Holistic Interior Design: Transform Your Personal Space for Well-Being

1. Introduction: With simple actions, your personal space can make you feel more balanced and connected. Welcome to Interior Design for Wellbeing. I'm Steffi and this is Mary of Clear Studios. We believe that interior design is accessible for anyone who's interested in simple action within their space. Transforming the space around you can transform the space within. We've been working together on interior design projects based in New York City since 2016. Ranging from restaurant designs to office spaces, private residences. We use the ethos of holistic design to guide us through working on these different locations. The goal of this class is to empower you to take ownership of your personal space. We want you to leave feeling inspired and confident to create a space for yourself that promotes well-being. The course will be structured in four sections. The first section, we will introduce you to the concept of holistic design and share our five guiding principles. The second section is on technical and execution skills. The third section is going to be where we walk you through one of our client projects and show you, how all of these concepts and techniques get applied. Then finally, we'll get into the class project. It will all culminate in the end in your own personal redesign of your home. We're so excited for you to join us. By transforming your personal space, it can allow for you to feel more rooted and connected. We invite you to make a pot of tea and we'll see you in the course. 2. Class Project: For the class project, we encourage you to apply holistic design principles and techniques directly to your own personal space and environment. This can be anywhere from setting up a focal point by curating your meaningful objects on a shelf, to rearranging your furniture through a plan sketch. Even connecting further with nature in your room, how can you bring biophilia into your space? These are action-based offerings that can bring a new perspective. First, use your senses to help guide you to observe. The goal is for you to feel confident to create a home living space that promotes well-being. We invite you to share your project on the Skillshare dashboard with before and after photos. Really looking forward to connecting with you. 3. Holistic Design Principles: You might be wondering what holistic design is. It's basically what the word sounds like. It's taking into consideration the whole picture of the space. Holistic design is a growing term within the design industry, and more and more designers are adapting this as their main ethos to not just account for the smaller segmented areas of the space, but it's really about visioning the entire whole of the environment. Rather than labeling different aspects of the design, like this is a lab or this is a piece of furniture, it is sort idea that all of it's interconnected. By bridging the gap and making those deep connections, we can have more of this feeling-based experience. With holistic design, we see that everything is an interconnection of relationships. Really we start to develop a relationship with our space. We have identified five main principles that we practice for holistic design. They are senses, comfort, materials, biophilia, and care. We will be diving deeper into each of these elements. We hope that these different principles serve as tools for you to apply into your own personal space. Throughout the class, we are going to be getting in touch with our emotions and how they relate to the space around us. For this first exercise, just take a moment now. Notice just how you're feeling right now. Notice if any of your feelings are being influenced by the space around you. Ask yourself, how is this space supporting me? How is this space not supporting me? How could this space support me more? We invite you to write some of these answers down and keep it for a later section of the class. Now that you've gotten a little more in touch with the space that you're in and we've introduced holistic design as concept and what our guiding principles are, we are going to dive into the first one, senses. 4. Principle 1 : Senses: Our first principle of holistic design is senses. We have five basic senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. What is happening with these senses? Each sense sends information to our brain to help us understand and perceive the world around us. We root the practice of holistic design in our senses because this is our experience of any moment. This is what really brings us into the present. When we enter into any space, our subconscious is being activated on so many levels from our senses. We feel it's super important that to have this holistic design, we really take into consideration all the spectrum of the senses. When one thinks about design, sight might be the most primary sense that comes about. For a lot of people, design is all about how a space looks. It's about it looking beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, and this is super important. It's really important that when you come into the space, how it looks to you is really creating a landscape that's calm, nourishing, organized, because that's all going to get reflected back into your experience. The next sense is touch. Everything in our home is made out of some material. These materials have different qualities to them. Some can be soft, like this nice ragg we're sitting on. Some might be very hard, like a kitchen surface that's easier to clean. We feel that having this diversity of textures and touch for different functionalities of the space is another important aspect. Next, we have sound. This is something that often gets very overlooked. It's something that can really bring about an uneasy feeling in a space. If you have some machine that's making a weird sound or if you have roommates that are always playing loud music really late, all of these things in our sonic field are really deeply impacting us. With sound, we invite you to notice how it moves through your space. Notice if areas of your home are louder at certain times or quieter. Just starting to be perceptive can open you up to how the sound is impacting you, and then you can find creative solutions to neutralize what those different sounds might be, whether that's through getting a white noise machine for using at night, investing in some nice high-quality headphones to help you focus when you're working. Things like this. The next sense is smell. For us, smell is all about your air quality. It's all about bringing fresh air into your space through opening up a window, getting in a cross ventilation by having open windows on either side of the space. A lot of times, air can get very stagnant, and by opening up the windows and allowing fresh air to come through, it's such a way to bring a fresh energy into your space. Another technique is, like we have here, a humidifier, that