Raised in the holiday town of Port Alfred, on the Sunshine Coast, in a family with a great sense of humour, laughter became a key ingredient in the building blocks of my life. With an unsettling past in my country, South Africa, my people have always found a way to stand together through humour – having jokes and ‘memes’ circulating social media within moments of an disquieting event taking place in our country. Humour is what links our nation, and humour is what levels the playing field between demographic and socio-economic spheres. We all laugh in the same colour. Having recently completed my masters in Interior Design, with a research topic focused on ‘Design-led Well-being in Office Design’, the importance of understanding the designers role in planning spaces that foster well-being became exceedingly evident. Not only is a ‘joyful heart good medicine’ (Proverbs 17:22), but a healthy soul, mind and body could very well result in healing a broken society stricken by stress, inactivity and poor work-life balances. This has been the foundation on which ‘Lightwell’ has been built – design-led well-being, with a quirky fun design approach that is not only skin deep, but rooted in the knowledge of informed design that results in human well-being.
