Sustainable interior and why is it important for your health
Sustainable interior design, as a way of making our home eco friendly place for living in general, continues to be and represent itself as a key pulse of a better environment for every living being. It has a great range of ergonomic furnishing, material choices and applications that are more and more required in everyday functioning.
The sustainable approach in design seeks to reduce negative impacts on the environment, and the health and comfort of buildings occupants, thereby improving buildings performance. The basic objectives of sustainability are to reduce consumption of non-renewable resources, minimize waste, and create healthy, productive environments.
To create an efficient business of helping people and environment heal, there are various and difficult goals in a sustainable interior project. There are always significant issues that can be hard to overcome in creating inhabitable spaces.
Through this text, we will outline the latest developments in sustainable design and show how they can be implemented to solve the current building-related and health-related issues in any of the facilities, including our homes.
Sustainable interior design is much energy efficient
A good eco friendly interior design and sustainability can make your home warmer, drier, more comfortable and enjoyable to live in. It can also make it healthier and safer, cut your energy bills, save water and help the environment.
A home that is a well-designed has eco friendly interior design and sustainability resources that are conserved and used efficiently in ways that keep your costs down, without taking its’ toll on comfort or convenience.
Passive heating and a break of natural light can reduce the amount of electricity or gas we disperse in our homes. Some of the things that can be equally as useful are solar water heating and energy-efficient appliances. By putting less artificial energy to use, not only you will save yourself a significant amount of money, but you can also help to reduce dangerous greenhouse emissions.
In most homes, heating (water or stoves) is the biggest part of the power bill, but people are still uninformed of the many ways for reducing them.
Proper ventilation that fights dampness and unhealthy air
It is well known that the air inside your home could be making you sick. Solvents and toxic spores - you could be breathing them all, which can lead to allergies.
Cold, hot, dry or moist climate can cause air dampening, that leads to contributing to health problems such as asthma.
It is one of the sustainable indoor most important tasks to exclude toxic materials, such as formaldehyde (eg; from carpets, MDF glued particle board), that can also contribute to various and serious health problems.
Effective ventilation and natural aromatherapy oils and scents help dry out a home and bring in the fresh air, which reduces biological contaminants from bacteria, moulds, animal fur, dust mites and pest droppings. These are some of the most dangerous and particles that contribute to allergies and respiratory disease.
Effective ventilation also helps with poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide from portable gas heaters, wood and gas stoves, vehicles from garages, and even tobacco smoke.
The placement of windows and doors have many effects on proper ventilation, as does the internal layout of your home. With the good ecological interior design, you can get air to flow where it’s needed, without creating strong wind draughts.
The misuse of energy is the main culprit for many conditions
The sustainable design in interior strives to create spaces that are responsible just by looking at the three following facets, but also determining the best practices for each project that will be conducted in creating sustainable and ecological interior design for smart homes:
Responsible decisions for a design that includes looking into the optimal location of the project that does not disturb natural processes or ecosystems.
The use of energy on the project: water, and other resources throughout the life cycle of the building.
The rating of buildings efficiency afterwards: many certification systems, such as LEED system usage.
When sustainable solutions are not implemented in spaces we live in, a lot of health problems could be related to unsustainable building practices. Those problems include:
carbon emissions that can lead to cancer or other illnesses,
sick building syndrome,
respiratory illnesses,
anxiety,
moodiness,
depression, and
allergies.
It creates a certain irony because the one place that people go to heal, relax and feel happy, is the place that slowly weakens them, just through emissions and toxic materials they choose to put in their homes.
Nature-like habitat is a basic human need
One of the top complaints in the health settings of a human is the lack of a quiet, healing environment. To address various and many psychological needs of patients, sustainable interior designers look up to nature - and the human response has been more than aspiring. The phenomenon of Biophilia has been defined as the humankind’s biological connection with nature.
It is important to know that Biophilia is not a new phenomenon; in fact, all its’ qualities are based on evolution, and that need for contact with nature is a basic human need because, for the majority of human existence, nature represented and provided everything for us.
Green spaces activate the survival instinct
It has been pointed out that sustainable design in interior design, especially in the healthcare environment, has the most impact on that basic human needed for survival. Thus, biologically, humans associate nature with survival, life, and wellbeing.
The benefits of nature on one person are related to improved mood - increase happiness and reduced stress levels. This has been proven in field studies of various environments, laboratory, and results were consistent.
Contact with nature can be purely visual or multi‐sensory (touch, smell, hearing), activating the stations in the brain that engage other nerves to fight fatigue no matter what.
Sustainability of interior design elements
From a professional point of view, designing an interior that mimics natural environment can be defined as a relationship of people to and their need based on psychological and psychical parameters, to improve the quality of life.
Choose the correct materials for your sustainable interior
In material selection, the most important criteria are to select the material according to the features of the function. Materials used in the hospital interior, shopping malls and fitness and wellness centres should be different due to the specific aspect of the number of people that circulate there and also the sterilisation and cleaning aspects.
The materials in sustainable interiors should have recycling potential
Another important criteria in material selection is the recycling potential of the materials. The level of emission of toxic gases, both used in the production process and during the using period of the materials, is an essential criterion in achieving sustainable interiors. Most traditional techniques in construction and materials like mud, brick and adobe are known to be highly sustainable.
The optimal furnishing choices
Furniture is always a major element in sustainable interior design. In the context of sustainability, materials used in the furniture producing business are mostly derived from waste, and sometimes face the problem of aesthetics. In the latest years, that problem seems to be overcompensated with furniture made of completely new, LED involved, natural and non-disturbing materials.
Forget chairs and tables made from plastic. To make your home’s interior eco-friendly, you need furniture made from natural wood and other organic or sustainable materials used in interior design, so it’s time to think of some ethical shopping. Bamboo is another suitable option, but better yet is to buy antiques and used furniture whenever possible and giving them new life by painting them with some non-VOC paint.
Pillows, mattresses and beddings from, for example, wool-stuffed materials, cut down on the production of synthetic materials that ultimately end up languishing in landfills or causing skin related problems like allergies and inflammations.
You should choose hypoallergenic, biodegradable, recyclable, odour, dust and mite-resistant, moisture-absorbent and anti-bacterial materials. Wool, cotton and jute are also considered to be the most fire-resistant textile fibre.
Flooring should be made of stone or wood. Instead of vinyl flooring, for example, use wood, cork or linoleum. Vinyl (or PVC) is made of toxic plastic, while linoleum can be made from jute, which is bacteria-resistant and biodegradable.
The ultimate interior design element - Lighting
Lighting in interior design is mostly concentrated on reducing the problem of using too much electric energy. Energy used in the interior environment of the building approximately captures the 40 - 50% of the total energy usage. Environmental lighting is also one of the physical parameters affecting the indoor environmental quality.
We should always try to maximise the natural sunlight in our spaces by freeing windows of heavy curtains and blinds. Just ensure that your windows are completely secure in terms of insulation so no heat escapes. Also one of the tips for maximum lighting usage is painting our walls some light colour that will inspire your interior design.
Whenever and wherever is possible to cut on the non-recycled devices and furniture and replace them with sustainable materials for interiors (home, office of gym) - find a creative, classy and unique way to accomplish it. It might cost more, but it will have many, long term good impact on the health of the inhabitants, as well as on the environment.