Wellness Meets Design . . . Or Does It?
The other week, I tuned into the Wellness Meets Design talk hosted by SBID during the London Design Festival. The event was polished, inspiring, and beautifully put together, all about how fitness, luxury, and social living can intersect in our homes and interiors. The highlight was Technogym’s new Artis Luxury Line and Personal Tools, which looked more like sculptures than dumbbells.
Don’t get me wrong, I love that wellness is finally on the radar in design conversations. But as I listened, something kept nagging at me: are we still skimming the surface?
Wellness in our homes isn’t just about sleek finishes or equipment that doubles as art. It’s about what we can’t see, the air we breathe, the materials we live with, and the toxins we may not even realise are there.
Other Industries Are Already Ahead
What struck me during the panel was how design is lagging compared to other industries.
• In fashion, we’ve seen a big shift towards organic cotton, bamboo, and plant-based dyes. Influencers such as Tori Gaynor are ditching fast fashion (like Temu and Shein), instead opting for more staple pieces and at least 50% organic materials (mostly her pieces are 100% cotton, for both herself and her two little children).
• In cookware, people are ditching Teflon for stainless steel, ceramic, or cast iron. In the food industry, if you look at top chefs and restaurant kitchens, do you expect to see Teflon frying pans… certainly not! They always use stainless steel or cast iron. Yes they are perhaps slightly harder to cook with, but once you learn how to, it’s a piece of cake. Avoiding potential toxins from overheating nonstick coatings!
• In skincare and beauty, clean formulations are the new standard, with consumers rejecting harsh chemicals and synthetic fragrances. Top influencer Katherine and CEO of Layere (a non-toxic clothing brand) gets gifted loads of PR products, yet she is the only one I have come across who actually ditches anything with harsh chemicals like Elemis (watch here) and swapping them for more organic & natural alternatives.
So why, when it comes to our interiors, are we still celebrating “vegan leather” without asking what it’s actually made of? Or praising “luxury finishes” without talking about whether they’re safe to live with?
The Silent Toxins in Our Homes
Most of us assume our homes are safe, but in reality, they can be one of the most toxic environments we spend time in. Here’s why:
• Paints and finishes often release VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that can trigger headaches, allergies, and even long-term health issues.
• Furniture and flooring can off-gas formaldehyde, glues, and flame retardants.
• Synthetic textiles like rugs, curtains, and cushions shed microplastics into our air.
• Poor ventilation traps it all inside, creating a cocktail of indoor pollutants and mould that can go undetected for years, often causing health issues such as allergies, asthma attacks, chronic coughs, and bronchitis. Specialist companies like Dryfix, base their whole business model on correcting this issue within homes.
Wellness isn’t just about walking on a sandstone-finished floor. It’s about reducing the invisible load our bodies are managing every single day at home.
What True Wellness Design Should Look Like
To me, wellness design should be about more than sculptural weights and luxury aesthetics. It should mean:
• Low- or no-VOC paints and natural finishes. A great example is Earthborn Paints, who specialise in this. Volatile Organic Compounds, known as VOCs, are carbon based chemical compounds found in most paints. VOCs are harmful to health, the environment and contribute to global warming. It is a legal requirement for paint labelling to state the VOC content of the product.
• Solid wood furniture instead of MDF or particleboard bound with toxic glues. Toxic glues in furniture primarily use formaldehyde-based adhesives, which are used in composite wood products like particleboard and plywood. To avoid these, look for furniture with “No Added Formaldehyde” (NAF), “Ultra-Low Emitting Formaldehyde” (ULEF), or “CARB Phase 2 Compliant” labels, or opt for furniture made with solid wood and glueless construction methods.
• Natural textiles: linen, hemp, organic wool, that don’t shed plastics into the air.
• Air quality monitoring and purification built into the home. A smart home system can then automatically trigger purification when air quality drops below a set threshold, providing alerts and remote control via smartphone apps for a healthier indoor environment.
• Lighting design that supports circadian rhythms and better sleep. Use tunable LED lights that shift color temperature and intensity throughout the day to mimic natural sunlight, with bright, cool light in the morning for alertness and warm, dim light in the evening to promote relaxation and sleep. Incorporate dimmable controls and consider maximizing natural light exposure during the day to create a dynamic lighting environment that helps regulate your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle.
That’s where the real wellness shift happens. When design not only looks good but also actively protects and supports our health.
At Alice Molloy Interiors, we design homes that not only look stunning but actively support your wellbeing. Contact us today to explore healthier design choices for your own home.
The Risk of “Green Glossing” Wellness
Events like SBID’s Wellness Meets Design talk are a great start, they raise awareness and put wellness on the agenda. But unless the conversation goes deeper, we risk turning wellness into a glossy marketing term. A pretty veneer that misses the point.
Because wellness isn’t a sandstone finish or a titanium accent. It’s the air in your lungs, the fabrics against your skin, the invisible choices layered into your home.
Raising the Bar
As designers, architects, developers and homeowners, we have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to demand more. To see wellness as holistic, not just aesthetic.
To design homes that are as chemically safe as they are beautiful. The home developer Millen are striving to achieve this, “with better awareness and holistic planning, sustainable, wellness-focused homes can actually be built more quickly and deliver lasting value, both for people and the planet.”
Luxury is nice.
But true wellness?
That’s priceless.
We know this isn’t going to happen overnight but a slow and gradual shift is starting to happen, although at a slower rate than the other industries. Here at Alice Molloy Interiors, we are certainly going to start implementing these into our designs, given the clients are willing of course!
A huge thank you to all people and companies mentioned in this article, they have given Alice Molloy Interiors consent to be mentioned/named and none of these are paid PR.
Book a Free Discovery Call
If you’d like to learn how wellness design can transform your home, book a free discovery call with Alice Molloy Interiors. Together, we’ll create a space that looks beautiful and supports your health.
