A Biophilic Home: Interior Design For All Your Senses | Ana Marcu | Skillshare
Search

Playback Speed


  • 0.5x
  • 1x (Normal)
  • 1.25x
  • 1.5x
  • 2x

A Biophilic Home: Interior Design For All Your Senses

teacher avatar Ana Marcu, Home Wellbeing, Licensed architect

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      2:57

    • 2.

      Class Project

      0:32

    • 3.

      Biophilia

      4:23

    • 4.

      Seeing: Light

      5:04

    • 5.

      Breathing: Air

      4:05

    • 6.

      Touch: Textures

      4:25

    • 7.

      Hearing: Noise

      5:56

    • 8.

      Tasting: Cooking

      3:34

    • 9.

      Final Thoughts

      1:42

  • --
  • Beginner level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • All levels

Community Generated

The level is determined by a majority opinion of students who have reviewed this class. The teacher's recommendation is shown until at least 5 student responses are collected.

957

Students

3

Projects

About This Class

Learn how to design a home for all your senses and create more well-being at home. The aim of this course is to go beyond the visual elements that are emphasised in interior design and create a home that connects you with nature and stimulates all your senses. A biophilic home is not just about style; it's about setting up a space that works with you for your well-being.

In this class, we'll explore the simple yet often overlooked aspects that can really impact how you feel in your home, such as:

  • The way light impacts your mood and emotions

  • How to improve the quality of the air you breathe

  • Managing the noise around you

  • The importance of the materials and textures you live with

  • How your kitchen setup influences the quality of your meals

While wall colours and matching curtains might seem like a top priority, they become secondary if poor choices compromise our sensory needs. Thus, I’m inviting you to rethink your design approach and place emphasis where it truly matters - on creating an environment that satiates your senses just as nature intended.

By the end of this course, you'll have plenty of tips on how to create a home that:

  • Is flooded with natural light

  • Ensures the air you breathe is pure

  • Effectively keeps noise at bay

  • Features an array of natural materials with diverse textures

  • Encourages and enables the preparation of wholesome meals

Join me in discovering how the science of Biophilic design can unlock a healthier, happier living space. Redefine the relationship between your senses and your surroundings. Start designing not just a home but a lifestyle.

Who is this class for? 

  1. Homeowners: Those who have their own property and wish to make changes to enhance their well-being. 

  2. Renters: People living in rented accommodations can also benefit, as many of the tips might be implementable without requiring structural changes.

  3. Interior Design Enthusiasts: Anyone interested in interior design, particularly those interested in biophilic design or creating more holistic, wellness-focused spaces.

  4. Health and Wellness Seekers: Individuals interested in improving their overall well-being and lifestyle through changes to their living environment.

  5. Sustainability Advocates: Given the focus on natural light, clean air, and natural materials, those interested in sustainable and eco-friendly living might find this course valuable.

  6. Professional Interior Designers or Architects: These professionals might benefit from the course to learn more about biophilic design principles and apply them in their work for clients.

In sum, it's a class for anyone interested in creating a living space that promotes well-being and connects them more closely with nature.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Love the class project? Want some more fun quizzes and reflection exercises?  Try the free "Home Happiness Worksheets Bundle". 

-----------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------

Sign up to the newsletter.

Every month I share home design ideas to help you live a happier, healthier and more productive life.

-----------------------------------------------------------

If you like this class, you might also like: 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Follow up on the class photos. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Who am I?

I’m a licensed architect with over a decade of experience in Vienna, Austria. I have a double degree in Architecture and "Building Science and Technology", and I am deeply passionate about design psychology and optimising interior design to create great emotional experiences for people. My goal is to design spaces that make people FEEL loved, happier, healthier, and more creative.

In my classes, you will find tips and strategies that will help you design a great home. You will learn how certain design decisions can influence your emotions and behaviour and what you can do to create a home that will make you feel happier and supported in your goals.

You can also check out my class, How to Think Like an Architect

Resources.  

