Across the globe we are becoming more intimately aware of the living experiences our homes and their contents provide. Restricted to our houses, apartments and shared living spaces, we are pushed up close to the layouts, design elements and furniture we fill our lives with.
We know that eating raw and natural ingredients is good for our inner health. What about our inner health in relation to the spaces we inhabit? How do we make sure our spaces are healthy for us and our families?
As we head into winter down here in New Zealand and become more and more confined inside, we are particularly concerned with ensuring our living spaces allow for optimising our health going forward. How we ventilate, share our space and format our rooms are incredibly important to airflow and family well-being.
It’s also useful to interrogate how the household objects around us encourage productivity, reduce anxiety, improve our moods and accommodate all members of the family.
Photo courtesy of Babylon Gardens.
Studies show that indoor plants for example clean air by absorbing toxins, increasing humidity and, of course, producing oxygen. But they can also improve mental health. Taking care of a plant, and being surrounded by its daily growth patterns can boost mood, productivity, creativity and concentration. They give life to a sterile space, can be used to divide spaces and give privacy and to reduce noise levels by absorbing ambient sounds. Indeed, if one of your loved ones is struggling currently, letting them adopt a plant might be just the ticket. Taking care of a plant can reduce stress, fatigue and may even help reducing the physical symptoms of winter colds.
FLOW Side Table made from rescued river Rimu and polished brass, TUI Armchair made from rescued river Matai, covered in Pinatex (biomaterial made from pineapple leaves) and upcycled bicycle inner tubes for the feathers and Black FERN Mirror.
In a similar vein, it’s important to consider what materials your home contains. At LyZadie Design Studio we have always believed that using non-toxic, natural and where possible, raw materials is the best thing we can do to keep our footprint on the earth light. Collections like FLOW and TUI were pivotal in realising how we could both innovate with new, reclaimed and recycled materials, and showcase our commitment to sustainable and forward-thinking design.
Being confined with these pieces all day has made that even clearer to us. Having furniture that exists and breathes inside the home as it would outside gives us piece of mind that we are doing the best for our family. Timber, new innovative biomaterials, leather, metal, glass, earth, our work has always been made of this planet and we continue to be committed to ensuring we won’t add to any issues of pollutants and over processing going forward.
EARTH&SKY Dining Table made from rammed earth and glass table top and WHITE CLOUD Pendants made of glass.
There’s also value to be gleaned from looking at how we use the physical objects in our homes. Chairs and tables which may have been used for short periods of time are being used for a myriad of purposes. The dining room table may still feature meals, but it may also host conference calls and long, detailed home-schooling sessions. Reimagining how you can sit comfortably at the table, how you can be together in a space usually reserved for being in for small periods of time, can enable you to use different furniture within different contexts. It is certainly helping us dream big about how our next collections will fulfil a multitude of roles.
Within these uncertain times, we take comfort in the fact that creating beauty will always be important. Where physical health is at the forefront of our current global situation, the impact on our mental health will be long lasting. In New Zealand we have been encouraged to walk in nature wherever possible, and lucky for us, we are a small enough population that most people are able to do that. As we walk under dripping trees, taste the salt blown into our faces by the wild coastal winds, we are thankful for where we live. We are thankful for our incredible planet. And we take pride in celebrating her every day, in every piece, every thought, every design we create.
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