Daylight Savings and Patterns of Nature in Your Home

Since Saturday night most of us set our clocks back to standard time (a little jealous of Pickle Lake, Ontario getting to opt out here) we at MKDB wanted to shine some light on how to embrace winter while keeping your home looking and feeling warm.

In Ottawa the weather can vary greatly during late fall and early winter, first sunshine, then rain and snow. Rapid changes in the weather are a characteristic feature from one day to the next. Winter here is long and has its own beautiful features reflected by the natural surroundings and often-generous snow that glistens under the plentiful sunlight – a magnificent time for enjoying nature in your home.

Winter home must be healing and bright, after all if the space you inhabit is sunny and cheerful it facilitates the happiness of you and your family. It has the capacity to awaken your senses, memories and mind and inspire productive energy, whether you are following nature’s pattern of winter hibernation or keeping your energy level high.

We often ask ourselves “What patterns of space give rise to rich experiences of nature?”

Many modern and postmodern houses often have the effect of isolating people from nature via:

• Poorly designed heating and ventilation systems and awkward floor plans that overheat the space without providing proper ventilation forcing one to constantly adjust temperature and open and close windows;

• Sealed envelopes with small or inoperable windows that cut off the possibility of feeling the breeze or hearing the birds or smelling winter pine. Daylighting becomes impossible and electric lights are required all the time. Artificial light is available in all places at all times in the desired intensity, but does not provide healing, connection with nature, or savings on your electricity bill.

In fact, in such houses, nature is what is seen though a sealed glass façade, a hard line between the inside and outside.

At MKDB we design exteriors and interiors in such way, so that the edge of your home is a deeper, inhabited, more ambiguous zone of layers designed to connect inside and outside to varying degrees.

During winter, it is just as important as during summer to have a home that offers great experiences of nature and natural rhythms, which brings us to some of our design principles:

• Openability: sliding doors, sliding panels and movable walls;
• Inside-outside: Continuous surfaces, bright windows;
• Light intensity variations: As Christopher Alexander once pointed out: “Uniform illumination – the sweetheart of the lighting engineers – serves no useful purpose whatsoever. In fact, it destroys the social nature of space, and makes people feel disoriented and unbounded.” We embrace layers of light and shade, indented windows and brilliance in a dark place.

MKDB Project: Winter Urban Transformation

MKDB Project: Custom Wood

MKDB Project: A Little Black Dress for a Kitchen

As the seasons change and the fall-winter chill fills the air, it is the time of year when we turn time back and prepare to hunker down for the shorter days and longer nights. It is also the perfect time to enjoy your harmonious home that offers warmth and brightness to darker days.  So, let the winter light in and embrace your experiences!