you can also add in different fragrances, essential oils, into. So it's both moving this fresh energy through fresh air as well as bringing in a humidifier to make this very nice air quality in your own personal space. The final sense is taste. It's a bit of a stretch to how it fits in with interior design. For us, it really comes down to the kitchen, of having this place in your home where you can eat and nourish yourself and have all these amazing tastes and flavors come about. The kitchen is really the heart of the home. It's the hearth. It's this place that can really be such a source of nourishment. Another aspect of taste as it relates to well-being is water. Water is life. one tip for your own personal space is to get a portable water-filter that you can put in areas of your home that you're occupying all the time, whether it's a home office, your bedroom, your living room, somewhere that you can then have access to purified water and it encourages you to stay hydrated throughout the day because it's just right there. When Barry and I walk into a space to work on a design project, we apply our senses through taking in the space. We invite you to do the same. So grab a notebook and just take a moment to observe your current environment and the space around you. Write down what you notice for each of the senses. Keep those answers that you wrote down. We'll revisit them in our technical part 1 section, which is all about observation. For now, we'll see you in the next video, which is our second principle of holistic design, comfort. 5. Principle 2 : Comfort: In this video we'll be talking about comfort. The idea of comfort is that you can create your sense of belonging and really like a sense of home in your own personal space. What makes you uniquely you? I invite you to just take a moment to look around your current environment and take note of what makes you, you. This could be anything from a personal object that was given to you, maybe something that you're connected to on a visual level. But maybe think more on what it looks visually, but more than meaning and feeling that you get when you look at this object. Basically your room or your most personal space is going to be a collection of your most valuable. When I say valuable, it's the most meaningful objects in your space. The way that we curate a space and curation is just a fancy term of putting objects in a specific area, is that it really is just up to you. There's no judgments of how something should look. If you have the most meaningful experience through that action, then it's the most meaningful setup and visual display. We all have a story to share and by narrating that story in your space, you can create this really deep sense of connection and comfort. For me with an R space I have deep connections to various objects like this teapot. This teapot for me creates a sense of home and belonging. It really creates this beautiful invitation for people to come into your room and to sit down and share a cup of tea. Let's take this principle of comfort and have more of this hands-on experience. Come over to my room and I'll show you a quick demonstration of how I apply comfort to my own personal space. 6. Demonstration : Focal Point: I'm going to show you how to set up a focal point within your space. I'm using the top of this mantle. You can apply this to basically any surface that you have a really large vantage point to look at. This can be the top of the dresser, above a desk, or really any shelf that you have within your space. The process of placing your focal point is that idea of telling your story, and connecting through your objects in a meaningful way. What you're going to do is maybe have a collection of the objects that you have, and start to arrange them and treat this as an open process. It doesn't have to look perfect right away, but until you start placing the objects, whether it's in groupings or along the surface that you have, you'll start to be able to narrate your story through these objects. The first thing that I'm going to target is the backdrop of your focal plane. I like to use mirrors because this provides a reflection that you have a new vantage point when you're looking at your focal point. This is the backdrop that I put together. Basically, it was a really organic process of taking one contrasting backdrop along with two reflections. You're going to see that play of scale, and really embrace that, a lot of the objects that you have are going to vary in size. Through layering them, it does create this new depth. I think this looks good for me. I'm going to just move on to placing the objects. There's an interesting design aesthetic that involves objects of three, and I'll start to demonstrate how and why we're drawn to the number 3. This is the backdrop of three, and then I'm going to go into placing different objects and things like that in proportions of three. Here's an example of groupings of three that I had mentioned earlier. When you're selecting different objects, I think contrast is a really interesting way of deciding what goes great with something. Here is a living snake pot in this vase, along with some little llamas that I found when I was traveling through Peru, and this is a vase that I found while I was going cross-country. I love integrating vases within your focal point, especially when the vases are more one and a kind feeling. They're more unique, for me when you work with a vase that has more of this balance of sculptural look, and also function. When you work with different vases, you have an opportunity to put plants within them. What I love to play around with is the balance of living material and dried material. This is a dried grass leaf. What I love most about it is there's lots of texture happening, and I can keep for a really long time. It's also great to integrate things that you found within your local area. For example, I found these on a hike in the nearby trail. It's nice spend, you can have a deeper connection with what's happening directly outside your home, and bringing it inside. Here's a way of seeing your options between integrating plant life within your vases. Here's the dried leaves that I had found, and more of these live cuttings that you can put within your vase. An awesome thing about growing jungly plants like the monstera, bird of paradise, or even the snake plant, is that when they get too big to a certain point, you can cut the plant, and then use them as cuttings within your vase. I'm just showing you what it looks like to have more of a dried vase that has texture in it, opposed to something that's living like a cutting. Both of these vases, I was able to find out little chops within the area, so I have this more unique connection. Again, it's all about telling that story with unique objects that you feel really connected to. A way to document this really quickly in your process, is to just take a photo and see how these groupings look. It's