Biophilic Design and Indoor Air Quality
# Why Your Living Space Might Be Making You Sick (And How Plants Can Actually Fix It) I used to think my constant morning stuffiness was just Seattle allergies. You…
I Started Tracking EMF Levels in My Home Office – Here’s What I Found About Plants and Radiation
I never thought I’d become the guy with an EMF meter, but here we are. It started about eight months ago when I began getting these persistent headaches during my…
Biophilic Design for Tiny Apartments: What I Learned From Desperate Pandemic Plant Parenting
So here’s the thing – I used to think “biophilic design” was just fancy Instagram speak for “having a lot of plants.” Like, cool, you’ve got money for fiddle leaf…
I Accidentally Fell in Love with Nature’s Secret Design Algorithms (And You Should Too)
So this is going to sound weird, but I spent last Saturday morning lying on my stomach in a community garden watching ants. Not because I’ve completely lost it (though…
What I’ve Learned About Making Homes Work Better for Grandkids on the Autism Spectrum
A couple years ago, our youngest daughter asked if she could bring her eight-year-old son over for dinner more often. He’d been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder the year before,…
Why Plants and Natural Light Actually Matter for Kids’ Mental Health (From Someone Who Learned This the Hard Way)
Okay, so I’m not a therapist or anything, but I’ve been going down this rabbit hole about how plants and natural light actually affect mental health, especially for kids and…
What Hurricane Cleanup Taught This Dad About Nature and Healing (And Why It Changed How I Think About Our Home)
I never expected to learn one of my most important parenting lessons while pulling waterlogged drywall out of a stranger’s kitchen. But there I was, three weeks after Hurricane Florence…
How the Pandemic Made My Tiny Apartment (and Everyone Else’s) About Finding Nature Indoors
I’ll never forget the moment I realized COVID had completely changed how we think about our living spaces – and it wasn’t during those endless lockdown days in my 400-square-foot…
What I Learned About Making My Tiny Apartment Work for Whatever Climate Change Throws at Us
Okay so this is going to sound dramatic but bear with me – last February when that polar vortex hit Chicago and knocked out power for three days, I had…
Does Having Plants Actually Make You Smarter? I Tested My Brain Function in Different Spaces
Okay, so this is going to sound kind of nerdy, but I’ve become obsessed with whether my plant collection actually makes me think better. Like, beyond just feeling less depressed…
I Tracked How Natural Elements Can Actually Boost Local Economies – The Millfield Data
I wasn’t expecting to spend last autumn analyzing the economics of struggling communities, but that’s exactly what happened when I read about a small manufacturing town called Millfield. As someone…
What I’ve Learned About Creating Healing Spaces for Women’s Health – From My Wife’s Recovery to Helping New Families
When my wife was recovering from her stroke eight years ago, I started noticing things I’d never paid attention to before. How the quality of light in a room affected…
When Your Phone Is Watering Your Plants Better Than You Are: Tech + Nature in Tiny Spaces
So I’m sitting in my 400-square-foot cave of an apartment last week, watching my phone send me notifications that my plants need water while simultaneously adjusting my grow lights based…
How I Learned Plants Actually Help You Breathe Better (And Why It Matters More As We Age)
I never paid much attention to indoor air quality until my wife’s health problems started getting worse. After her stroke, she developed respiratory issues that seemed to flare up more…
Making Nature Accessible for Everyone: What I’ve Learned About Inclusive Garden Design
After my wife’s stroke eight years ago, I learned firsthand how design choices that seem minor can create major barriers for people with mobility or sensory challenges. We had to…