Intentional design through neuroarchitecture promotes greater wellbeing and mood.
Think of wellness home design, and you might imagine in-home saunas, cold plunges, and high-end infrared mats recommended by Goop. While these larger investments are certainly luxurious, the best designs for whole living begin at a more elemental level— good bones.
Recent studies have begun to examine the scientific underpinnings for human design preferences. The emerging field of neuroarchitecture seeks to understand the impact that built environments have on our wellbeing, mood, psychology, and brain function. A 2022 study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, for example, found that “protrusion, curvature, scale, and proportion of space influence the user’s emotional state.”
“Science is showing us how impactful the built environment is on our wellness and who we are as people.”
—David Krebs, president of AoDK
“We believe in the power of architecture to change lives,” says David Krebs, president of AoDK and partner at Modern Smart Homes. “Science is showing us how impactful the built environment is on our wellness and who we are as people.”
For years, Krebs was deeply motivated to understand from a more objective point of view why people are drawn to certain spaces and structures. From Feng Shui to hygge, people the world across have long felt called to particular design principles and aesthetics. But why do certain rooms just “feel” good or “flow” well?
Through his work at Modern Smart Homes, Krebs follows principles from neuroarchitecture to help people create better and more thoughtful living spaces.
“If walking on the beach fills your tank, not only do you feel good,” Krebs says, “scientists are starting to find your body functions are changing in those environments. It’s exciting when we can design out of those principles.”
Guided by the concepts of neuroarchitecture—environmental psychology, neuroaesthetics, and biophilia— Krebs seeks to help clients live better lives through more intentional design.
Whether you’re breaking ground or looking to breathe new life inside your home, designing from a space of wellness can beget transformative living—from your living room.
Ground Down- Intelligent Blueprints
In Rebecca Lee’s novel, The City is a Rising Tide, a couple purchases an empty plot of land and sets up an impromptu campsite, drawing up plans for their home based on how their days unfold in the open land.
While the novel’s vision of the couple may be particularly involved, a thoughtful design begins by foregrounding people’s different—and preferred—place types.
An open dining room and living room may be well suited to families who love entertaining guests, and the space will better facilitate their ideal lifestyle. For others, an intimate dinner party followed by a quiet retreat in the den may spell out a better time. Emphasizing those nooks and cozy retreats goes far.
“People have different place types as a starting point,” Krebs says. “First off, we have to understand who they are and what their place types are. It becomes very personal; you know about your patterns, how you want to set your day up, and what things give you energy.”
Creative thinkers like James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and choreographer Twyla Tharp have emphasized the value of this kind of lifestyle architecture. At the most basic level, building a space that facilitates points of connection, creativity, and recharging can integrate a homeowner’s ideal lifestyle into the very architecture of the home.
Look Outward- Flaunt the Site
Though it may sound a bit woo woo, a core part of a dynamic wellness build begins at the cosmos. Drawing upon the land, the light, the elevation, and other natural attributes can maximize a location’s benefits.
“Every site has assets, whether you’re on a small lot in the middle of a dense area or in the woods,” Krebs says. “You need to learn how to magnify them.”
Most obviously, this begins with attention to the sun: Siting a home based upon the sunrise and sunset in both summer and winter can provide opportunities to maximize and direct precious daylight.
Will that soft winter morning light be more rejuvenating in the empty office or the primary bedroom as your day begins?
Beyond the basic principles of lighting, though, conscientious siting will also consider any long views down a street or across a river. Prospect views over a skyline or forest can be suggestive of opportunity, Krebs says—what could be out there? What could the land hold? Bringing panoramic views into a space of refuge can entwine feelings of safety and opportunity, inspiring our better ideas while keeping us grounded.
Make Like a Sauna- Cycle Through
The pandemic had people working, eating, Zooming with colleagues, and solving jigsaw puzzles with their kids at the same dining room table all day. The lesson? The way people structure their routine within their home matters.
Just as sauna culture touts the circulatory, cardiovascular, and nervous system benefits of cycling from heat to cold, intentionally structuring movement through the home can improve happiness and wellbeing, too. Emphasizing transition zones can signal change throughout the day.
Here, biophilic design provides powerful, and often natural, tools with varied patterns, textures, and lighting.
“What’s cool about biophilia is if we showed you a picture of a trail in the woods, your brain has already walked down that trail,” says Krebs, citing nervous system and cardiovascular responses to this visual input. The very suggestion of nature could be enough to help us calm down.
“If I’m going down a hallway between the living room and a bedroom, can we change the flooring from a wood floor to a stone floor?” Krebs says. “Just that sound of the clicking of your feet or the echo on the walls changing can be part of that path that we’re going on.”
Bringing geometric patterns and fractals into an office space can encourage one’s mind to open up differently while at work in the home office. Then, at the day’s end, you can click back across the stone floor to the wood flooring and know your day is done, and it’s time to unwind.
Using materials from the outdoors inside also enhances connectivity with nature, an especially important benefit in places with long, dark winters. Stone used on an outdoor patio could reappear in a hallway or a bathroom. Indoor and outdoor showers could be constructed with similar textures and wall panels to suggest greater fluidity between the home and the landscape.
One of the simplest wellness practices anyone can employ, whether they’re building their own home or making their studio apartment feel cozier, is to pay attention to lighting. Circadian rhythm lights and smart light bulbs offer a chance to signal to the brain progression through one’s day, from yellow light in the morning, to bluer tones midday, and softer hygge light in the evening.
“Wellness at its core is about us walking on a path of who we are as people and how we’re made,” Krebs says. “We have to put our bodies in position to be able to do this.
Our environment can help us get in a spot where we actually go after the things we want, be who we are, and walk in the path the way we’re designed.”
The post Cultivate a Wellness Lifestyle – through Home Design appeared first on Organic Spa Magazine.