The WHIT House in Lake Nona Welcomes The Future of Wellness
How this “city within a city” focuses on ROW (Return on Wellness) rather than ROI
In our current cultural moment of wellness obsession and self-care, we expect all areas of our lives to enhance our sense of well being from the clothes we wear to the homes we live in. Lake Nona in Orlando, Florida is built on this emerging concept of wellness communities. I recently attended a press tour of Lake Nona which led me to WHIT (Wellness Home Built on Innovation and Technology).
Created by The Lake Nona Institute along with its collaborative partners, WHIT offers a new lens of home design that prioritizes wellness both physically and mentally. WHIT is a test lab for the future of healthy homes with amenities, design features and technologies the Lake Nona Institute is researching to measurably improve health and well-being. It’s a concept whose time has arrived with a sense of urgency.
The Global Wellness Institute in its recent landmark research report, “Build Well to Live Well” found that, “The way our homes have been built in the last century is reinforcing lifestyles that make us sick, stressed, alienated and unhappy.”
WHIT aims to set the bar for best practices creating a home that serves as a personal care center capable of monitoring the health of its inhabitants and connecting with health professionals via telemedicine.
Serenity Cove in WHIT is a place for relaxation and meditation featuring technologies to clear your mind and refocus your brain. Photo Credit: The Design Tourist
WHIT also is an incubator for strategic partners to create new sustainable products. The home’s healthy features include fresh air with a six-stage air filtration system, low voc paints and cork flooring, all aimed at enhancing air quality and eliminating gas offloading.
A water filtration system reduces impurities and consumption tracking devices work together to promote optimal hydration. Living spaces are designed and outfitted with technology and design features including aromatherapy and biophilic sounds that promote relaxation, reduce stress and improve wellbeing
Wellness Kitchen in Whit features a GE Innovative Cooktop embedded in the kitchen island that lets you cook and connect in one intelligent surface. Photo Credit: The Design Tourist
The kitchen, designed by Vera Iconica Wellness Kitchen, is the wellness hub of the home. It features toxin free cookware of ceramic and cast iron and non-toxic cabinets that are free from dangerous chemicals including formaldehyde.
The Wellness Kitchen in WHIT uses UV germicidal lighting technology to deactivate the DNA of bacteria, virus and other pathogens on an object’s surface. Photo credit: The Design Tourist
Wood doors and drawer fronts are from renewable resources with non-toxic sealers. Food items are on full display to encourage creativity with cooking and healthy behaviors.
Natufia Hydroponic Kitchen Garden is a fully automated plant nursery that uses LED lighting and plays music emitting vibrations that help the plants grow. It delivers water and nutrients to grow organic edible plants. Photo Credit: The Design Tourist
A courtyard garden provides fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables as hyper-local sustainable and organic foods.
The courtyard garden in WHIT provides a source of organic edible plants for cooking. Photo Credit: The Design Tourist
Window garden next to the Wellness Kitchen in WHIT grows herbs and fresh vegetables. Photo Credit: The Design Tourist
In the bedrooms, circadian lighting, long wave night lighting and blackout shades promote restful sleep. Sleep tracking and coaching apps and technologies such as mattress pads that monitor sleeping habits improve rest, assisted by ambient sound devices with soothing sounds. For tips on making your living spaces more restful, grounded and zen, check out this insightful article, 11 Tips to Inspire Mindfulness at Home.
Sleep Sanctuary in the WHIT House is a partnership with SleepScore Labs and features products exclusively curated and validated by the sleep science team at SleepScore Labs. Photo Credit: The Design Tourist
Lake Nona has differentiated itself as a neo-urban environment focused on wellbeing, sports and performance, education and technology. The community functions as a “city within a city” spanning 17 square miles and 11 thousand acres within the city limits of Orlando in Orange County. It offers a geographic concentration of cutting-edge medical industry companies and research organizations, hospitals, clinics and health services near neighborhoods of wellness infused homes.
Anchoring Lake Nona is a mammoth Medical City that catalyzes medical industry clusters and health services. Medical City spans 650 acres with 2 million square feet of space and includes the UCF Cancer Research Center, previously known as the Sanford Burham Institute, the University of Central Florida Medical School, Nemours Children’s Hospital with a pediatric residency program, The University of Florida Research and Academic Center and College of Pharmacy, the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute, and the Orlando VA Medical Center, one of the largest VA hospitals in the system, with 134 beds, 60 bedrooms and serves as the training epicenter for the entire VA system. A new UCF Lake Nona Medical Center opens 2020 with 100 beds as a teaching hospital. Medical City campus also includes The Guidewell Innovation Center, an incubator for the wellness industry. To learn more, go to Meetwhit.com
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