planting density, soundscape or enclosure may be enough to help the body register that something is different.
2. Layered experience
A rich landscape gives people more than one visual plane to explore. There may be something to notice close at hand, something at eye level and something beyond: leaves and textures, shrubs and stems, canopy and sky.
This layering supports both sensory interest and ecological function.
3. Legibility without prescription
People should understand how to enter and use the space without being told exactly what to feel or do. A forest pocket can offer confidence and choice while leaving room for personal interpretation.
Some visitors may sit quietly. Others may walk slowly, observe seasonal change or simply pass through with greater awareness.
4. Seasonal change
A successful forest pocket should not look finished at the point of completion. Its character should evolve through the year and across time.
As the paper puts it:
“If the space looks complete on day one but has nothing new to reveal in season three, it has been designed as an object rather than as a relationship.”
5. Stewardship
Care must be part of the design from the beginning. This includes maintenance, ecological management, community involvement and the practical resources required to help the landscape mature.
A living landscape cannot be treated as a static installation. It needs room to adapt, rebalance and develop.
A shared sequence: from arrival to return
The joint position paper describes a sequence that can help guide both design and experience.
| Stage | What the space should support |
|---|---|
| Arrival | Help the body register a change of pace and move away from the urgency of the surrounding environment. |
| Orientation | Provide enough information for confidence and choice without over-directing the experience. |
| Invitation | Open the senses and encourage curiosity without requiring a particular outcome. |
| Linger | Make stillness feel supported rather than exposed, with places and conditions that welcome people to stay. |
| Return | Leave people with a sense of continuity and a reason to notice the landscape again. |
This sequence is relevant to designers, clients, communities, guides, maintenance teams and users. It also shows why a forest pocket cannot be judged solely by its appearance in a photograph.
Measuring what matters
Traditional landscape metrics remain useful. Footprint, planting numbers, accessibility, maintenance requirements and visual impact all have a place in responsible design.
But the paper argues that they are not enough.
We should also ask:
- Can people find the space?
- Do they feel welcome when they arrive?
- Can they stay without feeling uncomfortable or out of place?
- What do they notice?
- Do they return?
- Is the landscape becoming more ecologically capable over time?
- Are people developing a stronger sense of connection and care?
These questions extend the meaning of success from physical completion to lived relationship.
This is an important area of thought leadership for TFBI. The Institute’s work is not limited to delivering forest bathing sessions or training guides. Its wider role is to support evidence-informed approaches to health and wellbeing while helping society understand the conditions that make nature connection possible.
From individual sites to connected systems
One forest pocket can change the feel of a place. A network of forest pockets can change what a community expects from its public realm, workplaces, learning environments and daily routes.
The paper sets out a practical pathway towards this wider ambition:
Start with listening
Understand the needs, histories, barriers and aspirations of the people who use the place.Define the invitation
Be clear about what kind of encounter the space should support, while allowing people freedom in how they respond.Design for change
Select planting, structures and management approaches that can mature and become more ecologically valuable.Learn in public
Share what is working, what is not and what the landscape is teaching. Use feedback to improve the place rather than defend a finished scheme.Connect the dots
Treat each forest pocket as part of a wider network of habitat, movement, health, learning and belonging.
Five commitments for the work ahead
The collaboration identifies five commitments:
- Make access to meaningful nature more ordinary, not more exclusive.
- Treat sensory experience and ecological function as mutually reinforcing.
- Design with humility, giving landscapes room to breathe, adapt and rebalance.
- Build stewardship into the brief, the budget and everyday life of the site.
- Measure success through relationship: what people notice, how they care and what the landscape can continue to give.
These commitments offer a grounded way forward. They do not suggest that a small planted space can replace a mature woodland or solve the environmental challenges facing society. Instead, they recognise that modest interventions can help establish new habits, expectations and relationships.
A shared horizon
Forest bathing and landscape architecture begin from different starting points, but they are drawn towards the same horizon. Both ask us to pay attention to the conditions that allow all life to flourish.
Both understand that a place is more than its appearance. Both recognise that care is not an afterthought but a design material.
Forest pockets can be small enough to start now, yet foundational enough to contribute to something larger: healthier everyday environments, richer urban biodiversity and a culture in which nature connection is part of ordinary life.
This is the opportunity presented by the TFBI and Petrow Harley collaboration. It extends forest bathing from the woodland path into the places where people live, work, learn, recover and meet.
The next question is simple:
“What is the smallest space we can transform, and what could it become when we bring it to life?”
Read the full joint position paper
To explore the ideas, commitments and practical implications in full, read:
Read the full paper: From Forest Bathing to Forest Pockets
The paper is authored by Gary Evans, Director of The Forest Bathing Institute and Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University’s Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences; Robert Petrow, Director of Petrow Harley Landscape Architects; and Galit Rolbin, Senior Landscape Architect at Petrow Harley Landscape Architects.
To learn more about TFBI’s work in forest bathing, research and education, visit The Forest Bathing Institute, explore what we do, or contact the team to discuss how nature connection could be supported in your organisation or landscape.
References and further reading
- From Forest Bathing to Forest Pockets: A Joint Position Paper, The Forest Bathing Institute and Petrow Harley Landscape Architects, 2026.
- From Forest Bathing to Forest Pockets: Press release
- The Forest Bathing Institute: Scientific Research
- The Forest Bathing Institute: What We Do
- The Forest Bathing Institute