going to help you document your overall process and see where you started. A great advantage of swapping out what's going on in your focal point, is it starts to freshen up the space. It allows for your eye to have a new experience with the objects that are placed. Things just have a new perspective when you're looking at your focal point of having a feeling-based experience of the objects that are very meaningful for you, and also a aesthetic exercise where you get to play with the different proportions and scales and shift around different objects depending on how they look. Feel free to take a before and after photo of your focal point, so that we can take a look at where your progress was from before and after, and they can guide you through a journey of you putting together your own unique mantelpiece. Hopefully this was an engaging process for you to apply your own objects into a focal point. The idea is to carry things in a really exciting way that's more personable to you. At the end of the day, it's all about how you feel when you look at those objects. 7. Principle 3 : Material: In this video, we'll present our third principle of holistic design, materials. Materials are the physical things that give structure and actually manifest the environment that we're in. It includes all the surfaces, all of the furniture. It's everything. For us, we take an approach of mindful materials. There are so many different options out there in our world. In this video, we want to share a little more about how you can be discerning about the types of materials that you bring into your own personal space. A baseline for materials. We have natural materials, synthetic materials, and composite materials. Natural materials are those that are found in nature and have not been made by humans. Usually they're very minimally processed so that their natural beauty can shine through. By comparison, synthetic materials are manmade and cannot be found in nature. Synthetic materials are usually created in laboratories by mixing different chemicals or prepared compounds together, to make this new material. Composite materials are somewhere in between. They often mix together both natural and synthetic materials. There is no one size fits all. It's not that synthetic materials are bad and natural materials are good. But it's very important that you're mindful about how you're bringing these different materials into your space. We definitely have a preference for natural materials. There is a couple of reasons for this. One is that, they often give you a sense of direct connection to the natural environment. They also are minimally process so oftentimes they don't contain a lot of different chemicals or things that might create an unhealthy living environment. For this lesson, we have an activity for you. Get out your notebook and start to just observe around your space the types of materials that you have. Maybe you have wood, or stone, metal, plastic, glass. Just write down some notes about the materials that you have in your space. The second part is to bring to mind materials that you have a positive emotional connection with. Maybe that's because it's from a past experience or a place that you really love. See if there's any materials that come to your mind that don't necessarily have to be in your personal space, but that you feel you have more of this emotional personal connection with and also write those down in your notebook. 8. Principle 4 : Biophilia: One of the main components of holistic design is biophilia. What this means is the love of life or the love of living forms. As humans, we're always inspired by nature and bringing that into all of our spaces and environments. Seeing natural forms and patterns has a beautiful effect on how we experience personal space. When biophilia is applied to architecture, that means the actual building has a deeper connection to nature. Through better ventilation, natural lighting, the integration of plants, and even inspirations of nature within the space, improves the well-being for the people within that building. Biophilia takes preferences to a lot of natural shapes and forms. For example, the nautilus shell is always a commonly used form of inspiration. As it curves out in a spiral, many architects and designers take this as a form of inspiration to remove angled walls and tight spaces. When we as humans interact more with these deeper forms of biophilia, the sense of belonging and a more natural experience resounds from those spaces. Biophilia describes the connection that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of the life. Philia is the attractions and positive feelings that people have towards organisms, species, habitats, processes, and objects in their natural surroundings. Biophilia design endeavors to forge this connection by leveraging and inserting a lot of these natural patterns and spatial conditions into the built environment. It puts us more in a positive space and actually helps us focus when we are in these spaces that have an intention to connect deeper with nature. Another connection to biophilia is beauty. We're so inspired by nature and through are all these textures and patterns, things that we find that are already existing in our exterior environment, we can start to bring inside. When you start to notice some of these more natural patterns, it really helps break up the space when we're talking about walls, carpets, textures, the integration of plants, also. When you are in your current environment, start to think about what in this current environment that you're in, is inspired by nature and how can you bring more of that inside. One main component with biophilia is looking outside the window and noticing what your connection is to the sun. A main aspect of that is where is the sun actually rising from your location of the window? This is how humans connect deeper with nature. It's the cycle of the moon, of the sun, and how we relate our earth to the universe. One home solution to integrating biophilia is the use of indoor plants. You see behind us, is a large collection of plants. We're actually using a light that powers the plants. 