How does interior design affect health

“Well-being and home go hand in hand; home is where you retreat to to be yourself, it’s the space in your life designed to comfort you and to make you feel safe. When you look up comfort in a thesaurus, it has the same meaning as well-being. “

Now, more than ever before, we demand a lot from our homes. With the increased amount of time we’re spending in them we need them to look good, be comfortable, durable and work hard for us and our families in terms of storage and practicality. Recently, in discussion with our clients, we have been adding a criteria to good design which is how our designs affect the health of those enjoying the homes we create.

From a psychological point of view, well-being and home go hand in hand; home is where you retreat to to be yourself, it’s the space in your life designed to comfort you and to make you feel safe. When you look up comfort in a thesaurus, it has the same meaning as well-being.

A home shouldn’t just look good, it should be designed to improve your physical well-being and enhance your lives. For me this should happen in two ways; a well designed space should make you feel good and appeal to all of your senses; from the stylistic elements that you see, to the textures and upholstery that you touch, to the acoustics and how your home sounds and even considerations around scents in your home to please your sense of smell. The second way is much more scientific and practical with a focus on measuring, certifying, and monitoring features built or introduced into your home that can directly impact your health.

Both of these angles are something that all of us at Gunter & Co consider and plan into our designs right from the very beginning of every project.

How I first discovered that interior design can affect physical and mental health

Creating healthy homes has been on my mind for several years now after watching a Grand Design episode where a young family built a brand-new, bespoke home in Richmond to improve the health of their young children who suffered from severe asthma attacks. Throughout their project build they were helped by a great London consultancy called Enhabit who we’ve had the pleasure of working with on several projects since to help advise our clients on how to make their homes healthier.

Wellness and architectural design

Inspired by this incredible project on Grand Designs, I fell down a rabbit hole of research looking into the design and creation of healthier homes and came across the WELL Building Standard.

In the UK the WELL Building Standard is still quite a new thing and is most commonly used and referred to for the construction of huge commercial or educational projects, primarily offices, hospitals and schools. However, a lot of people, especially in the US, who place high value on health and the environment started to explore well-being in the home. It started with people researching and asking for low VOC paints when decorating a nursery to then realising that harmful chemicals and off-gassing isn’t just present in paints but should be considered in any new material or piece of furniture you bring into your home.

I also came across the concept of biophilia — the human instinct or desire to have a connection with nature. Biophilic design is something which has always interested me and been fundamental to my design ethics right from the very start. So let’s take a technical dive into these two important theories and how they’ve shaped the growth of interiors that boost your mood and improve your well-being.

What is the WELL Building Standard?

The WELL Building Standard is a performance-based system which measures, certifies, and monitors features of the built environment that impact human health and well-being. The system rates a building by looking at the impact it has on the air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind of the people living in or using a building.

But what does this mean and how can we apply it to our homes? I could talk about this for hours but have tried to summarise the main elements we consider when working on a design project:

