29th September 2014
5 Ways Natural Light Can Transform Your Life
Space
We just love this house down on St. Andrews Beach on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. It’s like there is a seamlessness between the inside and out. The windows ‘borrow’ the space from outside and give us this beautiful, expansive feeling. The complete house and its location is very considered. All of the spaces in the house are all cleverly designed to reap the benefits of the abundant natural light at different times of the day. The light is a constant companion in the living areas and the windows are crafted to frame the landscape creating ‘living art’ on the walls. The project uses a combination of double and single glazing and louvres to make the most of the sea breezes.
Design
We just love this house down on St. Andrews Beach on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. It’s like there is a seamlessness between the inside and out. The windows ‘borrow’ the space from outside and give us this beautiful, expansive feeling. The complete house and its location is very considered. All of the spaces in the house are all cleverly designed to reap the benefits of the abundant natural light at different times of the day. The light is a constant companion in the living areas and the windows are crafted to frame the landscape creating ‘living art’ on the walls. The project uses a combination of double and single glazing and louvres to make the most of the sea breezes.
Design
You can tell when you walk into a really well designed home. It just feels ‘considered’. Like someone has sweated the small stuff. For us, both big and small design features are so important to the overall feeling of comfort. Well designed homes are those where people have thought long and hard about how the owners live in the house - what do they like doing in their house – and importantly – when do they like doing it? For example, it’s no good having a home office that is well appointed with all the best furnishings, but which is oppressively cold and dark to sit in during working hours. Through design and products, we have the ability to draw the right kind of light into the right part of our house at the right time. This is a big factor in zoning and sectioning that we see a lot more of in modern homes.
Good design – that which exploits the powers of quality materials – gives us the ability to draw more of the right kind of light into the right part of our house for extended periods. This makes a world of difference, not only to where we live, but to how we live.
Comfort
A home is usually a pretty good reflection of who we are or who we want to be. It is a collection of our most treasured possessions – but more than that, it is a place where we can relax. A place where we can throw off the worries and concerns of the outside world and just be ourselves. Nowadays, it seems like we have less and less time to just relax – but for us, being comfortable in your own home is so important. While internal design features play a big role in making a home comfortable; making sure your windows help to control the light and temperature is really important. So whether it’s a favourite chair that you like to read in, the nice even temperature through the house or even the way the light comes into your bedroom in the morning, all of these add up to the level of comfort or ‘liveability’ of a house.
Sanctuary
Comfort
A home is usually a pretty good reflection of who we are or who we want to be. It is a collection of our most treasured possessions – but more than that, it is a place where we can relax. A place where we can throw off the worries and concerns of the outside world and just be ourselves. Nowadays, it seems like we have less and less time to just relax – but for us, being comfortable in your own home is so important. While internal design features play a big role in making a home comfortable; making sure your windows help to control the light and temperature is really important. So whether it’s a favourite chair that you like to read in, the nice even temperature through the house or even the way the light comes into your bedroom in the morning, all of these add up to the level of comfort or ‘liveability’ of a house.
Sanctuary
For ages, glass was looked upon as being a compromise in security and efficiency. But through advances in technology we have seen glass match and sometimes outperform other building materials in keeping a house safe. We now have this mastery of our environment to such an extent that we can look out on the world's dangers and annoyances without worrying about them in our homes. And it’s not just about security, there is still nothing else like glass – the ability to see out and be visually connected to the outside world while still providing the safety we’ve come to expect puts glass in a category all on its own. It’s quite literally the best of both worlds. It’s this connection to both our home and family, but also the environment that leads to this feeling of contentment.
Wellbeing
Wellbeing
Where’s your spot? We all have that one or two places in our homes that we really really love. We may be a bit biased, but we feel that natural light has a huge role to play in creating these places in our home. We recently went through this beautiful house and were struck by the study. The well worn chair and the stack of books that spoke to the amount of hours that had been spent in the light by the window reading. And it’s not just about the feeling and emotion we get by surrounding ourselves in natural light, there’s so much science on the relationship between natural light and human happiness. Maybe that’s why we are so drawn to spending time in the light? It’s just good for us!
The Living Space is brought to you by Viridian New World Glass.
The Living Space is brought to you by Viridian New World Glass.