The wellness within …
If you think about which features of daily architecture gives you a better wellbeing, then the common advises are, cross ventilation in the sense that it allows to open windows facing to different directions. Ideally one window or door opens to East so the rays of morning sun can freely flow through the room, flat or house. In a hot climate shading is definitely a must but avoid dark corners, since sunlight will keep the germs at bay. Bright colours will cheer you up if used in a harmonic colour scheme. A well organized household with easy to clean surfaces and furniture, like ventilated cupboards and cabinets. Needless to say that a proper electrical installation and non-slippery surfaces are among the many other advises.
Some pictures for a Wellness Village in Puri, Orissa, India. Showing one of the Therapy Units, Reception and Snack Bar
Another important fact is to encourage your relation to nature and open spaces. A garden (or planters and pots) can be created or placed everywhere, be it in your front or back yard or on your balcony or terrace. See for example those lovely courtyards in traditional Goan Houses with its inner verandah allows you to circulate around an open space with decorative greenery like bushes or a tree. From my own experience, it is such a soothing time gazing at the gushing rain waters while sipping a cup of Vietnamese coffee at Sunaparanta’s courtyard café, the “Bodega” run by Chef Vandana Naik. The place is special and so is the coffee …
Simple associations which come into your mind hearing the word open space are breathe, open heart, open mind. Modern lifestyle has brought Man apart from nature but still he longs for it,- knowingly or not. Isolate him with steel, glass and concrete constructions and lots of air-conditioning and he will probably suffer from the notorious sick-building-syndromes. Parallel to this, the ugly anti-social tendencies will get a boost as his soul will shrivel faster and his mind become more selfish. But still there are options to develop spiritual exercises for inner strength on one hand and on the other bring a small piece of nature even into a tiny city apartment. Actually you will find in Japanese architecture wonderful examples for this matter. Same is with the in recent years upcoming vertical gardens done for e.g. by French designer Patrick Blanc which are an amazing addition to the horizontal roof gardens. Cleaning is Healing, so everyone can go beyond the own boundaries like the “Ugly Indian” movement and their Goan matching part the “Goan Rising”. What is it about? In a nutshell, citizens stop waiting for snail-paced bureaucrats and take cleaning and beautification of their roads and places into their own hands.
Since I’d started with wellness or wellbeing features related to architecture, with a short but important side track to inner wellness, I want to close this article with some thoughts about sauna. Looking at my hygrometer, showing 89% humidity, one may wonder do we really need a cabin full of hot and humid air in Goa? But like always if you dig deeper into it, you will be surprised by finding that sauna is practiced not only in freezing cold Finland but in Mexico (temazcal) and in the South of US (sweat lodges) since ancient times as well. The idea behind sauna is cleaning (again) the body through intensive sweating, taking a cold bath or shower afterwards to cool down and resting for some time (very important). From my own experience I never suffered from flu or cold while going thrice a week for half an hour into the sauna. So my wish is, have more saunas in Goa and swallow fewer antibiotics …
Joachim Haider
www.organic-architecture.com