What are Healing Spaces?
Written by: Katherin Joyette|November 4, 2020|4 min read
“A holistic home connects your mind, body, spirit and space together.” —Laura Benko.
Healing spaces might be a term that's new to you. It combines the mind, body and spirit into your design to enrich any space. Healing spaces surrounds the individual with elements that can effect their state of mind and emotional well being. Through realizing the individuals needs and then incorporating holistic methods of well being into your projects with:
- color
- artwork and aesthetics
- biophilic design
- arrangement of furniture
The first study to support the need for holistic design and healing spaces was done by Roger Ulrich in 1984. He concluded that patients, in hospital settings, with windows showing the natural world, healed more rapidly then patients without that outside view. Dr. Esther Sternberg has also helped the healing spaces movement by writing many books on the subject and believes that your environment can effect the way you feel and as a result, can change how quickly you heal. The benefits of making your home a healing environment seems to be endless, though healing does not mean curing, it can still have substantial effects on ones health and happiness.
Color and Chromotherapy
Color can make a room beautiful but the right healing colors will also help to stimulate or calm the human body. Color medicine can positively affect the immune system and reduce stress while treating specific imbalances. The most popular colors used for healing are red, yellow and orange, blue and violet and green. Red, which stimulates the appetite and increases cravings for food, is usually used in restaurants for that reason. Orange and yellow stimulates mental activity and increases oxygen supply to the brain. While blue and violet are soothing to all systems and have anti-inflammatory properties, reducing stress. Green is a healing color and brings balance and harmony to ones mind and body. The use of color in your space is extremely important and can effect your well being.
Chromotherapy is a color light therapy that is used to restore imbalance by means of applying color to the body. Sunlight is broken down into 7 color spectrums...
Artwork and Aesthetics
“Every element of a built environment can have a considerable positive or negative impact on our state of mind and emotional well-being.” —Dr. Nicola Davies
Research suggests that artwork can have many beneficial effects on the health of an individual, especially when thinking of stress reduction. Aesthetics enhance the quality of the space adding to the serenity and peace of the home. Artwork that includes calm and non-turbulent waterscapes, flowers or gardens, positive landscapes and figurative art can be very emotionally and physically therapeutic.
Artwork in our homes promote peace and positive energy while harnessing our natural inherent ability to heal ourselves.
Biophilic Design
Biophilic Design combines natural light, vegetation, living walls, natural textures, materials and nature views. It tries to connect the individual with the natural environment through the use of direct nature, indirect nature and space and place conditions. Exposure to nature inside your home can lower blood pressure, can help with depression and anxiety and promotes cancer-fighting cells. Even if the plant is fake your brain will still produce the benefits of being close to nature. Nature promotes healing at the cellular level and restores a a positive mood, psychological wellbeing, meaningfulness, and vitality.
Furniture Organization and Decluttering
The term for arranging furniture in different rooms is called Feng shui. Feng Shui is an Ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony between human beings and the environment.
The science behind healing spaces has much to offer the interior design student. Catering to the health of the individuals mind, body and spirit gives the designer added purpose and drive. When we are designing for wellness, we can treat the whole person and have a real impact on their health while also enhancing their spaces with beauty.
