A focus on wellness has paved the way for a design style that leads to a healthier, happier life. Businesses and residential homes alike are utilizing designs that make occupant wellness a priority along with the other necessities needed for the daily enjoyment and use of the space.
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What Is Wellness Architecture and Design?
Wellness architecture and design is an architecture trend that’s here to stay. It incorporates healthy living standards in new and existing homes. Many of the items on our list are in line with the International WELL Building Institute’s guidelines as established by founder Paul Scialla.
Wellness design is considered “all elements that surround us indoors – air quality, water quality, lighting, thermal, acoustics, biophilic elements…[have] a direct impact on our respiratory, cardiovascular, immune, cognitive, digestive, and sleep health outcomes.” This holistic approach differentiates itself from ‘green building’ a process mainly focused on environmentally-friendly building materials and methods.
How Can You Control Wellness Through Design?
There are a number of steps you can take to incorporate wellness into your home design, whether you’re building from the ground up with Acipe Design or you’re working with us to add the elements you need.
Monitor Air Quality
It’s one of the first and easiest steps to take to control wellness in your home! Since 2020, concern over air quality has seen a huge uptick. The air we breathe needs to be clean – contain as small of a particulate count as possible – for any other step toward wellness can take place. Installing an air quality monitor can help alert you to poor air quality and allow you to take appropriate action.
Purify Air
Air filtration systems help remove bad particles from the air. The EPA recommends air cleaners be able to remove particles in the 0.1 micron range to be effective against viruses.
You can retrofit your existing home or work them in during the design phase of a new home, but if such an expense is out of budget, consider an air purifier machine as an alternative. The stand-alone machines include air quality sensors to trigger an increase in the speed of the machine when air quality declines.
Sanitizing Lights
Going hand-in-hand with air purifying systems is sanitizing lighting. Install sanitizing UV lights to help kill germs found in airborne droplets. These unique lights don’t necessarily look like everyday lamps or sconces, but can be blended into your design aesthetic, or stand out as a conversation piece!
Add Plants
Plant are another small, but huge, and simple step toward building wellness into your home. You don’t need an indoor jungle, but utilizing biophilic design elements – elements like houseplants and other natural elements in strategic places helps remove particulate matter and increase clean oxygen levels. Check out our article on The Benefits of Biophilic Home Design for ideas on how to bring these elements into your home successfully.
Install a Good Range Hood
At Acipe Design, we recommend products and building materials sourced or built with low environmental impact, energy efficiency, effectiveness, and those with an overall positive impact on the home and its inhabitants. Older homes and “builder grade” homes sometimes don’t have range hoods that properly vent cooking fumes – especially when it comes to gas stoves. In fact, a bad range hood is one of the leading causes of home air pollution.
We’ll help you evaluate your options and select the perfect range hood that’s properly sized for your range and directs the fumes outside rather than recirculating the air throughout the kitchen.
Support Your Circadian Rhythms
“What makes you tick?” is a question that often refers to what makes you behave the way you do. For our purposes, it’s your overall circadian rhythm – rhythms that are regulated by a circadian clock whose primary function is to rhythmically co-ordinate biological processes so they occur at the correct time to maximize the fitness of an individual.
Circadian rhythms are what make us feel awake during the day, and sleepy at night. Circadian lighting can help regulate and realign your sleep patterns to maximize your rhythm, by offering bright white light in the morning and softer light in the evening.
Natural Light
One of the healthiest things you can do is soak in the Vitamin D of natural light. The serotonin produced by exposure to natural light helps improve mood, alleviate pain, and provide extra energy, all contributors to overall health and wellness.
Automated Shades
In addition to circadian lighting, try automated shades. Both lighting and shades can help tune your body to the sun’s clock and your own circadian clock. Including either or both into your home design is a simple step that will increase you and your family’s wellness by helping produce the correct sleep hormones like melatonin.
Customized Water Filtration
We’ve covered the roles of purer air and better lighting in home wellness, but what about water? While most people agree that eight 8 oz glasses of water a day is a healthy daily intake, the truth is you should drink only as much as you need. But the quality of that water matters.
For nine years, the residents of Flint, Michigan struggled with the availability of clean water due to old lead pipes and other bacteria. Of course this is a very special case, but it reflects the need for water filtration and purification for a healthy lifestyle. Your water pitcher only does so much, so adding a whole-home water filtration system customized to local water impurities is a great step.
Counter Composting
Only you’ll know it’s there! Instead of a trash compactor or multiple compost bucks, consider counter composting. It’s built directly into the countertop and freezes food waste, minimizing bad odors and facilitating food breakdown without losing valuable counter space!
Install Acoustic Panels
Sound is another key factor in wellness design – and acoustic panels are for more than the media room or home theater. These panels contribute to wellness through the comfort and relaxation they add. Acoustic panels contribute to the creation of a quieter environment. Consider adding them to wherever your home needs a boost in sound-dampening, like the bedrooms or home office. This simple addition can result in a vast quality of life improvement.
Create a Meditation Space
Many people find increased relaxation through things like yoga and meditation. It also increases mood, mental health, and physical health. You can easily convert a bedroom in an existing home, or plan for a dedicated space in your custom home build with Acipe Design.
Ideally, choose a north or east-facing room, then clear the clutter. For extra relaxation, choose soothing colors, incense, or essential oils, then fill it up with meditation cushions, yoga mats or blocks, blankets, or other meditation or work out gear you desire.
Final Thoughts
Taking steps to improve your health and wellness starts at home. These are just some of the things you can do to help achieve your wellness goals. The staff at Acipe Design will listen to your needs and wants and help you design the wellness-driven spaces you need.
Contact us today!