6 Ways to Bring Nature Into your Home
Scientists, Architects, Designers, and Health Professionals are all beginning to see the benefits of adding elements that either give us direct access through design as a way to bring nature into your home or remind us of something in nature that is familiar to us and is beneficial to our well being. Biophilic Design is one term that embodies that mindset.
All our senses benefit from bringing the outdoors inside. What we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste, our 5 senses, can all be engaged in different, but equally effective, ways with innovative building design or adding elements of décor. In order to help you achieve this, here are 6 that will get you started.
1. Architectural Features That Bring Nature’s View Indoors
Large windows are a great way to bring nature into your home and merge your exterior and your interior space. For example, if you have a natural wooded yard or are lucky enough to live by the sea, you can take advantage of that as a design feature. Conversely, if you are landlocked in an urban setting, green walls and rooftop settings can provide a retreat from the noise -especially if combined with a water feature (see below).
2. Add Landscape and Garden Species that Celebrate the Changing Seasons
Once you have designed your home to include a view, select plants and trees that provide interest as the seasons change. Tulips and Daffodils in the spring remind us that the harshness of winter is always followed by new life and hope. A single shade tree, well placed, within view of our window, creates a feeling of welcome shelter during the sweltering heat. Falling leaves and changing brilliant colors are a welcome respite from the heat of summer. September also makes us feel a call to new beginnings. It is the month of back to school and something we can all relate to. Autumn is when all of summer’s charms are coming to their peak. It is a time to enjoy the last hurrah as we are reminded that winter is not far away making it something to be savored.
John Keats reminds us so beautifully of all of this in this excerpt taken from his poem To Autumn:
“Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”
John Keats
3. Water Features
Add a water feature to your interior space! It is one of the best ways to add a Biophilic Design element to your home. Wallace Nichols, in his book Blue Mind says….“We are beginning to learn that our brains are hardwired to react positively to water and that being near it can calm and connect us, increase innovation and insight, and even heal what’s broken.”
4. Floral Arrangements and Plants
If you plant a cutting garden with species that are suited to bouquets, you will have a ready supply of fresh flowers throughout the growing season. If that sounds like a lot of work (and it can be) and you are looking for another option, try a plant. It can achieve similar benefits. Adding a live plant is one of the easiest ways to bring nature into your home. It is good for the air and good for your soul. What’s more, if you have herbs in your garden, try harvesting and drying them to use in the winter. They are such a natural way to add echos of summer to your home. Many of them can do double duty if you use them to cook too!
5. Symbolic Biophilic Design and Decor
All the above are direct ways in which we can bring nature into our home. If dealing with live plant and floral care is not your thing try going Faux. Faux floral blooms and plants yield surprising benefits to our health. There is a whole other category that has been shown to benefit our well being with symbolic design elements than reflect those found in nature. Fabric, upholstery, wall art, rugs, carpet, wallpaper, decorative objects, and paint, are some of the many ways, if planned strategically, that we can enhance and embrace nature in our home.
All of these elements can be printed or woven with subject matter that is symbolic and effective in Biophilic Design includes patterns such as honeycomb and snowflakes (sixfold symmetry) , shapes that are found repetitively in nature such as spirals like that of the nautilus seashell, red cabbage, and whirlpools as noted in A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael S. Schneider. Bunches of roots that also form the branches of trees have their own symmetry and repetition, the numerical arrangements in plants and flowers known as the Fibonacci Sequence, where we see the same numerical sequence repeated in flower petals, seed heads, pine cones, and more. All of these have their own intriguing archetypes that can be explored in more depth, but you get the idea.
6. Color Palettes from Nature
Using nature as inspiration for color palettes in home décor is a foolproof way to pull it all together and create a serene and balanced way to bring nature into our home. Nature is full of examples of subtle coloration but also can be bright and exotic. There is a wide range of opportunity to find your color palette no matter what inspires and makes you happy.
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