9. Principle 5 : Care: In this video, we'll present our final concept of holistic design care. Taking care of your space is one of the most integral aspects of holistic design. If you take care of your space, your space will take care of you. It's all about forming a connection to your space. It's a relationship that you form and you keep on a day-to-day basis. We feel that holistic design, it's not a one time thing. It's not something that you just do one day and you're set forever. It's really this process. It's this continual showing up and a continual sense of care towards your space. One strategy for developing a deeper sense of care and relationship to your own space is to create a home focal point. This can be an area of your home that you feel a special connection with. Here you can place different objects, art work, things that you have this more emotional connection to. This can really be a place that you always make sure to keep tidy and a place that you can come to and you're not feeling so great to recharge and feel reinvigorated. A focal point can take many different forms and shapes. One example that we often work with is the mantel of a fireplace. This is a natural form that when you walk into a space, you are drawn to it. Oftentimes, it's centered in a room and we choose that location. If you don't have a fireplace, no big deal. There's many different ways that you can find your own personal focal point. A lot of times it can be maybe centered in a space or it could be in a corner. It really depends on what feels good for you and just taking into consideration the rest of the picture that you have going on. When we form this relationship with our space and we start to have this deeper sense of connection, it really does give up so much back to us. Like we said before, the space around impacts the space within. As we show care to our space, ultimately, it's showing care to ourself. For this lesson, we have a little exercise for you. We invite you to find two or three things that you do for your space that shows your space care. For example, this could be watering your plants, it could be making your bed every day when you wake up. Find what those things are for you and write them down. Those were our five holistic design principles. We'd really hope that they were super informative. Now, we're going to move on to the technical part of this class, where you'll get to see some of the holistic design principles being applied in action. 10. Technique 1 : Observation: Welcome to our next session of the class technical. In this session, we are going to walk you through some action-oriented aspects of design that will help you to bring the principles into your space. Our first technical is observation. Observation is how we begin each project. We take into account the place that we're in. We really notice what is the ecology of the place. With ecology, we are looking to not only what is inside your actual physical space, but all of the plants that are around, the animals, the other people, the characteristics of the neighborhood or the surrounding lands. We really look at how your space fits into this larger context. Through observation, we can develop the sense of relationship with our space. This brings in our first principle of holistic design senses. Our senses are the key to how we observe. We use them as a tool to connect deeper with the space that we're in. For observation, we really look at what we see, what we hear, what we taste, what we smell, and what we feel. We also go a layer deeper. It's not just looking at each of these senses on their own, but how do they all come together and how does that inform how we feel in the space? We're really looking at, what are these more subtle aspects of a space. This can also come from maybe a previous tenant or a previous use of the building. It's not only what is present in the space now, but what has been present in that space before. Observation is really trying to get this whole story and really help you to feel connected with the space that you're in. We have an exercise for you to do, to practice this technique of observation. We're going to approach it as a mindfulness practice. So we invite you to put your phone away and just make sure that you don't have a lot of distractions going on right now. We're going to start by just grounding into our bodies. You can close your eyes if you're comfortable and just bring attention to your breath. Noticing how the breath feels in your body. Noticing how your body's feeling right now and tapping into this connection to the earth beneath you. Grounding into your body, through grounding into the earth. Finding yourself and really coming into this present moment. You can take however long you need and once you've found this present grounded state, you can open your eyes and start to bring attention to what you're observing in your space. You can use the senses as we reviewed before. Slowly moving around your space, observe what your senses are noticing and beyond that, start to observe how you're feeling. How do these different areas of your space make you feel? Take this practice and do it on your own, with time, however much time that is for you. 11. Technique 2 : Space Planning: Our next technical skill is space planning. So once you've done the practice of observation in your space, we have a three-step approach for space planning. The three steps are determining your needs, setting up your zones, and creating an implementation plan. The first step is determining your needs. Tapping into how you wish the space to make you feel, what activities you're going to be doing in the space, the basic functions of that space. The next step is creating some different zones based on whatever your needs are. You can really take into account your entire space for this. For me, I live in a home where we have a communal kitchen, communal living area, and I also have my personal bedroom. In the personal bedroom, I do work from home, so I'm also creating a home office in there. So I have my bedroom where I sleep and work, the kitchen where I'm eating and preparing meals and the living space where I'm being able to relax, host friends. So think about for you, all of these things might be in one space, if you're living in a studio apartment. Or you might also have an extra bedroom or a separate office space. Take into account your needs from the first step. Then in the second step, we're going to zone out and see how all of those different needs fit into your actual space. The final third step is implementation. Once you've figured out what your needs are and where these different needs will be served within your space. It comes to actually doing those things. With implementation, there's many different strategies. When we do interior design for our own personal spaces, we have so much freedom and flexibility. It's really not about getting it right the first time. We can always rearrange and move things around. So it's not so important that we have these final drawings and final renderings of what the space is going to look like. We're going to do an exercise for the space planning and get into this three-step process so that you get a better sense of how you can do this for your own space. We definitely aren't over planners, but it is nice to give a little bit of time at the beginning to get your bearings and plan out a little bit for your space. 