RESTFUL SPACES JOURNEY · 03
Look Beyond Your Home
Step outside and look around.
You’ve looked beside the bed.
You’ve sat at the desk.
You’ve walked through the home.
Now walk outside.
Location is another part of understanding a home.
Walk the boundary
Start at the house.
Walk around the property.
Then, if practical, take a walk around the immediate neighbourhood — perhaps around the block simply as an observation walk, rather than treating that distance as a boundary of exposure.
Look up.
Look along the street.
Look beyond neighbouring properties.
What is around your home?
Notice infrastructure
You may see:
power lines
electrical infrastructure
telecommunications equipment
street infrastructure
neighbouring electrical equipment
commercial or industrial buildings
rail infrastructure
or other sources associated with the area.
Some will be obvious.
Others won’t.
The purpose of this walk is awareness, not diagnosis.
Where is it in relation to your home?
Now orient yourself.
North.
South.
East.
West.
Which side of the home faces what you’ve observed?
Where are the bedrooms?
Where is the study?
Where are the living spaces?
Are there differences in elevation?
Are there buildings, vegetation or other features between you and what you’ve observed?
Draw it if that helps.
A simple sketch can make spatial relationships much easier to understand.
What can you learn by looking?
Observation can tell you:
something is there
where it is
roughly how far away it appears
which part of your home faces it
But there is something equally important to understand.
What can't you learn by looking?
To understand the strength of an electromagnetic field at a particular location, measurement provides different information.
Observation tells us where questions may be worth asking. Measurement tells us something different.
And distance alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
Source characteristics, direction, building materials, terrain and other factors can influence what is measured at a particular location.
Observation tells us where questions may be worth asking. Measurement tells us something different.
That is an important boundary for this entire journey.
Ask Questions
What did I observe?
Where is it?
How does it relate to the home?
Which rooms are closest?
Where do people spend the most time?
Is what I’m seeing actually relevant to those spaces?
Can I determine that by observation alone?
Would measurement provide useful information?
What do I know — and what am I assuming?
Bring the journey back home
Now return inside.
You began with the places closest to you.
Bed → Desk → Home → Surroundings
And you’ve learned that a restful space involves more than identifying devices or infrastructure.
It includes:
distance
time
light
sound
temperature
air
comfort
daily rhythms
and the way we use our spaces.
The aim is to become more aware of our modern environment and the spaces we create within it.
You now know where to look
You began beside the bed and at your desk.
You widened the view to the whole home.
Then you stepped outside and looked at the environment surrounding it.
You may have discovered simple changes.
You may have questions.
Or you may simply understand the relationship between your spaces and surroundings more clearly.
Awareness comes before action.
From here, continue with what matches your observations.