My Modern House: the founders of architecture-for-wellbeing company Ekkist discuss how to design a healthy home
Olga Turner: “Wellbeing means different things to different individuals, but I think for a lot of people having a creative outlet is fundamental to feeling fulfilled. It’s one of the reasons behind us starting architecture-for-wellbeing company Ekkist. We applied a lot of those principles to designing a healthy home for ourselves.”
Jonathan Baker: “I inherited the house from my grandmother, who bought the place new in 1974. I love the views here, which look over the Surrey Hills; it’s very inspiring.
“We were keen to put our own stamp on the place, but also remain sensitive to the context of the house and local area.
“I spent a lot of time here as a child, playing in the garden. I remember one tree peony that was always very manicured and looked after, so it was important to me that it was preserved.”
Olga: “We’ve done a lot of work to the outdoor space. It used to be on four levels, so we merged two of them together to create enough space to sit 12 people. In summer, we often get to full capacity.”
Jonathan: “Inside, we’ve applied the principles of Ekkist to focus on clean lines, simplicity and calm, muted colours. We also knocked through several rooms to make sure that every room in the house has at least two windows for lots of natural light.
“We’ve got air-purifying indoor plants in every room. They’re not only good for indoor air quality but studies show they also aids concentration and reduces stress.”
Olga: “We’ve used natural, non-toxic materials wherever we can. There’s a lot of timber in our house, which we either sealed naturally or painted with natural paint. We’ve also installed carbon filters on our taps, which clean the water.”
Jonathan: “We try to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible. For example, our tea jars are filled up from a tea shop in Norwich when we visit Olga’s parents.
“For the renovation, we used a couple of pieces from architectural salvage yards such as the splashback above the oven, which is an offcut from a larger piece of marble.
“We inherited the house with a Scandi-style easy chair, but it was upholstered in a 1980s-looking fabric. We went to classes together to restore and reupholster it. Now, it’s much cleaner and simpler, much like the rest of the house.
Olga: “We split our working time between meetings in London and working from our home studio. We each have a window, which helps with our concentration and circadian rhythm.
“We try not to blur the living and workspaces, other than through the language of the design we have in the house.
“We met Duncan McLeod at the London Festival of Architecture. He did a beautiful workshop about how buildings make you feel. That’s why we work so well together, because we concentrate on how buildings’ physical impact, and he is focused on how they make you feel emotionally.
“Ekkist is really about designing spaces that are sensitive to humans’ inherent attraction to natural elements, but that also support people’s individual wellbeing needs.
“For us it’s about welcoming people into our home – cooking for friends and enjoying the garden – so we renovated the garage into an open-plan kitchen/diner.
Jonathan: “Giving back to the community is also something that I think is very important to wellbeing. The house is on a cul-de-sac of 19 houses and we know all our neighbours by name.
“We host a resident’s party at Christmas and in the summer; it’s a good opportunity to catch up with everyone.
“We also do the odd gardening job in the communal gardens to the rear of the house, which last autumn meant planting lots of bulbs.”
Olga: “At the weekends we like to get out for a walk or bike ride. I frequently run along the river that is at the bottom of the shared communal garden. I have been known to get lost in the pond at the bottom – Jonathan has had to rescue me.
“Even though it’s just us two in the company, we try to do to a team day every month. We did a church crawl on our bikes along the North Downs Way to find the perfect one to get married in!”
Jonathan and Olga, how do you define modern living?
Jonathan: “Modern is often mistaken for ‘new’. Aesthetically, modern living for me means timelessness – clean lines, simplicity and elegant design. But modern design is also about wellness principles which stand the test of time and benefit our health.”
Olga: “For me, modern living is about understanding how our buildings affect us both physically and mentally. It means living in a way which allows us to thrive in the environments that we curate around ourselves. It is about being selective with the materials that we use, the objects that we surround ourselves with, and how we lay out our space for social interaction.”
If you were to move, what would be the first thing you’d take with you?
Jonathan: “We don’t believe in being too attached to objects, but if we had to pick something it would be the beautiful tree peony that my grandmother planted 20 years ago. It is stunning when it flowers in early summer.”
Is there a property on The Modern House website that has caught your eye?
Olga: “Blenheim Gardens. We like the flexibility of the space, from the large open-plan area to the more secluded living space. The different angles of light from the windows in the roof are really interesting and would benefit the wellbeing of the occupants through improved light throughout the day. We’d love to fill it with huge trees and turn it into something not unlike Kew Gardens!”
Read more: Natural Selection: homes designed using natural materials