-----------------------------------------------------------

Links to related classes

A Hygge Home: Danish Interior Design Principles for Cosiness and Comfort. 

Bedroom Design for Better Sleep 

A Calm Home. Interior Design for More Well-being. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Back to Skillshare Lifestyle / Other category pages

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Ana Marcu

Home Wellbeing, Licensed architect

Top Teacher

About me:

I'm a licensed architect and have over a decade of experience in the design and architecture industry. I have worked as an in-house architect on various projects with a strong focus on furniture, interior design and experience design. I have a double degree in Architecture and "Building Science and Technology", and I am deeply passionate about design that generates great emotional experiences for people. I've recently started my little design studio, and I'm excited to teach you everything I've learned to help you create a great home for yourself.

Transform your surroundings, transform your life!

Your home environment profoundly impacts your mood, thoughts, behaviour, performance, and overall well-being.

Learn how to design a livi... See full profile

Level: Beginner

Class Ratings

Expectations Met?
    Exceeded!
  • 0%
  • Yes
  • 0%
  • Somewhat
  • 0%
  • Not really
  • 0%

Why Join Skillshare?

Take award-winning Skillshare Original Classes

Each class has short lessons, hands-on projects

Your membership supports Skillshare teachers

Learn From Anywhere

Take classes on the go with the Skillshare app. Stream or download to watch on the plane, the subway, or wherever you learn best.