12. Demonstration : Drawing Plan: We will need a pen or marker, tape measure, ruler, scissors, and construction paper. There will be four steps to our space planning exercise. They are, observation, function and intention, measuring, and arrangement. Get out your notebook and write these four steps on the left side of the paper. For our first step, observation, use your senses, go through your space, and notice what you observe. Next, move on to figuring out what is the function or intention for this space. Write down the aspects that you need this space to help you fulfill. Third, we'll move on to measuring. Measure out the space that you are planning for, and write it down. Then figure out, using the size of the paper that you have, and the size of your space, to create a scale drawing. In this example, we will use a scale of half inch equals one foot. This would be a five inch by 10 inch scale drawing, that will equate to a 10 foot by 20 foot space. Figure out a scale that works for your space using simple math, and then using your ruler, draw out your space to scale. It's also helpful to write down what scale you used for reference. Always remember to notate where the North is for your space. Next, add in the location of any windows and doors. Make sure to draw in the swing of the door. Next, figure out the key furniture items that will be in the space. Write them down, then using your measuring tape, measure each furniture item. Once you've measured them all, then using your scale, figure out and cut out a two-scale rectangle, or whichever shape your furniture is, from the construction paper. Write the name of each furniture item on the paper. Then we move on to our final step, arrangement. Arrange the different component pieces in the space. This is a tool to help you plan to see what pieces you have, what pieces you might want to get, and how things will fit in your space without having to move everything around. Things do look differently on the paper though, so make sure to test things out in real life when you are in the space itself. I hope this was a helpful tool, and you can use this four-step process in future space planning. 13. Technique 3 : Color: The next technical skill is color and light. This relates mainly to our sense of sight for our holistic design principles. When you walk into a room, your subconscious is immediately affected by the color of the walls. This is because that specific color can either make you excited, calm, or even relaxed. Colors can act in three ways: active, passive, or neutral. There is no right or wrong, it's just important to understand the intentions of the colors and how they make us feel. If you intend to have more of this active experience in your room, maybe you should go with a more brighter tone of color. If you're looking for more of this passive experience where the room is really calm and collected, going for more of a cooler, less saturated tone. Depending on the size of the room, the color of the walls can either make the space feel warm and bright and larger, or smaller cozier and even more intimate, if that's your intention. The color red is a really intense tone, it can definitely stir up a lot of excitement. This color is primarily used in a lot of public spaces. It might not be best for your bedroom, but it could be great for an entertainment space or a location where you want some of that energy to be more exciting. The color purple has one of the darkest values, and people love choosing it for its dramatic effect. For me, choosing a lighter shade of purple more, that is, in the hue of gray mixed with purple, can add a more calming effect for the bedroom. The color green is the most deeply connected to biophilia. It reminds us of nature and bringing exterior elements inside. The color green has a really calming effect, and it can also be great for the living space and even also the bedroom. Neutrals are my personal favorite. They are more grayed out version of those specific colors. It's nice to use those color palettes that bring a more calming, tranquil effect to your space. When choosing the different colors on the walls, it's important to consider what you'll even have in the space, meaning furniture, artwork, all of these different things that compose what our spaces embody, both the complimentary colors on the wall. If you go for a really bright tone color, it might be nice to consider more of these neutral palletes of furniture, colors, and textures. If you're going for more of a neutral tone on the walls, you can have a little more flexibility with the different patterns and bright colors that are happening within your furniture and both your bedding. Having a more holistic approach with the way that you paint your space is also super helpful when you consider many different rooms and locations within your home. Maybe the entry can be a really bright moment where you invite people to walk in, then you consider what the living room will also be. Maybe that's meant for entertainment or for more of a relaxation. Then when you consider the kitchen, especially in our home, we have lots of integration of plants. Because of that, with all of our natural wood finishes, we selected more of this light beige tone. Another thing to consider is the finish of paint. This basically means how glossy and reflective that paint is. Eggshell and sun are great to consider for the kitchen. These specific finishes of paint are really easy to clean, and they're really durable type of finish for large traffic areas. My personal favorite for the bedroom is actually a flat. There's something about the flat finish of paint. It brings more of this calming experience when you're in the room. The paint is less reflective and you actually have more of this cozy, warm environment in a space where you want relaxation. Here's my process of selecting paint. This is a really great tool that everyone has access to. This is called a color fan. Basically you can go into any Benjamin Moore or paint store and they generally have this, so you can reference. I'm going to go through some of the tones of green, which embodies more of that idea of biophilia. A great way to consider how you choose your color is process of elimination. I find it really helpful when you can select a color, but also notice all the other colors around it. How does that color look complimentary to the other colors? By that process of elimination, you can come to more of a decision of what color you'd like on the walls. If we go to this specific line, we have the sage, artichoke, and garden path. This gives you a gradient of that specific color. A process of choosing the color is you can select one that you're drawn to, and then maybe selecting a lighter shade. The reason why I go on the lighter side of that color is you want to consider the entire environment and space. Also what that specific space looks like at night and different times of day. You might also have specific shadows happening in your room, so that color might read a little bit darker in the shadow. Also, you might just choose the color based off of the name. Flowering herb, tent of men, pandas or tad. So have fun with it. 14. Technique 4 : Light: Lighting is also a main thing to consider when you're designing the space. One One that we describe lighting