UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology SUMMER 2024 - Flipbook - Page 75
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
a hotel lobby where there’s really no one there other
than behind the front desk. So experience, coupled
with great design, means you also have the music
you hear, is there a scent. All the senses are also
important to the design.” The aforementioned Susan
Magsamen and her co-author, Ivy Ross, say that
70% of our memories are associated with smell. So
by adding such a speci昀椀c element as scents and
music in each space—even details such as what the
room keys look like—a visitor’s aesthetic experience
becomes enmeshed in the overarching story, and
the experience of Austin Proper's story will be quite
di昀昀erent from the story of the two Proper Hotels in
Los Angeles.
that for sure.” Her incorporation of plants, of nature,
into her spaces may be innate, but there is evidence
in ecological medicine that doing so bene昀椀ts our
health. Dr. Helena Hansen, UCLA’s David Ge昀昀en
School of Medicine Professor and Interim Chair of
Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Interim
Director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and
Human Behavior, shares, “We are living in an era
of climate anxiety, and of a U.S. Surgeon Generaldeclared epidemic of loneliness as the driver of our
mental health crisis. This is a critical time to support
research of, and practice of, nature connectedness as
a way to promote human health.”
The pieces chosen for the cozy interior of Broad
Beach were also about creating a space for self-care
for Wearstler and her family. Longevity enthusiasts,
she and her husband are very wellness-minded,
working out twice a day, and, she says, “We do
everything we possibly can for our brain health. I’m
a creative, and sometimes we’re designing furniture,
and sometimes we’re designing lighting...or it’s
architecture and interiors...and I always wonder
is that exercising my brain in di昀昀erent ways?”
Exercising her brain also means the research aspect.
She is currently researching to incorporate a major
equestrian component into a project in Toronto,
and says, “That’s a whole new medium for me and
the studio. So this is really doing the research and
learning and gaining value from our clients, who
have all that knowledge, and taking our passion and
design talent to take everything through our clients to
the next level, bringing their ideas to reality.”
Wearstler also takes her designs a step further with
her mindfulness of what is outside the windows and
walls, such as with Broad Beach Residence, a project
she undertook during the pandemic as a getaway
for her family to surf. The mid-century house had
been empty for about 10-15 years, but didn’t need any
signi昀椀cant renovating. “We just put seagrass down
and painted a little, and that was it.” It needed, rather
than renovating, simply a connecting of interior
and exterior spaces, to be curated for a relaxed feel.
But she wanted it to have its own individual voice,
too, she says, “And the property is quite unique
because you walk into the front yard, which was
this kind of garden of agave and really sculptural
landscaping, and the house is set in the middle of
the property, and the backyard, where the ocean is,
was just all sand. So you had these really interesting
dichotomies.” She took the views into account, and
each window seems, from the inside looking out, to
be an intentionally placed framed piece of art. The
windows, along with potted 昀氀ora and fauna, “blurred
the boundaries” between interior to exterior. “Mother
Nature is the best designer,” she laughs. “I always say
When I ask her how she might design a care facility,
it turns out she is already working on one. The former
Cal Neva project in Lake Tahoe, formerly owned by
Frank Sinatra, is undergoing a transformation under
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