Minneapolis architect David O’Brien Wagner likes to breathe the same air as his clients before they embark on a project together. Whether it’s a walk in the woods, by the lake, or on a prairie, the site visit to create a shared vocabulary with his client always represents the first step. “We experience the place together, and I’m hearing what it is about the place that is inspiring, so we’re speaking the same language,” says Wagner, a principal at SALA Architects. It’s key to how he integrates well-being and architecture in a way that’s uniquely tailored to the inhabitants’ comfort.
From connections to nature and spa-inspired earth tones in paint companies’ latest colors of the year to increased daylighting as a leading trend in the AIA’s most recent Home Design Trends Survey, interest in wellness for residential architecture has never been greater.
Maybe not so ironically, the movement has gained momentum at a time when we spend 90 percent of our time indoors, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “Knowing that, how could we not place an incredible emphasis on the quality of the built environment?” asks architect Matthew Coates, principal of Coates Design, with offices in Seattle and Los Angeles. “A house is the place where we rejuvenate ourselves, be in a safe place, and enhance our well-being. As architects, this affects almost every decision we make.”
Besides the AIA survey, marketplace reports from The National Association of Realtors, Houzz, and the American Society of Interior Designers tout home wellness as a top consumer demand, too. In May 2024, the Global Wellness Institute released a report describing the explosion of wellness real estate. One of the institute’s researchers attributed the uptick “to scientific recognition that our overall built environment can either make us sick or protect us” in a story that appeared in Forbes. Houzz identified wellness among its top emerging trends last summer, highlighting increased searches for “indoor sauna,” “home spa,” “cold plunge,” “large windows,” and “skylights.”
Architect Jill Neubauer, a partner with Neubauer Ennis Architects in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, says when her firm launched 30 years ago, she often stepped onto her soapbox to educate clients and builder teams about the importance of sustainability and wellness in design. “Throughout my career, I have had an interest in and a dedication to building to care for the environment and for our clients who are going to live in these homes. There’s a distinction between the two, and yet they’re inseparable,” she says. “What has been interesting is the positive, consistent shift up in the conversation; clients are coming to us much more informed in these last five to 10 years.”
Connection to the outdoors
“One of the things that architecture can do really well is to help people escape from the stresses of life and tap into natural sensory experiences,” Wagner says. “This idea of rebalancing a sensory system comes in the form of connection to daylight, to native flora, to sounds of nature, to the smell of the meadows and woods—in essence, creating a more encompassing environment that activates one’s senses.”
Recently, Wagner designed several cabins built on 140 acres of former farmland in rural Wisconsin. The main cabin is sited in the secluded woodland, which “allows for a generous use of glass providing abundant daylight and an immersive connection with nature,” he says. “An ideal orientation for passive solar and for daylight, [the cabin] has expansive floor-to-ceiling windows that allow light and views to penetrate the building, while imparting the sense of floating in the tree canopy.” Many rooms in the cabin feature corner windows that frame panoramic vistas.
Outdoor boardwalks, a separate covered pavilion, and generous overhangs extend the home’s livability into nature. “Whether it’s a bridge, a cantilevering deck, or just a boardwalk through the woods, all of those elements projecting out into the landscape are akin to this idea of choreographing or really experiencing a place to move through,” he says.
The materials matter
Building sound structures that promote feelings of safety and strength is another pivotal element of architecture that provides peace of mind. “It’s critically important for us to feel truly safe so we can let down our guard and recuperate—to have a true sense of psychological well-being,” Coates says. The architect employs the theory of prospect and refuge as “a way to balance open and enclosed spaces,” he says. “It’s sort of an innate, primitive mindset, but we use those principles all the time when it comes to housing design.”
As an example, Coates cites a home he designed on Bainbridge Island in Washington with a robust concrete wall on one side, expansive windows overlooking Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains beyond on the opposite. “The wall is two stories above ground, but it also goes one story below ground and sits on a 15-foot-wide footing,” he says. “I can tell you that the feeling of safety is palpable when you’re in that house. But once you get inside, this house that you thought was foreboding is actually open, colorful, and bright.”
