How to Bring Nature Indoors to Improve Your Well-Being

2020 has been a year of change and challenges, much of which has seen us spending even more time in our homes than ever before. For months, parks, beaches, playgrounds, and nature preserves have been closed. That is why it is more important now than ever before to bring nature indoors.

Bringing the outdoors in goes well beyond buying a potted plant that you stick in the corner of a room. In our recent blog about biophilic design, we discussed the importance of incorporating the natural world into our home and even workplace environments. Anywhere that you spend a considerable amount of time can benefit from natural décor.

Biophilia is a desire to interact with nature, and never has it been so critical to our well-being as it is right now. Biophilic design helps us reduce stress, improve our health, creativity, productivity, and emotional well-being.

While the best way to maximize biophilic design elements in your home or workplace is with the help of an interior designer, there are things you can do right now to increase the natural beauty around you.

Physical Ways to Bring Nature Indoors

When you think about the physical ways to bring nature indoors, chances are the first things that come to mind are living things, such as plants. One potted plant will not do the trick – think big and fill your home with nature. Grow herbs on a windowsill, bring in some potted lemon or lime trees, cacti, or create terrariums throughout your home. Incorporate plants in every room of your home. Turn your bathroom into a spa with plants that thrive in humidity.

A vertical garden feature that many people overlook is a green wall – a living wall of plants. Some people even have trees growing inside and up through their homes. Of course, taking it to that large a scale may be best done with the help of an interior designer.

Utilize other aspects of nature in your interior design ideas, such as seashells, twigs, branches, rocks, and gems. There is a reason why so many people have those little Zen gardens on their desks at work. Raking sand and creating designs with rocks and gems is an excellent way to de-stress. You can even create your own with items in your home and a small bottle of sand from a store. (Be careful about removing sand from a beach – many places will fine you for that!)

Nature is also more than plants. It encompasses all living things. A pet is more than your best friend – it is a natural de-stressor. Fish tanks, birdcages, outdoor animal feeders, and butterfly gardens are excellent options for helping you connect with other living things.

Think Outside the Box to Bring Nature Indoors

What does “thinking outside the box” mean when we want to incorporate biophilic design principles in the home or office?

It means incorporating other elements such as light, air, sound, fire, weather, natural materials, and natural landscapes into your home.

Here are some things to consider:

• You can bring nature indoors by adding skylights, reflective materials, and sheer drapes that allow the sun to shine through and illuminate your environment. An added benefit of letting nature shine through is also bringing you closer to the aspects of weather. After all, who does not enjoy sitting in a cozy chair while watching it rain outside?
• One way of incorporating naturalistic interior design is with the sounds of nature. Water elements such as fountains, water walls, and aquariums are not only relaxing to look at, but the sound of the water flowing, or bubbling can improve health and reduce stress.
• Fire pits outdoors do more than provide beauty and warmth. The fire element is also crucial to health. Candles have long been associated with romance and can bring an element of nature into your home.
• Natural materials are some of the best ways to foster biophilic design as you have many options available. Wood, stone, bamboo, leather, wool, hemp, clay, wicker, rattan, granite, and cork are available for various areas of your home or office, including flooring, furnishings, and countertops. The unique textures associated with materials such as cork or bamboo bring you closer to nature.
• Utilize natural landscapes as a way to relax and improve your health. From pictures of nature to nature-identical designs done in patterns on the walls, flooring, and fabrics, these images help to foster improved well-being.

Other Ways of Bringing Nature Into Your Home

The list of modern design elements available to help you bring nature indoors is endless. Here are a few more ideas:

• Incorporate natural design elements that activate the senses, such as varying types of textures.
• Bring in the colors of nature wherever possible. Incorporating the blue sky, green grass, brown earth, and cream sand colors will help you get in touch with the many elements around us.
• Do not stop with the inside of your home. Turn your patio, balcony, or garden into a natural haven with plants, water elements, and more to help you de-stress.

Today’s modern interior design options can help make your home a healthier place to live. There are so many things we can do right now, even if you are still at home all day – every day.

When the time comes to take your environment to the next level, HK Interiors can help. Call 954-401-8542 today for more information.

Whether or not you are familiar with the term biophilic design, it is time to find out what it can do for you. Especially today, when we are spending so much of our time in our homes due to Covid-19, it is crucial to consider incorporating biophilic design elements into our environment.