Transcripts

1. Introduction: When we look for a place to call our home, we can easily get distracted by various features that might not be all that important. The number of bathrooms, balcony size, the size of the living room, but what many people overlook is that the spaces we choose to live in can influence overall sense of happiness and balance, and in this class I want to talk about those fundamental elements whose presence or lack thereof can generally make or break your mood, well-being and overall sense of happiness at home. Hi, my name is Ana Marcu and I'm a licensed architect living in the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria. I have a double degree in architecture, in building science and technology, and have worked for over a decade as an in-house architect in various projects like private homes, office spaces, and hotels. Throughout my career, the one area that I have been most passionate about has been interior design because it is a layer of the building that has the power to move us on an emotional level, and when Dan droid can inspire us to be the best version of ourselves. In my role as a teacher, I want to take all these knowledge and help you design a home that will inspire you to be happier, healthier, and more creative. My lessons are essentially divided in two parts. First, I'm going to talk about the science art because that show how various aspects of our environment impact our happiness and well-being. Secondly, I'm going to talk about the architectural and interior design elements that can be supportive or we maximize them. This class is aimed at people who are looking for a home to rent or buy and wish to understand what home features they should be looking at when selecting a home, they'll most contribute to an overall sense of well-being. It's also great for people who aren't necessarily looking for a new home, but we should know what they should focus on in their home design in order to maximize their well-being. The class also contains a well-being checklist for you to use and access your home, or you can use it when scouting for new home or apartment. Many of you have asked me about what I'm reading and books suggestions. I do extensive research for all my classes. If you want to dive deeper into today's topic, I've left a list of books, research articles and valuable links that I have used to create this class at the end of the attach checklist, which you will find in the class project and resources section. If you love this class, you might also want to check out my class bedroom design for better sleep and a calm home for a more in-depth understanding of how the design of our environment impacts overall perception of space and sense of well-being. I hope that by now you are excited to take this class. Are you ready? Let's start the class. 2. Class Project: For the class project, I'd like you to use the well-being checklist in the class project the resources section, and make an assessment of your home. Or if you're looking for a home, use it to assess the homes you are looking at and check how well they can support your well-being. Based on this assessment, you will find it easier to decide which home will make you and your family happy long-term. Share your checklist with the class and talk about which aspects of your home you will improve upon. Do share photos if you have any. 3. Biophilia: In this lesson I wish to talk about nature and specifically on why and how our relationship to it is going to fundamentally make or break our happiness. If you look at the overall timeline of human evolution at least regarding **** sapiens which is about 315,000 years, for most of that time humans have lived in semi-open shelters very much in contact with the natural elements around. It's only at about the year 500 BC that the Roman houses were recorded. Unfortunately only the homes of rich people could be argued that were solid and somewhat resembling the houses today being made of stone, plaster, and brick. The Roman houses of the average people were still made of cheaper materials which often collapsed and caused fires, but even if we count everyone having homes like the rich Romans that will still count as less than one percent of human evolution. But during this one percent, we have made some drastic changes to the environments in which we live which created better roofs to keep the rain and the snow out would become better at making glass so we can have better views out without letting the cold in. We've built higher to allow more people to live in one spot. We've become better at insulating our homes from rodents and bugs to prevent disease, but in trying to solve one problem we slowly created another for ourselves in that we've left nature out almost entirely. Since nature is the place we have adapted for 99 percent of our pollution, we are a little bit ill-adapted to the cities and urban environments we have created for ourselves. Thanks to science, we are only starting to understand how much leaving nature out of our lives truly affects us. In 1984, Biologist E. O. Wilson wrote in his book Biophilia, that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connection with nature and other forms of life. As an example, in 2021 in the US alone, about 70 percent of households have pets, 297 million people visited national parks, and 700 million people visited the zoos and aquariums. That's an outstanding number of people looking for nothing else but to be close to nature. Since then there have been numerous studies showing how spending time in nature helps us relax, improve our heart rate, our mood, our attention, cognition, and even creativity levels, therefore bringing nature back in our living environments is highly important in order to create an overall sense of well-being at home. Some books you might want to read on these topics are the Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative by Florence Williams and The Experience of Nature; a psychology perspective by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan. All the links to the science articles and books are in the Class project and Resources section. Finally your home that offers