Globally we find ourselves in what is now called the cognitive revolution where the recognition that self-fulfilment, social health and the fight against loneliness are at the core of chasing personal wellbeing. Their importance is as high if not higher than nutrition, exercise, and amassing sufficient wealth to ensure a comfortable life. While all of…
Category: LIFE
What is worth it and what is not
On the back of things – and how that matters in design as much as in people
It infuriates me. To a point where I refuse to look that way. If you’ve ever bought a piece of furniture that has an unfinished back, you know what I mean. The edge of the particle board, brown and unsightly, as if someone had forgotten to take a look at the whole thing. What if…
What I feel is who I am – Tasting travel in so many colours, part 1
In the 1970s, in the small art community of Mendocino, California, a new kind of textile dye emerged, shedding light on the little fungus that never ceased to amaze. From truffles to poison, mushrooms are a species to recon with. Nowadays, we see so many products coming out of them that, soon enough, we will…
Focus – Personal growth one step at a time, Part 1, ATTENTION | HABITS | CHANGE
Continuing the path of those before me, I put myself first and through that, I make myself a better place. 🧞♀️xA. FOCUS, part 1 ATTENTION “The key to getting things done is doing what’s important, not doing it all.” Adriana Mot Ten minutes in the bathroom. Fifteen to get the coffee going. An hour to…
Best of 2021 – from home rituals to healthy habits, design helps you live a better life
As the year ends, join me, and let’s revisit some of the best, most read, and most liked of My 2 cents on design blog posts of 2021! I have to say I’m very proud of myself. It is not an easy feat to keep a weekly blog. It is hard work and frankly, without…
The unbearable joy of loving yourself [before you’re almost dead] and designing the life you actually want
When you closely look at how western democracy, for the purpose of the progress of the species, demised human life into demographically usable bits, you realize that modern living is a polarized and systematically caged terrestrial garden of Eden. You can see the garden with its bliss from everywhere you are yet through your choices,…
Design Of Creatively Harmonious Intelligent Answers
“Sometime in the summer of 1986, after a lot of debating and obsessing over how I would like to spend my life, I made the decision to become an architect. It was a decision like any other and at the time, not bigger nor smaller, whose long-term implications I was not looking to grasp. I…
2020 / the biggest crisis of our life time?
Is 2020 the biggest crisis of our life time? Possibly. And hopefully! I certainly am not looking at having another major negative event that is bigger than this one! And now the challenge we all share is to devise mechanisms to cope with the aftermath. We’ve all undergone fundamental lifestyle changes that are out…
How did the 24-hour day become never enough and what to do about it
The moment the day goes from 24 hours to 30 I’ll be the first to bank on it! An hour has 60 minutes. A day has 1,440 minutes. What we need is a clock that gains a minute every 4 minutes. Bang! 6 hours extra every day. And then: Will we actually do more, feel…
Shop ’till you drop for Christmas stocking stuffers and the like
Yep, like that’s going to happen… But please, don’t despair, always a way to get what you want. And what is it you want this year? Probably something to take your mind off the numerous, and likely lingering, limitations on vacation plans. With home as your 2020 universe, I say take the time to accessorize…
Three tips for a healthy home during seclusion
Get ready to self-assess how healthy your home is and what you can do about it. While some feel that the terrifying situation at hand is paralyzing, there is nothing better than carving your own pattern of normality to get you thru it. So take action and use these tips as a positively practical distraction. From the three tips for making your bedroom a relaxing oasis to how to properly declutter, use your home to the fullness and make it part of you, not just a hotel room to spend the night.
The last days of summer, wrapping up the imposed leisure and what we did with it
As summer dwindles to an end and leaves the tumult of this year’s events settled, I cannot help but wonder if without them would we have ever had the pleasure of lazy purposelessness. The kind of boredom a lover seduces you with, wrapping you slowly, so slowly that you do not recognize the exact turning moment when you’ve left your swirling daily routine and gave yourself to healing calmness. It is a different form of wellness, a self-induced yoga of the mind that you yourself are able to summon, a self-healing ritual that should be periodically performed.