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Digital mood board for meditation and yoga room
This digital mood board shows all products specified for an independent study project. The theoretical clients’ youngest child has left for university, and they have agreed to convert the children’s two bedrooms for new functions. The larger room will be a combined guest room – home office, furnished with existing furniture from around the house using the Green reDesign process. The smaller bedroom will be converted into a retreat for the clients’ yoga and meditation practices. This room will be used primarily by the lady of the house, a certified yoga instructor who sometimes practices with her husband, a friend, or does one-on-one sessions with students.
The inspiration for the decor of the meditation room came from two favorite paintings: one from local artist Saskia Aarts’ koi series, and a souvenir of a trip to India showing the marriage of Shiva and Parvati. The client’s existing collection of religious statues was complemented with carefully sourced antique Asian furniture.
Silkroad’s vertical bamboo floors in natural provide a suitable non-slip surface for standing asanas, while the meditation area features a small area rug of Flor`s high-recycled-content Fedora carpet tiles in Cayenne, a pair of organic cotton-upholstered meditation chairs from Gaiam, and an antique Asian poplar meditation chest used as an altar table. The altar is dressed with an Indian OM handbell, natural filtered-beeswax candles, cowrie shell garland, rudraksha mala, IPod dock, and brass statues of Hindu goddess Saraswati and Shiva’s bull Nandi, to provide inspiration during meditation. A large rattan basket provides storage for the cork blocks and non-PVC yoga mat when they are not in use. One wall was mirrored with used salvaged mirrors from a department store, found at the local architectural salvage specialists. A pair of potted bamboo palm and chinese fan palm plants soften the corners of the mirrored wall and help to purify the air; the side with the bamboo palm also features a gilt-bronze statue of Tibetan Buddhist goddess Green Tara on an antique Chinese elmwood stool. A wall fountain both provides a soothing sound for mediation, and provides a humidity boost that makes the room friendlier to both the yogini and the bamboo flooring. The remaining walls are painted in P62 Spring (green), as a colour block on the focal wall behind the meditation area, P50 Niyama (a pale violet) on the other two walls, and P43 Prana (a deep mauve) for trim. These colours were chosen from AFM SafECOat’s Ayurvedic Essence Pitta micropalette, to ground the energizing oranges and saffrons in the paintings and the area rug while complementing the yogini’s dosha (body type) according to Indian traditional medicine. The window is dressed in Ikea’s paper curtain panels, left open most of the time to maximize natural light. Placement of all elements in the room take the principles of Vastu into consideration, a wish that was dear to the client’s heart.