Over on Cape Cod, materials that mitigate the salty air are important. “Because we are coastal architects, a lot of what we think about is the enduring nature of what we’re building with; materials deteriorate much more quickly in our environment,” Neubauer says. “We also acknowledge that with most materials, there’s a good, better, and a best, and we share that with our clients.” For example, solid wood-backed flooring is preferred because it doesn’t need as many adhesives. “But a more cost-effective option would be a California Air Resources Board-certified plywood that’s backing it,” she adds.
Natural materials also help rebalance the senses, Wagner notes. “This is encouraged through the feel and sound of materials underfoot, such as mowed prairie grass trails, wooden boardwalks, and stone tile floors, or through the touch of natural surfaces such as wood paneling and rusted metal siding,” he says.
Invisible innovations
From improved air quality systems to technology that enhances materials’ functionality, such as triple-paned windows and “smart facades” that adapt to climate conditions, the myriad “under the hood” details of a building that promotes wellness has further evolved the conversation. “As we’ve worked with different consultants to progress the building envelope, homes are better insulated and have a very tight air barrier,” says architect Johanna Reed Melvin with Neubauer Ennis. “Once you’ve sealed up the house so tightly, you also need to introduce clean air on purpose, so we add systems called ERV (energy recovery ventilators) that bring clean air into each room.”
Specialty spaces
In addition to saunas, wet rooms, and Zen dens, homeowners are doubling down on requests for more specific spaces that rebalance the body and mind. Salt caves, meditation rooms, and spots to dip into a cold plunge are more common requests. “Having a space intended for wellness is super important,” says Coates, who recently designed a house with a full dojo to practice karate. “But we also have a house where there’s a separate little side kitchen area where they make smoothies. Programmatically, it’s about creating spaces to enhance the wellness that you want in your life.”
ASID’s 2025 Trends Outlook highlights the need for interior design to provide fresh insights to create healthy homes. “Design is no longer solely about aesthetics but about creating environments that enrich lives. Purpose-driven spaces prioritize mental and physical well-being,” the report states. “From circadian lighting systems to biophilic elements, design strategies aim to reduce stress, enhance resilience, and improve overall health.”
WELL-certified homes
At the same time that “blue zones” became a buzz term in real estate, according to The New York Times, the International WELL Building Institute initiated a more pragmatic approach with its launch last year of the WELL for residential program. The program’s 25 global pilot participants will help the organization certify and recognize best practices in creating healthier homes, and Neubauer’s firm is designing one of these pilot homes for a multi-generational family in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
“It’s two generations of a family coming together for essentially a two-family home within one envelope—to build a little more modestly and to share things,” Melvin says. “It’s starting with the large consideration and working to finer and finer details—the entire envelope, down to the pillow fabric.”
Melvin and Neubauer say the information they’re learn from working on the project will be invaluable for their future commissions. “We get to have a client who wants to invest in us to do the research, and then we’ll be able to pay it off down the road with other clients,” Neubauer says. “It starts to create more of a movement.”
A generational interest
The growing appreciation for incorporating nature, biophilia, and natural light into residential spaces spans multiple generations, according to the Global Wellness Institute. But certain demographic groups, namely Gen Z and Millennials, are showing extra interest, notes a recent McKinsey and Company wellness report.
For Coates, however, it was a Baby Boomer client who left a poignant impression years ago about what well-being can mean for a homeowner. After relocating to Seattle from North Carolina to be near her children and grandchildren, the client and her husband needed a more affordable way to build their home. Coates took a reduced fee and found a contractor “who would get scrappy and help find materials on Craigslist.” The result was a “really, really simple house, but I designed it with these wellness principles in mind. It had a simple shed roof, and I situated it on the site just right,” Coates says.
Several months later, the architect received a hand-written letter from his client, letting him know she had been diagnosed with cancer and had undergone chemo and radiation. “She said, ‘I just had to write you because getting to wake up and be in this home every day, it inspired me to want to live,’” Coates recalls. “Her being able to wake up and have this beautiful view and sit on her porch and sip her coffee feeling the sun on her face … all of these little, teeny, tiny little things. It was her sense of well-being. That’s why we do what we do.”
For more, check out the AIA’s Design for Well-being toolkit, best practices, and case studies.