views to nature or allows for quick access to nature, like forests and outdoor recreational facilities, or even a garden is very important. It might mean looking for opportunities to turn various corners of your home into a patch of green, might you add some plants to a flat roof or to a balcony, might you be able to turn a gray wall into a green wall. Could you place flower pots either inside or outside your windows? Could you keep pets? Could you create spaces around your home that improve biodiversity? Could you keep a beehive, or an ant hotel, or maybe create some bird houses? These are all things you can do to increase your relationship to nature at home, but our relationship to nature is more than just surrounding ourselves with plants and beings. We experience nature through all our senses, not just through our visual sense. If you have all the plants in the world around you, but not enough light or there is a high amount of noise, or the space you live in is so small that you can never cook a proper healthy meal, then surely we can say that just having plants around is not enough to achieve a sense of well-being. In the following lessons I want to discuss how the design of your home can influence each of your senses and what architectural interior design elements you should focus on in order for you to achieve the proper sense of home well-being. 4. Seeing: Light: Welcome back. In this lesson, I will talk about light, its impact on our overall well-being and why to include design and architectural elements you might have to look for or implement to maximize the amount of natural light your home receives. I think light is one of those elements that is so omnipresent, that is underappreciated, and you are only able to see how important it truly is when it's missing. Because of that, we might underestimate how important it is when choosing a home to live in. But our access to natural light is essential to our well-being because it affects our circadian rhythm or our internal clock, which influences sleep, wakefulness, digestion, temperature control, cell renewal, or mood, and even our energy levels. In this lesson, I want to give you a few tips on what interior design and architectural elements you will need to focus on the maximize your exposure to natural light. Make sure to use the attached checklist to see if you can identify these elements in your home. One of the more obvious but overlooked ideas when selecting a home that will offer you a maximum amount of light through the year, is to choose a home that is located further away from the ground. This is particularly important in very dense cities where tall buildings are close to each other, leaving a very long shadow on the nearby buildings. Particularly in winter, when the sun is located at very low in the sky. Having a home situated in a higher position can provide you with those couple of extra hours of light necessary for your body and mind balance. This is particularly useful for people who live in the northern parts of the world where winters are long and the overall number of light hours are low. If however where you live, summers are long and hot and winters are welcome respite. Then by all means, a home located in the lower levels of a building might be what you need. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, avoid having windows located towards the north, you'll never see direct sunlight. A north direction is only helpful for kitchens or auxiliary spaces. Sometimes photography studios like north located at windows due to the lack of glare on the photography. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, in Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, South Africa, your southern part will never receive direct light from the sun. Your best orientation is the north because you will receive the most sun in winter and in summer, the sun will be high enough to hit the roof eaves or a covered porch thus allowing for rooms to be shaded and not overheat. The southern orientation is the most favorable for the northern hemisphere. Countries in Europe, the US, and almost everybody else. Moreover, the south direction is excellent in winter because your home can gain some passive warmth from the sun and thus lower your heating costs. East and West orientations are tricky because the sun is low to the ground about the rise or set. If you live in a cold climate, that's fantastic because you can receive some more passive heating from the sun. If you are in a warm environment, you will likely not want more heat. Make sure to use plenty of blinds and drapes to keep the sun out if you have windows in that direction. What are other ways to maximize the amount of light in a home? Removing a wall between two rooms will allow more light to pass around. Removing fully or partially the concrete slab between two floors can also make a space capture more light. Tall ceilings are considered more beautiful and they seem to create a sense of freedom, but only do this with the support of a local professional, like an architect or an engineer. This is not a DIY project. Look for opportunities to add natural light in smaller and darker spaces like corridors and bathrooms. Roof lights and high-level windows are excellent architectural elements in a home, because they provide natural light while not taking away the necessary privacy required in those spaces. If privacy is not an issue, you might also consider replacing opaque partitions like walls and doors with semi-transparent ones like glass walls or doors with windows, so that light from one space may flow into another. Lightweight partition walls are also great at sectioning an area while allowing the natural light to flow in the room. Colors can also help you spread more light. The less natural light the room gets, the closer to white your overall color scheme should be. I've also talked about keeping the number of furniture elements low and using mirrors as a tactic to spread more light into the room in some of my other classes. Check my classes, A Calm Home and Color Psychology for more tips. Now that we know more about light and how a home can be designed to offer more or less of it, in