1. Air — We want to increase the amount of clean air we’re breathing in our homes and reduce indoor air pollution. People are often surprised when I tell them that the air quality in the street is probably healthier than the air in a home — shocker! This is because of off-gassing, glue in materials, aerosols and cooking gases etc. But how can air quality be improved? We always look to improve the air quality in all of our projects, from making sure the house is fully draft proof with plenty of insulation and testing to achieve an almost Passiv-house standard (ensuring no un-filtered air comes into the house), to controlling the quality of air in the home through a rigid system of filters, to make sure the environment you spend most time in (especially bedrooms at night) is much healthier than a standard British home.
2. Water — We always add water filters right from the build-phase of a project to ensure the house benefits form clean, contaminant free water.
3. Nourishment — It’s our role as designers to make sure the homes we create encourage healthy eating habits, to ensure the kitchen layout is conducive to cooking meals from scratch, steaming rather than frying, storing fresh products and, where possible, building in access to fresh produce through herb gardens and raised beds.
4. Light — we work around the quality and movement of daylight in all of our designs; from maximising light through full height doors, well-dressed windows where curtains don’t block any of the light or views, to adjusting the position and size of the windows to create a person-led design. We also consider technology which works with circadian rhythm — aligning the light levels to our biological clocks. We often specify lighting which allows the temperature of the light bulb to be adjusted according to the time of day to work with our natural body clocks, or ensuring lighting designs are dimmable and adaptable for working in a home office with helpful bright lighting, to relaxing in a reading corner with cosy yet practical lighting.
5. Fitness — We all know we need to do it, but it’s just so hard. This category makes sure health and fitness is thought about and incorporated into a design from the start, from space to work out to storage to encourage healthy hobbies and habits.
6. Comfort — This can be considered from so many different angles, from creating a connection to and an understanding of a buildings heritage and architecture to the use of soft, natural materials. But also comfort at home can come from creating a space which encourages and enhances the quality of sleep. Making sure rooms that are slept in are sufficiently blacked-out and that window treatments are considered and planned for from the start. Comfort doesn’t automatically go hand-in-hand with a sleek, modern interior which is often described as ‘unhomely’. When we deal with contemporary buildings it’s our job at Gunter & Co to consider this from the start and ensure the end result delivers on aesthetic as well as comfort.
7. Mind — A huge factor for the mind category is creating interior spaces which have peace and mental health woven into them. For us this means creating an interior architecture that has carefully considered the impact of sound and acoustics. From noisy neighbours (insulate your walls) to noisy roads (think double or triple glazing) to noise pollution within the home. In short, acoustics are definitely not just for cinema rooms, they’re relevant for every room. We consider this at every touch point in the creation of a design from the positioning of a WC — you don’t want to be woken up by your family flushing in the night — to sound insulating between floors as well as rooms to give everyone a bit of peace and quiet when they need it. At Gunter & Co we also work with an acoustician where possible to ensure that our schemes (including hard finishes and soft furnishings) provide the right balance of sound insulation. Often in modern buildings with concrete, stone or wooden floors it’s helpful to assess how the acoustics will play out and plan for the appropriate sound absorbing materials which can be easily installed during the build phase, but much harder as a retrofit. If you imagine the unpleasant sound in a modern restaurant with big open spaces, concrete floors and glass walls, it just makes you want to get up and leave — we absolutely don’t want that in a home so we make sure we consider it from the start.

What is biophilic design?

Fascinated by the impact of design on well-being and mental health I also spent many evenings researching the concept of biophilia.

Research and studies into cognitive, psychological and physiological fields have time and time again proven that humans have an innate affinity towards nature. Put simply, a connection to nature has a strong positive impact on our physical and mental well-being. Studies show it can lower blood pressure and our sympathetic nervous system’s activity, improve our focus, serenity, and creativity.

This is fascinating to me as I’ve always been drawn to nature and used it to inspire my designs, from building in views to the outside from the very beginning of a project to including natural materials within the finishing touches of every project.

Working with curves has also been a big drive for our team, sharp corners don’t usually provide you with fuzzy feelings, whereas curves and organic shapes are much more reminiscent of our own human features and the shapes you find in nature. From curved wardrobes, doors and sofas to the handle you touch to turn on a tap or your oven button, whether a curved feature is an obvious option or something we design from scratch, we often include it as it enhances the feeling of comfort and contentment.

Some further reading

If, like me, you’re fascinated by making your home healthier, geek out and join me down the rabbit hole with some further reading!

I highly recommend this article from TerraMai, who specialise in reclaimed wooden flooring. They provide a clear summary of WELL certified buildings and a straightforward delve into biophilic design.

Corenet Global also gives a good overview which I often send to clients to explain what we’re looking to achieve in their homes and finally, Balanced Home, Balanced Life is full of interesting articles from founder and Wellness Architect Kate Hamblet.

I’ve also created a more practical guide to considering well-ness and mental health in your home design in this blog post as well as a guide to ensuring well-being when working from home — enjoy!

Looking to build or design a home with your well-being in mind? Get in touch with us and we can talk you through our approach.

Originally published at https://www.gunterandco.com on August 19, 2020.