Episode 2: From The Ground Up

Light is a cornerstone of life, second only to water. As diurnal creatures, humans are naturally awake during daylight and rest when it’s dark. Daylight not only aligns our internal clocks but also influences digestion, emotions, and energy levels.

When we consider wellness in our homes, we often focus on physical elements like paints, carpets, and finishes, but lighting is just as vital. Natural light is so integral to our health that the World Health Organization includes access to adequate lighting as part of the human right to adequate housing. Without it, our physical and mental health can suffer.

Natural Light: A Key to Wellness

For our ancestors, exposure to sunlight was effortless, but in today’s built environments, adequate lighting requires thoughtful design. Biophilic design principles aim to reconnect us with nature, making natural light a central element of a healthy home.

To maximize natural light:

• Window Placement: North-facing windows provide consistent, indirect light throughout the day. East, west, and south-facing windows may require blinds or drapes to manage heat and glare.
• Skylights and Atriums: These are great options for brightening darker spaces but should be designed to avoid excessive heat or discomfort.

Artificial Light: Enhancing Our Built Environments

Since the days of cave dwellers and firelight, humans have sought ways to extend the day. Artificial lighting is essential for modern living, but it can disrupt our natural rhythms if not used thoughtfully. For instance, blue light from screens can interfere with sleep, and using bright lights in the evening may reset your circadian clock.

Lighting Tips for Different Spaces

• Bedrooms:

  • Use bright, daylight-spectrum lights for activities like reading or homework.
  • Dim lighting in the evening to mimic sunset and create a calming atmosphere.
  • Incorporate bedside lamps for softer, focused light.

• Living and Dining Areas:

  • Install dimmable lights to adjust for various moods—bright for gatherings and soft for relaxation.
  • Use pendant lights in dining areas to encourage slower, more enjoyable meals.

• Kitchens:

  • Include task lighting (e.g., under-cabinet lights) for cooking and food prep.
  • Match overhead and task lighting in color temperature.
  • Use dimmers to transition the space from functional to ambient for dining or entertaining.

• Bathrooms:

  • Prioritize bright, even lighting for safety and grooming.
  • Add decorative sconces or pendants for visual interest.
  • Consider night lights for convenience without disrupting sleep.

A Thoughtfully Lit Home

The foundation of a healthy lighting plan begins with abundant natural light, supplemented by adaptable artificial lighting to meet your needs throughout the day and across seasons. A well-lit home supports work, rest, play, and overall well-being—lighting the way to a healthier lifestyle.

The Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) is no longer just an extra space—it's becoming a personal retreat designed to enhance well-being and promote a healthier lifestyle. By curating your ADU with a focus on wellness, you can create a sanctuary that nurtures both body and mind. Thoughtful design choices, like incorporating natural light, calming color palettes, and lush greenery, can transform your ADU into a space that encourages relaxation, mindfulness, and rejuvenation. It’s an opportunity to craft an environment where every detail contributes to your overall sense of peace and balance.

A commitment to wellness also extends to the materials and technologies you choose for your ADU. By prioritizing sustainable and non-toxic options, such as natural hemp fabrics, organic bedding, and low-VOC paints, you can create a healthier living space that minimizes exposure to harmful chemicals. Integrating air-purifying plants, energy-efficient systems, and natural ventilation further enhances the indoor air quality, making your ADU not just a place to live, but a space that actively supports your well-being.

Your ADU can be a source of inspiration for others seeking to prioritize wellness in their own lives. By showcasing how design and sustainability can work together to create a healthier environment, your ADU becomes more than just an additional dwelling—it’s a wellness retreat that encourages mindful living. Whether it’s through a serene outdoor area for yoga, a cozy nook for reading or meditation, or a layout that promotes flow and tranquility, your ADU can serve as a model for how thoughtful design can significantly enhance well-being.

CarbonShack’s nature-inspired home furnishings are sustainably designed and fabricated in the Los Angeles area. Our furniture, lighting, fabric and glazed ceramic tile take their cues from the many wonders of the natural world, from chlorophyll cell structures to intricate microscopic spores, from sea kelp to mycelium. We source urban forestry lumber, natural hemp fabrics, salvaged wood, and California clay. Our designs not only bring biophilic motifs into the home, they also imbue your interiors with a tactile sense of wellness and connection to nature.

The Mt. Washington Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) is contemporary and luxurious, while remaining at the same time sensitive both to the historic architectural fabric of its setting, as well as to its environmental impact. Our belief is that no structure, no furnishing, can be created without understanding the impact of its design on both the experience of the user, and its impact on the natural world. The process of design must be holistic. We are thoughtful about every step - from the building’s foundation to the furniture’s fabric, integrating functionality and beauty with the goal of bringing the natural world into the home.

Adding an ADU (essentially an additional home) to any property zoned for a single-family dwelling necessitates sensitivity to issues of privacy. and density. Integrating this new structure, even if intended as a home office, means grappling with the challenge of balancing a sense of separation within an integrated whole. This property, bounded at both top upper and lower ends by street frontage, lent itself perfectly to the creation of an ADU, since the upper street allows for a separate private entrance. The yard between the two units is steeply sloped, so creating terraces landscaped with fruit trees provides a leafy privacy screen, and privacy, between the upper and lower houses.

One of the defining architectural features of this historic neighborhood is the use of river rocks from the nearby arroyo. River rocks are found throughout the area in landscape walls, property walls, foundations, porches, and fireplaces. To tie the new unit’s design both to the historic fabric of the community as well as to the front house, the ADU sits atop two newly constructed arroyo stone-clad walls, set in a descending arc at the lot’s upper extreme. These foundational architectural elements emerge from the hillside, as if remnants, provocative ruins, from a long-neglected historic structure. Positioned on top of and between these stone walls, contemporary wood-clad boxes contain a bedroom, bath, kitchen, indoor and outdoor living spaces. By linking the building’s materiality to the adjacent community, the ADU fits seamlessly within the historicity of the neighborhood and its natural features, while at the same time making a thoroughly contemporary statement.

This well-insulated solar-powered ADU/all-electric house is the embodiment of a low carbon footprint. Since it is partially built into the hillside, the building takes advantage of the cooling effects of Mother Earth. Further, being situated under a historic 100-year-old Live Oak tree, heat gain is naturally reduced through the cooling effects of the spreading leaf canopy. Highly efficient electric heat pumps heat and cool the interior and provide hot water, and combined with LED lighting throughout, bring energy consumption down even more. Moreover, an induction cooktop and electric ovens in the kitchen eliminate the need for fossil fuel consumption. Thoughtfully and strategically reducing the overall energy needs allows for fewer solar panels to be deployed, which truncates the time-frame for both the ROI on the solar panel system, as well as true energy independence.

Our design/build firm consists of both designers and craftspeople, which enables us to seamlessly transform design concepts into reality. We guide our clients to help visualize their dreams, but we also widen the conversation by highlighting possibilities that may otherwise not have been considered – such as wellness, sustainability, environmental stewardship, and biophilia. We believe that true design is not just a concept, but a collaborative process that leads to a tangible reality - which is why what we design, we build.