Biophilic design strategies for habitability in space habitats: a within-subjects simulation study

As human activities expand into remote and confined environments, maintaining indoor environmental quality (IEQ) becomes critical for health, psychological comfort, and spatial usability. This study explores how biophilic design strategies enhance perceived habitability, operationalized through IEQ-related perceptions alongside stress-related and functional/spatial evaluations, in confined environments including space-analogue habitats and isolated architectural settings. A within-subjects experiment used immersive 3D simulations of four scenarios: baseline, low, medium, and high biophilic integration. Fifty participants evaluated each environment via a panoramic virtual reality display and completed questionnaires assessing comfort, stress, and functional perception. The Friedman test indicated significant differences across scenarios for all assessed outcomes (p < 0.05), while pairwise comparisons revealed different response patterns across perceived habitability dimensions. A Gradient Boosting Model explored the five biophilic design categories derived from Kellert′s framework. The analysis showed that biomimetic design was the most informative factor (39.42%), followed by spatial composition (28.41%). Visual light environment (14.34%) and information intention (11.59%) showed moderate model importance, whereas biology-based elements showed limited importance (6.24%). These findings provide strategies for supporting perceived habitability and IEQ-related experience in extreme or enclosed environments, with implications for intelligent building design, user-centered architectural planning, space habitats and sustainable indoor environments on Earth.