as designers is the Kelvin temperature. The Kelvin temperature is anything from 2,500-3,000 describes more of a warm fire lighting. Then on the other spectrum you have 5,000 kelvin, which is more described to be a cooler lighting. This type of light can be found in hospitals and different environments where you really need this cool light temperature to create focus in the environment. There's many different ways to apply the setting of lighting. If you're having a dinner party and you want more of this intimate experience, choosing more of the candlelight or lighting and light bulbs that are more within the range of 2,500 K-3,000 can add a more warm enriching experience for the people that are over your place. Another use of lighting is for galleries. When you're walking into a gallery and you want to display the painting or serve the artwork on the wall to its true exact color, you might want to choose as a gallerist a 5,000 K cooler temperature light. This is the type of light where you can read with your eyes what the specific colors on the walls. Linking biophilia back into lighting, as we're always trained to integrate nature into our space, we as humans are also connected with the cycle of the sun. During the day, it's nice to have bright lights in your room so you can feel more energized and focused. During the night as the sun is setting, it's important to consider the quality of lights that you have in the room. This basically means if you have a really bright task light or your computer screen late at night reflects more of this cooler temperature of Kelvin, it might keep you up late at night. With morphous mindfulness practice is when you're watching the sun start to set, it's nice to start with the task lights with dimmer so you can reduce the low light in your room. Also there's lots of settings on your laptop and cell phone where you can add more of this orange hue to your technology when you're looking at it at night. It's nice to be in connection with your environment and start to turn down and dim the lights so you can prepare for the night. Color and light are very interconnected. The type of color you see on the walls is also connected to the type of light you have in your space. As this activity, I invite you to walk around your personal home and take note of the type of lights that are going on with your space. Write down what you think that temperature of light is, and maybe go around the space and take a note of the colors of the walls also, and how they interconnect with each other. Then the next step of that exercise is choose a different time of day. Maybe the first time you do this during the daylight hours, the next time you can do this is when the sun is setting and maybe take note of how the space itself alters throughout the day. A mindful approach for this is when you start to notice how you're personally affected by the lighting in your room, you can alter it so you can control how you want to feel. 15. Technique 5 : Ethical Sourcing: The next technical skill is ethical sourcing. We really love integrating this step into our process of design. This means we're working with local carpenters, fabricators, and vintage shops within the area. This promotes more of a sense of community and local economy, which strengthens everyone around you and also your space. Creating a deeper meaning within your space so you can tell a deeper story of where all the objects came from. My favorite thing to do is go to vintage shops, and the best part about this is you go in with an open mind. Within this personal process of mind, I sometimes find myself surprised that I'm attracted to these specific objects. They can be both furniture items or accessories. It's also a very unique experience when you find an object, and you want to design the entire space around that one object. Ethical sourcing most relates to our principal design for comfort. Comfort is that idea of bringing together objects that have more of this deeper meaning, and it creates a deeper sense of belonging in your personal space. Always check out your local thrift shop because you never know where you're going to find. For example, I found this awesome vase, and it's super exciting to me that it was available at the local thrift shop. I had no idea it was going to be there, and it's one of my favorite pieces. This is definitely a mantelpiece. Another way for ethical sourcing is connecting directly to the sellers and artisans. A nice way to do that is through Etsy. On Etsy, you can find so many different types of potteries, textiles, things that artisans from all over the world are selling directly from their shop. Another way we love working with artisans is getting custom pieces designed directly with them. This creates more of a sense of connection to the person that's making it, and then you can also feel like you're designing something with them. They're also always down to be challenged with new ideas that you might present their way. Definitely check out Etsy and Instagram, use those two platforms to see what type of objects that you can find, and do your research. Along with powering the local economy, you also have craigslist. This is basically your neighbors, people that live right next to you, that are posting things that they are willing to sell. An activity for ethical sourcing is, observe your space and maybe think about the specific furniture that you are seeking to go into your space. With that in mind, I invite you to look at all these different websites of where you can find that furniture, along with craigslist. In doing so, try to form together a price analysis, and challenge yourself to see if you can get the best price point for the most unique piece. 16. Technique 6 : Plants: The next technical skill is working with plants. This is a really fun aspect of what we do. Working with plants, touches on the holistic design principles of biophilia and care. Because we're always inspired by nature bringing in the exterior environment like house plants can elevate both your mood, your creativity, and it also reduces stress. When choosing plants, it's great to consider the resiliency of them, meaning jungle plants actually are highly adaptable and they can thrive in both low-light and high-light settings. A few of these jungle plants can be the Snake plant, the Monstera, the Philodendron and all of these can really revamp your space into an oasis and a jungle. Another thing to consider when working with plants is the lighting conditions you have in your room. When you're in your home, depending on what bedroom it is, there are so many different lighting conditions of where the window is connected to the orientation of the sun. In consideration with this, you can work with different types of plants that work with those varying light settings. If you have a really low natural light setting bedroom, don't be feared, there are so many different solutions that you can integrate into your bedroom. One company we love to work with is Soltech. They designed a photosynthesis light that integrates with a warm Kelvin light setting. So with this warm light, it makes the plants really happy. Another local company we love to work with is Hey Horti. Hey Horti offers a weekly or monthly plan subscription. You can get a new plant delivered directly to your home, and it's a nice way to learn how to work with different types of plants. So an activity is walk around your home and observe if there is a location where you can put a plant. Take in all the light settings, and do your research, find a plant that is perfectly suited for that specific light setting. If you have a low-light environment, go back to those solutions that we provided for you with the plant lights to integrate these plants into your home. When you offer a thriving environment for your plants, the plants will start to give back to you. 17. Demonstration : Setting Space: Okay. Each of these terms in this case. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Okay. 18. Technique 7 : Organization: In this video, we are going to share our last technical skill. Organization. Organization is super key. When our spaces are organized, they feel calm and they feel supportive for us. We take a two-step approach with organization. First, there's creating your system, and second, there's maintaining your system. Creating your system, what does that look like? There's a lot of different techniques for creating an organization in your home. For us, our approach is based on creating a home for each of your objects, having a place that everything lives, having somewhere that you know each object in your home goes. Through doing this, it's very easy to keep things organized because everything has its own space. Some tips for how to start this process of home organization for yourself. One thing that I do is take things in your home and group them together. When we group like things together, it's just so much easier for our brains. We don't have to be searching in a million places to find something. Another tactic that we use is letting go of things. We are always getting more and more things in our lives, so it's super important that we also let go of things and clear out our spaces. One tactic for this is to take whatever you're trying to organize and make three piles. In the first pile, are things that you love, that you can't live without, that you definitely want to keep. Then in the second pile, are things that you like, but they aren't your favorite things. They might not be things that you use all the time. Maybe there's some sentimental value and connection to them. So you're not quite ready to let them go, but there's not something that you've maybe used in the past few months or even few years. Then in the third pile, put things that you are ready to let go of, things that you no longer use that are no longer serving you. With this third pile, you're going to donate that. You can bring it to Goodwill or Salvation Army, somewhere where someone else can have a second life with those objects. This second pile, the things that you like, you can put that in a bag and put it somewhere in the closet or where you have a storage space, and leave it for a month. Then when one month comes around, you can put a notification in your phone, go and look through that stuff again and really see, did you miss any of that over this past month? Are you really going to use it in the future? If there are certain things that you feel you want to keep and that do still serve you, keep those things. The rest of those things, let them go. Of course, this first pile of the things that you love, those are the things that you're going to keep. Through going through this process of really seeing your connection to these different objects, you can open up space, physical space for there to be less things, less clutter and less things that are just sitting around gathering dust and not really serving any function for your life anymore. Once you've created your system, the next step is maintaining that system. Our approach towards maintaining the system is to create a checklist for yourself. A list of things that you want to do each week for your space to make it stay clean and organized. Another approach that we take is seasonal clearing. This ties into our principle of biophilia, of noticing the changes of the season around you. Seasonal clearing helps you to transition things in your space depending on the season. Another tip for creating your system is to tap into that first principle of senses. Specifically touch, and go around your space and physically touch every object, and feel it. This can help you to be more connected to these objects, and really notice if something isn't serving you any longer or if something is actually amazing, and you want to then bring it and move it somewhere else. Having this physical connection can really help you to know on this deeper, more intuitive level if you want to keep something in your space or not. 19. On Site : Jajaja Restaurant: Hi. Welcome to Jajaja Plantas Mexicana. We are at the second location in the West village of New York City. Come on in. This project for us has been really pivotal for our studio and our development. The first location we started working on four years ago. It's been this beautiful journey of working with the owners to really develop the whole concept of what this space is all about. Really hone in of what is the feeling here and what is the vibe of Jajaja? We had a very organic process. The first location being in Chinatown. We converted a Chinese bakery into what was discovered of so many really beautiful design details in the original 1920s, when it used to be an ice cream parlor. That was through the driving direction for the overall design aesthetic. It was starting to peel away all the layers that were existing and exposing what was going on in the space. The idea of restoration as we're designing. One of the main things that we found during that process of investigation was the floor. The floor really inspired us both with its colors and its shapes and patterns. In this location when we came here, we recreated that original 1920s floor from the original location into this one. This is a great moment for us to take something that was original from somewhere else, replicate it, and continue the consistency of the design aesthetic. It's all about integrating a moment of overall floor that would normally be overlooked. We wanted to really celebrate the floor being a beautiful design integration. An important direction for our design was to create a very homey experience. We love creating environments where you feel like you're walking into someone's home. It's almost like when you walk into this location, it feels like you're traveling. We wanted to celebrate those moments of the mix and matching of colors, patterns, textiles all coming together so that you feel like you're in this other