What is biophilic design, and why do you need it?

The best way to understand it is by first explaining the biophilia definition:

Biophilia is a desire or tendency to interact, associate, or commune with nature.

In modern interior design, biophilia is more than placing a plant or two in your home. It is about incorporating many design principles into your space to improve health and well-being.

Biophilic design is a connectedness that goes beyond having a fish tank or birdcage and a plant or two in a room. It is about stepping back and looking at ways to integrate the environment through sustained engagement with nature.

Why Is Biophilic Design Important Today?

Before the onset of Covid-19, life was already hectic and stressful. Now, with the home also functioning as a workplace, school, gym, and entertainment zone, it can sometimes seem as though there is no place to escape. Biophilic design is a way to improve well-being, enhance creativity, reduce stress, and expedite healing.

Think for a minute how you feel after taking a leisurely walk through a park or forest. Imagine the sound of a brook running over rocks. Breathe in and smell the earth, flowers, and trees that line the path. Nature connects us to the world around us in ways nothing else can. When you incorporate the natural world into your environment, you help promote health and well-being while reducing heart rate, blood pressure, and stress.

Biophilic design helps foster emotional attachments to our environment by satisfying the human need to affiliate with nature. It is through these attachments that we can increase our productivity, creativity, health, and performance.

What Does Biophilic Design Mean in the Home?

Biophilic design incorporates many aspects into your home, more than just bringing the outdoors in. Modern design elements may include any of the following direct and indirect experiences of nature:

• Water
• Plants
• Air
• Light
• Animals
• Natural Landscapes
• Weather
• Fire
• Images of Nature
• Earth tones or natural colors
• Natural materials
• Sounds

These are only some of the many aspects of biophilic design. With artificial light, air conditioning, synthetic textiles, and mass-produced products filling our homes, it is crucial to incorporate living things or their by-products into our interior design ideas. By-products of living things can be as simple as using bamboo flooring, rattan and wicker furnishings, stone countertops, and natural woods.

Biophilic Design Patterns and What They Mean

There are 14 patterns of biophilic design, and while we will not go into them all here, you can read about them through the link here. However, we do want to touch on some of the most important aspects here and how they benefit overall well-being:

• Presence of Water – reducing stress, lowering blood pressure and heart rate, increasing the feeling of tranquility, improving concentration and memory
• Dynamic & Diffuse Light – enhancement of circadian system functions and increasing visual comfort
• Visual Connection with Nature – lower heart rate and blood pressure, improved attentiveness, attitude, and happiness

A crucial aspect of biophilic design is that it must nurture a love of place. When incorporating naturalistic interior design into a home or office, the role of the designer is to identify the intent of the user, the needs of the space, and the long-term effects of the various components.

By utilizing the natural beauty of the world around us, the home or work environment becomes a place that fosters well-being in every sense of the world. As we look back in time, we find that humans built their structures out of the natural environments, utilizing local timber, stone, and sand. Conjure up the image of a log cabin by a babbling brook and see how that makes you feel. Now, compare that to the modern dwellings and buildings erected from steel, concrete, and other man-made substances.

How to Incorporate Biophilic Design Into Your Home By Bringing Nature Indoors

Interior designers today have more options than ever before to help bring nature indoors. Biophilic design goes much deeper even than we have explored here. Incorporating auditory, olfactory, non-rhythmic sensory, and other stimuli into the home or office can make a significant difference in your life and productivity. Now that you have an idea of how biophilia can impact your environment, it is time to learn “How to Bring Nature Indoors to Improve Your Well-Being.”

Are you ready to take your environment to the next level? HK Interiors can help. Call 954-401-8542 today for more information.

You may have heard the term approachable interior design but have no idea what it means. When you think of the word approachable, it conjures up images of something pleasing and easy to approach. In terms of interior design, it means utilizing your personal style to create a habitat that is warm, personal, and accessible.

Our goal is to help you discover approachable interior design ideas that will work for you in your home. By incorporating some of these ideas, your home will retain a modern design with a warm and inviting feel.

Approachable Interior Design: What It Is

Your home should reflect your personality while also being functional for everyday life. The look and décor should be as unique as you are, with a custom approach that features simple lines and warm tones to make anyone who enters feel invited into your life. Whether elegant or down-to-earth, the ultimate effect will be the same – you and your guests will feel comfortable in the room. …more