the next lesson, I want to talk about the quality of the air we breathe and what we can do about that. 5. Breathing: Air: Welcome back. Another element that is highly underestimated with crucial to our well-being is the air we breath. The European Environmental Agency, LinkedIn 2019 alone, 370,000 premature deaths in Europe to air pollution. Unlike light, we should have some control over with the amount of windows and shades you have in your home. The quality of the air you breath is highly dependent on your location in the world. The more urban and dense the location, the lower the quality, the more surrounded by nature you are, the better the quality of your air. The most fundamental choice you can make regarding the quality of your air is deciding where your home is going to be located. What do you want to check is, does your home city have low air pollution? Is your home surrounded by green spaces or is it close to a park and outdoor recreation facilities? After this, there are some elements you might consider having or introducing in your home, which will add a slight improvement to the quality of the air but they are not as deciding as the location. The first is to introduce as many plants in your home as you can. In another class of mine called Bedroom Design for Better Sleep, I talked about a NASA study showing some of the best plants at cleaning the air. Here's the list again. That study was conducted in 1989. The more recent study from 2019 by the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology shows that wild plants are indeed good at removing toxins from the air, they do that very slowly and you do need quite a high number of plants per square meter to see some overall air quality improvement. Still, plants do more for us than just cleaning the air. That should not deter you from having plants. But if you're wondering if having an air purifying system is better than having plants, then the answer is, it depends. Plants are very good at removing volatile organic compounds or VOCs, which are chemicals and gases that are smaller than 0.3 microns. They're generated by paint varnishes, composite wood products, cleaning products, cosmetics, and so many other things. The general HVAC system and air purifiers are typically good at removing particles that are bigger than 0.3 microns like pollen, dust, smoke, and pet hair. They typically are much help against volatile organic compounds. They're currently aren't yet many widely accessible technologies that have the same VOC fighting technology as plants do. But I'm sure this will change very soon. Both plants and air purifiers bring their own contribution to air cleaning. Based on your needs, you might consider one option or both. The other element you need to consider is ventilation. Poorly ventilated spaces are also known to cause their own set of symptoms and illnesses. Something that you might want to check on homes that you wish to rent or buy is if there are two opposing facades. That way you can cross ventilate, which is one of the best ways to ventilate the home. The other way professionals recommend to ventilate is to stack ventilate, which is the air exchange between a window on one facade and a higher located window on another. Opening a window gives us a direct connection to the outside world. It's a great way to let nature come in. The sensation of breeze against our skin will cool us down, making us happier in hotter temperatures. The smell of rain, flowers and natural frequencies are also shown to becoming and stress-reducing. I have a whole class about this topic called Room Fragrances, if you want to know more about how fragrances influence your perception of space, and our well-being make sure to check it out. We talked about light and air quality, I want to talk about how we can strengthen our relationship with nature to the textures around us. 6. Touch: Textures: When it comes to creating more well-being for ourselves, part of our design should also include a diverse array of natural materials that can stimulate our sense of touch, much like our natural environment does. Industrialization cost constraints and many safety regulations have led to the widespread of non-natural flooring and plasterboard walls that are chemically produced and completely flat. Our sense of touch is essential when creating a sense of comfort in the home and a sensory stimulation like the one of touch, has been shown to reduce stress, improve mood, and enhance attentiveness. This is why I'm against recommending wallpapers that mimic natural textures because while they might deceive our eyes, they do not mislead our sense of touch, so pick abstract motifs for your wallpapers and bring natural materials into your home anytime you can. If you want to know more about this checkout, the book Joyful, The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee. For our overall home well-being, we should bring textures in our home that mimic nature in two ways. They provide various types of tactile stimulation in our environment and they are made from natural materials. In another class called a Hygge Home, I talked about using natural materials like solid wood, weaker, and ceramic to create a sense of coziness and comfort. In this lesson, I don't wish to repeat myself, but give you some additional examples of natural materials that can also provide you with an exciting texture to touch. One natural material you can use when building your own home is stone. Stone brings the outdoors, indoors. It has a beautiful raw texture and a natural feel to the touch. It comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors, but I recommend you find stone from local queries. That way, you minimize your environmental impact and keep the local craftsmanship and traditions alive. Exposed brick is also one natural material, that creates a beautiful texture and it's relatively cheap. Unless it's a thick wall, it's not a good thermal insulator. It needs to have a coating of paint, otherwise, it can hold dirt and moisture and you can have mold problems. Bamboo is one of those materials that is not getting enough recognition, at least not in the West. It is incredibly versatile