Rhythm-First Living: Designing Daily Biology Into the Whole Home

Sleep is only one chapter of circadian health; your home writes the rest. The right light at the right time stabilises cortisol, tunes mood, and sharpens cognition. The wrong light blurs those signals. MAVI treats rhythm as a system that spans daylight access, electric light spectra and flicker, blackout, temperature, air quality, and acoustics with commissioning that proves delivery.

Daylight is the anchor. We model and plan for healthy daytime melanopic EDI while limiting evening exposure. Our headline: ≥ 250 melanopic EDI by day and ≤ 20 in the evening, paired with true blackout in bedrooms so the brain knows when to be alert and when to release melatonin. We begin with daylight analysis early, refine through spatial coordination, and program presets before handover.

Electric light should follow biology, not fight it. High-CRI, low-flicker fixtures are specified with safe flicker thresholds (PstLM ≤1.0, SVM ≤0.4) and pre-programmed scenes (morning/day/evening/night) to automate rhythm. Bedrooms get blackout with verified lux checks; LEDs on devices are covered or cut at night. We verify with on-site flicker meters and a controls demo.

Thermal cues support circadian timing and cognitive performance. Bedrooms must be capable of 17–19 °C at night with RH 40–60%. Overheating resilience is modelled and mitigated with shading, purge ventilation, and massing. It’s not about “cold rooms”; it’s about consistent night-time cooling and daytime comfort that protects working memory and reaction time.

Air keeps cognition online. When CO₂ climbs, attention drops. We design for CO₂ below 800 ppm in bedrooms and verify via decay tests. Kitchens use ducted hoods with external termination to capture cooking particles at the source; basements get dedicated dehumidification to hold RH in the healthy band. Commissioning includes airflow testing, CO₂ logging, and VOC/formaldehyde checks.

Noise lets the nervous system downshift. Bedrooms are held to ≤30 dB LAeq,8h and ≤45 dB LAFmax, with living spaces at ≤35 dB LAeq. Reverberation is tuned to T60 ≤0.5, so conversations are clear but never harsh. The point isn’t silence for silence’s sake; it’s physiology—unbroken sleep and calmer baselines that compound into better days.

Electrical planning protects bedrooms from unnecessary stimulation at night, with routers kept ≥2 m from beds, hard-wired data, and a night cut-scene that de-energises sockets/USBs while life-safety circuits remain live. Harmonic distortion is kept low so sensitive occupants rest easier. These “invisible” choices show up as easier sleep onset and fewer 3 a.m. wakeups.

Rhythm-first living means your home nudges without nagging toward the behaviours you want anyway. When light, temperature, air, sound and electrical cues are aligned, people don’t need more discipline. They need fewer obstacles. MAVI’s guidelines translate that into practical steps and commissioning checks, so rhythm isn’t a theory; it’s a delivered feature of the home. And if you want performance assurance beyond handover, MAVI Metrics can keep an eye on the big five: air, water, light, thermal, and acoustics.