Biophilic Urbanism- A Living Infrastructure solution for SEQ

SEQ at a Turning Point

A region growing faster than its environment can cope.

South East Queensland is one of Australia’s fastest-growing regions, home to 3.3 million people, and projected to reach 6 million by 2046, requiring 900,000 additional dwellings within the existing Urban Footprint. This scale of growth is unfolding alongside intensifying climate risks—including heat extremes, flooding, sea-level rise, and ecological decline—which collectively threaten the region’s liveability, public health, and infrastructure performance. These pressures demand a fundamental re-think of how cities and regional areas grow, adapt, and build resilience. Biophilic Urbanism is positioned here as a transformative planning response that treats nature as essential infrastructure, restoring ecological balance, enhancing adaptive capacity, and reducing climate vulnerability. By embedding climate-resilient growth principles into regional planning decisions, biophilic approaches enable compact, transit-served, and nature-integrated infill that cools places, lowers energy demand, and reduces hazard exposure. They also address systemic risks identified in the National Climate Risk Assessment by strengthening water security, health and wellbeing outcomes, infrastructure reliability, and the protection of cultural heritage. Importantly, this model shifts SEQ from reactive disaster recovery to proactive resilience through integrated planning, systems thinking, and aligned investment—connecting climate, social, and ecological wellbeing to shape a more resilient, liveable, and inclusive future for the region.