Integrating Sustainable Building Materials and Biophilic Strategies for Mental Health-Supportive Educational Architecture in Lagos State, Nigeria

Educational buildings in Nigeria are seldom designed with student mental health as an explicit parameter, despite known links between indoor conditions, exposure to nature, and student wellbeing. This study examines how sustainable building materials and biophilic design can be integrated into educational architecture in Lagos State to support student mental health while reducing embodied carbon. A desk-based narrative synthesis of peer-reviewed literature, institutional case studies, and built-environment reports, published largely between 2018 and 2026, was conducted. Passive design and low-carbon materials are shown to reduce energy use by up to 50 percent relative to conventional cement-based construction, while biophilic interventions are consistently associated with reduced psychological distress and improved cognitive performance, including a 54 percent reduction in distress recorded on a Lagos university campus. Indoor Environmental Quality, covering thermal comfort, air quality, and daylight access, emerges as the variable mediating much of this relationship. Adoption in Lagos State’s educational buildings nonetheless remains fragmented, constrained by high material costs, weak regulatory enforcement, and limited professional awareness. The study recommends treating Indoor Environmental Quality as a deliberate design parameter, weighting procurement toward low-carbon materials, and embedding biophilic design within architecture curricula.