worldly location. We loved working with artisans to create a lot of the lighting and the textiles that you see Mary and I sitting here. A large part of that is working with artisans to create that handmade feeling. You really do notice when you're in a space and things are very unique and handmade. It celebrates that moment of travel and connecting different artisans together all over the world. I'm really thinking about this idea of the ethical sourcing and buying things from these artisans who are making them with their hands. It was a really great moment for us to be able to support a lot of these artisans from other parts of the world as well as artisans locally who made things like this table and all of the seating, really using the natural materials as much as we could. A large part of us as designers is telling the story through the objects and patterns and textures. When you come in, it really feels like you're in a lot of different locations. Lighting is such an important aspect of designing a restaurant space. We want everyone to feel really comfortable and homey when they are sitting down and enjoying the space. When we mentioned earlier of the 2,200 level for the Kelvin light temperature, that just means that we used a really warm spectrum to have that candlelight feeling when you're inside the restaurant. Having there be many sources of light. We really have focused on these variations of the quality of light. Having there be all these different sources of light also allows us to play with the dimming levels and really transition from daytime into evening time. We found that when we have a lot of different sources of light, it allows one to play with these different quality of lights depending on the time of day and the mood that we want to evoke in the space. We connected with biophilia, with the use of plants at Jajaja. There's plants everywhere. It's a plant-based restaurant. We wanted people to feel that they're in this oasis of plants. In the front of the restaurant, we have these open bay windows with lots of light. We have succulents that dot the front along with different jungle plants. When you walk in through the space, there's this insight corridor that actually it doesn't have so much light. As mentioned before, we integrated the use of soul which is one of the plant-based spectrum lights that makes plants happy. Though inside the center corridor, we have integration of plants dotting that area. This was really great because this is a super long space. In the middle there's no so much light at all. By bringing in the Soltech in all of these plants, it's really creating this atmosphere and environment there that makes one feel like they're more outside. It's that connection to biophilia. We want people to feel like they're doing a plant walk. The first step is observing what the lighting conditions are and seeing what type of plants do really well in those specific areas. For the materials of the space, we used a lot of wood with the tables, the seating, also putting wood on the ceiling to really bring in this warm, almost cabin like feel into the space. Using an all-natural zinc metal on the bar, ceramic tiles both for the floor as well as accents throughout. We have the woven baskets with the lights, stucco on the walls, really celebrating all of these different natural materials and bringing them together into this holistic picture of the space. We really wanted to share this project with you all so that you can get inspired and see how some of the things we've done in this space can be applied to your own home environment. For us, this really started with the feeling of how we wanted people to be experiencing this space. As we mentioned, through the lights, the variety of textures, the plants, all of these aspects, they come together to create this mood and vibe of comfort, relaxation, and play. This is a really colorful fun space. Learn from this and see for your own space if you want to bring out this quality of vibrance, and playfulness, and eclecticism. Or maybe you want to go with something that's more minimal, and zen, and quiet, really tapping into what that mood and feeling that you want your space to have. That can be a great starting point to then figure out how to integrate all of the other aspects into your design. Yeah. Definitely this level of eclecticism and things that remind you of travel. Don't be afraid to have more of this mixture of different items and things. Not anything really has to match, which is of really beautiful freeing experience for us. Don't feel like this has to match because of that. It really is if you love it, and it's something that brings this sense of vibrancy into your space. Definitely go for it and see what comes with the whole integration of telling your story of so many different eclectic ways to show that. Definitely at Jajaja, even though this is a commercial space, we treated it like it was our own bedroom. You'll notice some of the similar patterns coming into play when you're inside our homes or in our dining space collectively. We really wanted to share that experience. 20. Summary: Thank you all so much for participating in our class. We hope that you got a lot out of it. We went through our five principles of holistic design. We shared with you six technical skills for how you can implement those principles into your space. We walked you through Jajaja, one of our favorite projects that we've done. We really hope that you're feeling inspired and empowered, that you can really take on this role of holistic interior designer for your own space. >> We also took you through two demos and a lot of that is sharing this more action-based experience that you can directly apply to your space. We would love to see before and after shots that you guys had an opportunity to transform your own personal space, and just have that as a design experience and a design process, and even a discussion that we can start to have. A lot of what we do is about process, so feel free to jump in and see where it takes you. We really encourage you to take those before and after photos, post them into the class group, so we can also learn from each other. We'd love to see what you come up with and we're super excited for everything that you're going to do for your personal space. Get into the holistic design and please share with us what you are able to come up with during this class. Thank you all so much for joining us. Again, we're Clear Studios, and you can find us through social media. Our Instagram is clearstudios.nyc. We've been posting lots of inspiration there. Find us there if you want to keep up with our journey and keep up with being inspired by holistic interior design. >> Feel free to reach out to us at any moment to share your own personal design journey. We're always down to talk with you and even share some more additional advice that can be really specific to your space. Thank you so much for taking our class. >> Bye.