and durable and it is used both in building construction and for making a wide variety of everyday products like toothbrushes and keyboards. Regarding home decor and interior design, you will find it in beautiful furniture and decor products like decorative trays and bowls and beautiful lamps. It offers both smooth and more textured finishes. Natural clay plasters are excellent, healthy breathable finishes for internal walls and ceilings. They do not contain any toxic ingredients or volatile organic compounds. They can be molded to generate various wall textures and custom carvings. They also come in a large array of beautiful pastel colors. Clay, plaster used to be a wonderful building material in the old days. In my home, Romanian grandparents used it for their home, but I think many people have forgotten how wonderful it truly is both to our health and to the touch. Copper is one of those surprising materials that offers two qualities in one product. It's natural and antimicrobial. Copper and its alloy brass can kill viruses, bacteria, and fungi on its surface within two hours. As a home decor element, you will see it in bathrooms and in kitchens, like on sinks and faucets and places frequently touched by hands like doorknobs. In addition, you can see it used as a wall decor element and on lambs and furniture. Many cultures worldwide have been using it for cooking pots, decorative water jugs, and teapots because of its antibacterial properties, so look through vintage and antique shops for some copper treasurers. There are, of course, many other natural materials. I don't wish to overwhelm you with everything out there. Still, I hope that by leaving this lesson, you will remember two things. One, natural materials, and two, materials that stimulate your sense of touch will support your overall home well-being. See you in the next lesson. 7. Hearing: Noise: I want to start this lesson with a demonstration. I currently live close to a very busy street. There are four lanes going by my house. Here's the left side. On top of the intersection, there is the subway going. There's also another four lane street coming my way. There are ambulance alarms and cars honking everyday. But good insulating windows can reduce considerably the amount of decibels you will hear. Let me show you how that sounds. [NOISE] I just see the subway coming. [NOISE] I'm not going to subject you to anymore of that. But as you can see you can be surrounded by all the plants in the world, but if the noise levels are unbearable, then you will have no peace. All the resources need to be supported and addressed when we talk about biophilic design. Now let's get back to our lesson. In this lesson, I wish to talk about our sense of hearing and give you a few tips how your home can be supportive of the sense in order to create more well-being. Because more and more people live in urban areas, traffic noise has become a serious disturbance. A study made by the World Health Organization links noise with high level of stress and lack of sleep, which in return is linked to tiredness, lack of concentration, and a series of health ailments like cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment in children, and teenagers. An interesting fact is that people can cope with noise somewhat differently. Some people are able to tune it out, with others never get used to it. Take into account what kind of person you are when picking a home in a noisy area. Just like the quality of air, the amount of noise you will be hearing is highly dependent on where your home is located and choosing that location right, is going to make the biggest difference between you feeling relaxed and balanced at home and not feeling bad. The first step is to really look at the neighborhood you will be living in. Check for the nearby traffic like roads and railways, check for big construction sites, check for industry buildings, dance studios, refrigeration and air conditioning technologies attached to your walls. Once you are inside the home, check the sound insulation of your windows. Window technologies have become more and more advanced and they are able to reduce considerable amount of traffic noise. If your windows have low STC rating or sound transmission class, and you find yourself having to install better sound insulating windows, here are a couple of features you will need to look at. One is the type of glass for the window. Some types of glass are specifically designed to reduce noise. Number 2 is the thickness of the glass. The thicker the glass, the higher the insulation. Number 3 is the number of glass layers. The more layers the better, of course, so you can opt for double or triple glazing. The space between the glass panes also matters. The greater the gap between the sheets of the glass, the better the noise reduction. Generally, when you search for a sound reducing window, you should look at the STC rating 40 or above in order to make a real difference to a traffic noise problem. The higher you can afford it though, the better. The problem with relying only on windows to keep noise out is that you need to open them at some point, either for ventilation purposes or in summer for cooling purposes. If you live in a climate with long hot summers, you'll find yourself choosing between two evils, either to be hot or to have a noisy environment. Therefore, make sure to consider shading like curtains and blinds, but also artificial cooling in order to mitigate your discomfort. Other things you might consider when looking for a home is the age of the building. Old buildings may lose some sound transmission qualities. You might ask your real estate agent about the sound insulation between apartments and how much precaution was taken in making sure that everyone had their privacy. You might also ask about quiet hours, house rules. Most apartment buildings have rules about the quiet period between 10:00 PM to 8:00 AM. These rules may also come from the cities themselves. For example, in Vienna, it's from 10:00 PM to 8:00 AM, but in the city of Graz which is not that far away, it's from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM, and additionally, on