New trend of interior design: healthy living, starting from home!
Have you ever thought of many modern urban diseases: nervousness, depression, insomnia, and even cancer, may be closely related to your home life. Of the VOCs (volatile organic compounds), formaldehyde is the most common indoor pollutant and is found in many architectural finishing materials such as fibreboard, plywood, acoustic panels, styrofoam and the like. The World Health Organization has identified formaldehyde as a carcinogen, long-term exposure can cause chronic respiratory diseases and even a variety of cancers. There is also a colorless, odorless radioactive radon from building materials such as granite, brick, cement and gypsum. Long-term inhalation of this gas, radon decay produced by the alpha particles in the human respiratory system can cause lung cancer.
Nowadays, people often talk more about environmental protection and urban healthy living. Modern people need a safer and healthier living environment. I took into account of eco-conscious interior design and decoration a few years ago to establish safety and health guidelines as a service requirement for the company, and incorporating the concept of sustainability as the company's vision.
I often tell my clients that "We create a safe house!" Of course it is not the kind of safe house for witness protection. I mean a safe house that provides all-round protection for the safety of household living, home health and smart environment. I would like to share with you a few key points:
Living room needs to absorb more natural light by improving the window area ratio. We leverage circadian lighting concept: day and night lighting changes and the physiological state of the body are tuned to each other.
The selected wood comes from the PEFC (Forest Certification Scheme) raw materials. I use quartz surface for the kitchen, an antibacterial material of no radon emission. Mattresses and pillows are state-of-the-art technology to monitor sleep quality and protect us from E-Smog pollution. The whole house is equipped with central air purification and de-humidification systems, tap water filtration systems, intelligent monitoring of security and sound insulation systems.
Readers may ask, with so many systems installed, how the house will look like? I personally advocate minimalist style, just think, when people now need to open the packaging twice to eat a piece of biscuit, manage so many apps on the phone, face with extreme light pollution, a home should be a place simple enough to let us relax and have some real rest. However, minimalism does not mean simple, as long as we use flexibility in dealing the space and with the help of modern technology, we can do simple design, with hidden mystery! Did you notice the latest iphone has simplified the classic HOME key, but do you think it is a simple phone?
It is my hope that more people will pay more attention to the healthy and safe design decoration. As the title suggests: healthy living, starting from home!
Darren Au-yeung
Chief Designer
Darren Design Studio