I don't know about you, but I feel bombarded by so-called 'wellness' design

Wellness-related design is everywhere at the moment but underneath its tasteful minimalist aesthetic lie some uncomfortable truths, writes Priya Khanchandani.

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I don't know about you, but I feel bombarded by so-called "wellness" design. It's everywhere: hotels, homes, offices, galleries, spas, gyms, and even the random candles we're being sold.

It presents through a particular aesthetic. Everything is softly lit and beige. There is usually pale wood, poured concrete, waffle fabric, a sound bath and possibly a vertical garden thrown in. I need only search "wellness" in my own inbox to uncover hundreds of press releases associating these interior-design tropes with better rhythm, balance and care.

Health can't be found in a fancy cabinet in which to keep your body oils

We are encouraged to believe that wellness design can make us healthier. Indeed, the word "wellness" is defined as "the state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal".

But in reality, it has very little to do with health at all. More often, it functions as a vague signifier for something that feels quite nice. A less coherent extension, perhaps, of the Danish concept of "hygge".

What wellness design offers us in its Scandinavian minimalist calm is essentially comfort – a highly aestheticised, deeply exclusive form of it. In wellness interiors, health is reduced to ambience. The body is treated as something to be soothed, stimulated or optimised through atmosphere: light, scent, sound, materials and colour palates.

This creates spaces that photograph well, but fail to grapple with the essential, and yet often invisible, elephant in the room: our actual health.

That's not to say that comfort isn't important. It is a way in which we alleviate the stresses of living. But it is quite distinct from wellness. Comfort is more about a pleasant lifestyle, putting your feet up by the fire at the end of the day, or going to a spa.

At worst, the body is disregarded completely and the language of wellness, now attached to all sorts of products, becomes little more than a vehicle to sell us more stuff. Health can't be found in a fancy cabinet in which to keep your body oils – a real example of an item that I recently saw labelled as "wellness design".

For people living with chronic illness or disability, wellness design can feel alienating to the point of hostility

And what does an expensive diffuser or waffle bathrobe sold on the pretext of wellness design have to do with health? As a person living with chronic illness, the connection is, frankly, condescending.

For people living with chronic illness or disability, whose interests should surely be centred by a design approach centred on health, wellness design can feel alienating to the point of hostility. So-called wellness spaces are often inherently ableist, assuming bodies can all move freely, tolerate stimulation and participate in rituals of self-care.

They rarely allow for mobility aids, medical equipment or the unpredictable needs of enforced rest. Where are the wellness spaces that prioritise access? Or that are designed around pain, breathlessness, nausea, brain fog, or the need to lie down?

If wellness design was about health, it would be more concerned with access than with its brand of minimalist beauty. Ramps, hoists, support rails, adjustable seating, quiet spaces to rest – these are almost completely absent in the visual language of wellness design. They disrupt the ableist consumer fantasy brands have constructed around wellness.

That fantasy persists because it can monetise the prospect of better health and longevity, which holds an irresistible pull at a time when many of us are grappling with our own mortality in an unstable world. It positions itself in opposition to the systematic failures that shape our lives.

As public healthcare buckles under the pressure of ageing populations and chronic illness, wellness design is offered as a consumer fix. It's something you can buy into if you're anxious enough, self-aware enough and – crucially – wealthy enough.

Wellness is fundamentally misaligned with the values of the welfare state

In the UK, social care has been hollowed out by more than a decade of austerity and disability benefits are increasingly policed. In the US, Medicaid faces the ongoing threat of cuts. This is the backdrop against which design brands enthusiastically sell us wellness studios, spa hotels, longevity hubs and wellness-branded everything, from homeware to fragrances and clothes, as if they were talismans.

Because wellness design is typically expensive, it's accessible only to the privileged. It implies that luxury is inseparable from a life in pursuit of health. In this sense, wellness is fundamentally misaligned with the values of the welfare state, which treats health as a collective responsibility and a basic right.

Wellness is capitalism's answer to health, which means it can't be separated from consumerism. Making an investment in wellness has become almost a moral imperative, the subtext of which is that if you get sick, age or burn out, you perhaps didn't design your life well enough (AKA buy the right products and sign up to the right subscriptions).

This is where wellness design verges on being dangerous. It shifts responsibility from systems to individuals, from public care to private consumption, and the consequence is a mix of fear and aspiration, not so much to live better, but to spend more, just in case it might ward off the inevitable.

But if design wants to take health seriously, it needs to start asking uncomfortable questions about who spaces are actually for, and maybe tone down the patchouli.

Interestingly, when I read about so-called Blue Zones – regions like Sardinia or Okinawa where there are unusually high numbers of centenarians – what stands out is not luxury interiors or wellness design. Longevity in these places is associated with daily movement, social connection, a sense of purpose and nutritious food.

Design has enormous potential to make life more liveable for diverse bodies

It's surprising, then, that we're so willing to buy into wellness design's gestures to longevity, but unsurprising that what we're being sold is something else entirely, because those things can't easily be monetised as a design "experience".

Design has enormous potential to make life more liveable for diverse bodies, including ageing ones. But wellness design, as it currently exists, is getting in the way. It allows designers to use words like "care" without engaging with their actual ethical demands.

So yes, let's have spaces that feel good. But let's stop pretending that beige surfaces and luxury consumer goods are ultimate tools for health.

Until wellness design confronts its ableism, its exclusivity and its complicity in the privatisation of care, it will remain what it largely is now: an aesthetic for people who can afford not to be ill and buy nice things. And that is not wellness. That's denial.

Priya Khanchandani is a writer and curator specialising in contemporary design and visual culture. She was formerly head of curatorial at the Design Museum, where she curated the exhibition The Off-Beat Sari and an accompanying book. She was also previously editor-in-chief of Icon, while her writing has appeared in the Financial Times, the BBC and The World of Interiors.

The photo is by Felix Speller.

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