The Good News Magazine

Elizabeth Kelly Promotes “Healing Interior Environments”

Given her calm manner, she is the last person in the world you would expect to issue a sweeping health and cultural challenge - until you witness her name and credentials: Elizabeth K. Kelly, ASID, CID, NCIDQ*, one of only a few internationally certified interior designers on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Her practice, Sanctuary Interiors, LLC, has the distinction of being the only interior design firm in Maryland with a focus on creating “Healing Interior Environments.” Then, as her long trail of experience comes into view, your vision heightens: 25 years in the profession, domestic hospitality design for Marriott International, facilities planning and development at American University in Washington, an ambassador’s residence, scores of elegant homes on both shores and, of all things, the design of a 93-foot ocean going schooner. She received her interior design degree from Virginia’s Marymount University and graduate work at American University and Harvard Graduate School of Design, but beams when relating how her first job was in custom millwork - the voice of hands-on experience.

Elizabeth Kelly

The audience took Elizabeth very seriously in September during a professional symposium entitled “Aging by Design” at Brookletts Place, the Talbot County Senior Center in Easton, which is a fine example of a healing environment. Her address was entitled “Healing Environments - Design for Health and Well-Being.” “It is shocking to me,” Elizabeth told the crowd, “that the U.S. ranks 36th on current United Nations life expectancy charts, at 78 years for women and 75 for men. I have to believe it is due to our lifestyle and that becoming more aware can help change that. I am proposing that we rethink our homes and communities with a focus on staying well.”

Elizabeth Kelly is among an advanced community of interdisciplinary professionals - physicians, social workers, hospital administrators, neuroscientists, interior designers, architects and engineers - who recognize and practice the principles of Evidence-Based Design. EBD is derived from case studies about what has been proved to work best institutionally, to decrease the need for medication, speed recovery time and, in general, improve health and well being. In other words, EBD is the product of quantifiable data of what works - as opposed to intuitive design of what makes sense. The outcomes EBD proponents have witnessed are shorter cure times, meaning shorter hospital stays with less pain killers and other medications.

Elizabeth is quick to point out that with the new Affordable Health Care Act regulations and with Medicare rules, hospitals and other care facilities are being mandated to shorten stays. In part, some of these rules have come about because of the success of institutions using EBD to reform from cold, clinical sanctums, becoming healing environments in which people cure and get well quickly. She proposes that since more patients of necessity will be healing at home, and more elderly aging in place, that the same EBD tenets which have been so successful in institutions can be made to work in the home. She cites the Five Key Tenets of Evidence-Based Design, developed by Texas A&M’s Dr. Roger S. Ulrich, first published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, in 1984.

Connection to nature - bring the great outdoors indoors
Positive distractions - introduce art, aquariums, real plants
Some control within the environment – flexibility, mobility, adjustability of furnishings
Reduction of environmental stressors – abate noise and offensive aromas
Social support spaces – welcome family and friends

So, one wonders, why can’t all homes become healing environments? “We don’t have to be disabled or gravely ill,” Elizabeth answers, “to benefit from the security of peace and comfort in our own homes in living everyday life. There are now a number of home health products and services available. But in the United States, everyone seems to have missed the importance of making improvements to our home environments. The comforts of a home encompass a place of respite and safety, but also productivity and enjoyment of the place we have made for ourselves in the world.”

Elizabeth urges that professionals who plan and design residential living environments have great opportunities to accommodate and anticipate the coming changes in the lives of those who inhabit them. She encourages homeowners to use Evidence-Based Design principles to begin an examination of their own environments, citing such basic elements as cleanliness, ventilation and circulation, safety, light, comfort, clutter, privacy, acoustical considerations, aromas and stressors – all those things which through the five senses cause us stress – noise, air pollution, harsh or not enough light, distasteful smell, touch or taste.

“As an interior designer,” Elizabeth said, “my work is focused on helping my clients to create a better daily reality to fit their needs, hopes and wishes, and to improve the quality of their lives. We always hear that, ‘Without your health, what else matters?’ That is why I am using my abilities to help people protect their health, through addressing the surroundings we live in, from a healing perspective. I am proposing that we prioritize and elevate the level of quality in all our environments.”

Elizabeth Kelly may be reached at Sanctuary Interiors, LLC, 443-786-1766, and online at www.sanctuaryinteriorsllc.com. You can meet Elizabeth at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 1 at Brooklets Place when she will be the Talbot County Free Library’s December guest lecturer of note. Brookletts Place is located at 400 Brooklets Avenue, Easton. For information, call the Library at 410-822-1626.

*ASID - American Society of Interior Designers
CID – Maryland State Board of Certified Interior Designers
NCIDQ - National Council for Interior Design Qualification