Saturdays from 12:00-3:00 PM. Every city has its own rules about this aspect. The bigger the city, the looser the rules, I would say. But this might also identify those quiet moments of time when you can relax a bit. If you find yourself that you are already moved in, but want to soundproof your home, I've talked more about this in another class of mine called Bedroom Design for Better Sleep. There I talk at length about the four ways you can reduce noise in your home, which are absorbing sound, reducing vibrations, plugging sound leaks, and using sound systems, complete with various tips on how to do it. I hope by the end of this lesson, you can remember that noise should not be taken lightly, especially when it comes to picking a home. 8. Tasting: Cooking: We are down to our last sense, which is tasting. Now technically you cannot taste your environment, but the design of your environment can make it more likely for you to cook healthy or not. Then why does this matter? Because what we eat can have an impact on our overall mood and happiness, and choosing a home that will make it easy for us to cook healthy is highly important. What are some key features of kitchens that you might need to look out for when picking a home? Or how might you have to redesign your kitchen in order to make it more supportive of your healthy cooking? The first thing you might check is, is it brightened, pleasant to be in? Do you naturally enjoy to be there or is it more like a train station? You pick what you need from it and live as quickly as possible. Do you have natural light from a window coming in? Is there an area where you can place some pots for herbs so you can have them fresh on hand when you cook? Oftentimes in small spaces, the kitchen space gets sacrificed in order to give occupants the maximum leading space, however, the kitchen needs is proper amount of space as well. Usually, the countertop space gets filled with various kitchen devices like water kettle, toaster, and mixtures. If the surface we have for cooking is already small, there's not a lot of space left on the counter for preparing the meal. Because of that, occupants who might have cook healthy for themselves at one point gradually drift towards more convenient, easy to prepare meals in order to not deal with the kitchen problem. If that's the case, look around for possibilities to extend your kitchen countertop. Might be able to pull a table close or could you add the mobile module to your kitchen? Could you add affordable table or maybe you can pull an element out from underneath? Simple ideas like this can make the experience of cooking more pleasurable and can make the difference between new cooking healthy or not. Another element that gets sacrificed in small kitchens is the refrigerator. Again, it's difficult to store fresh fruits and vegetables in small fridges. Because of that, we end up looking for more ready-made things that we can store in cupboards, slowly, the kitchen forces us to compensate for the lack of space by buying more ready-made unless healthier alternatives. But refrigerators don't have to be dull things. With a bit of imagination, you could make them into a piece of art as part of your living room décor. You will cover them in wallpaper or paint on them, or just pick one refrigerated that has a stylish design to begin with. It's up to your needs and budget, but don't let the size of the fridge dictate how many fresh fruits and vegetables you eat, and the level of your overall well-being. Finally, I want to talk about the kitchen triangle. What does that mean? One of the best ways to maximize usability in the kitchen is to place the fridge, the stove, and the washbasin inner triangle. This position works generally better than placing them in a row because it offers enough counter space without leaving the three elements too far apart. You might want to check for this feature when visiting a new home. To summarize all these ideas, whenever you visit the kitchen of a home you want to buy or rent try to ask yourself, is this more or less the surface I have now? Can I see myself cooking here? Is there enough surface on the counter for my kitchen robots? Check the size of the fridge, move between the fridge, the stove, and the washbasin. Does it feel comfortable? Because the more comfortable you feel in the kitchen, the more likely you are to dedicate time to cooking your own food. 9. Final Thoughts: Congratulations, you have made it to the end of the class. I hope you learned some new things and already feel inspired to apply them. If you wish to expand your knowledge even further on this topic, I encourage you to go to my Skillshare teacher profile. There you will find more classes on complimentary topics which I have no doubt you will love. If you're craving even more, I highly recommend that you explore the wealth of resources available on my website and within the attached Bonus resources PDF. There you will discover more classes, book suggestions, and free complimentary worksheets. Particularly the worksheets will help you deepen your understanding of the topics discussed in the class and identify the changes that will have the biggest impact on your personal well-being. If you're interested in more freebies or live classes, I encourage you to sign up to my newsletter. Each Sunday, I send out home design ideas straight to your inbox all tailored to promote a home that will help you become happier, healthier, and more creative. You'll be kept in the loop about my monthly Zoom calls and special events. That's where I have big free resources, book recommendations, and I'll let you know about upcoming classes. If you liked this class, I would appreciate the review. It tells Skillshare that you like my class and it encourages other people to discover my work. Please use the Discussion section to let me know your thoughts and questions about the class. I'll be happy to help you clarify any concept you do not understand. Additionally, if you leave a class project, I will be able to help you with more personalized and in-depth support. So I encourage you to share your home design progress with me. We are at the end, see you in the next class.