Su Verde (about green) is a single family residence that was designed to strike a balance between the historic design covenants of ‘New Urbanist’ neighborhood while satisfying the needs of contemporary life. High performance construction combined with an open floor plan, generous use of rooftop spaces and daylighting were employed to exceed the requirements of the Passive House and LEED GOLD standards.
Providing comfortable outdoor spaces for people allows them to reconnect with nature and, in so doing, mitigate an array of progressive behavioral disorders. From the reduction of stress and depression to increased focus, improved behaviors can be directly attributed to spending more time outdoors. If we make the place and take the time, we will naturally look away from our screens, smell the roses, and revitalize, thereby making Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD) a phenomenon of an uninformed past.
Establishing your brand, your corporate identity, requires attention to the big picture and to detail. Our collaborative design process gathers, challenges, explores, and adjusts until the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In this way we find an appropriate and informed expression of who you are. And, because your brand should be associated with enhanced health and wellness, we use the WELL Building Standard and other “rating systems” to integrate science, the latest conventional wisdom and demographic risk factors with cutting edge practices in design, construction and management.
Wellness requires that, to some degree, we remain connected to the natural world. In fact, the health of our internal processes regulating sleep cycles (circadian rhythms) is entirely dependent upon a visceral understanding of the movement of the sun over a 24 hour period. This aspect of human health can be facilitated by creating generous daylight penetrations in the building envelope including skylights and views to the outdoors. Accommodations for indoor and outdoor plant life also contributes to this vital connection.
Contemplative spaces serve to bring us back to the present moment and remind us of the importance of remaining connected to a healthy mind and body. Whether they reside in our homes or elsewhere these places accommodate an escape from the virtual, digital realities that have come to define our age and consume our time.
