Nina Lichtenstein – Founder & Principal Home Designer
Background
Nina Lichtenstein is the founder and principal designer of Nina Lichtenstein Custom Home Design, a residential design studio specializing in biophilic and neuroaesthetic design. Her work focuses on creating environments that strengthen the connection between people and nature while supporting health, well being, and the human nervous system.
Her path into interior design began outside the profession. Before launching her studio, Lichtenstein worked as a nature inspired monastery preschool teacher, where she explored the relationship between nature and human development. Her research examined the importance of bringing natural experiences into urban settings, a theme that would later become central to her design philosophy.
The turning point came while renovating her own family home. As she reimagined every aspect of the space, from the architecture and layout to the materials and finishes, she discovered a passion for construction, project management, and residential design. Only later did she realize that many of the decisions she had made intuitively aligned with the principles of biophilic and neuroaesthetic design, leading her to pursue advanced education and certification in the field.
Approach
Lichtenstein believes that interior environments directly influence physical, emotional, and mental well being. Her design process begins by understanding how a home functions today while identifying opportunities to create healthier, more restorative spaces.
Drawing from research in neuroscience and biophilic design, she incorporates natural materials, organic forms, fractal patterns, thoughtful lighting, and strong connections to the outdoors. Rather than treating these elements as decorative features, she views them as tools that can reduce stress, improve resilience, and create environments that support everyday life.
Her projects often include multigenerational homes and aging in place design, where safety, accessibility, and long term well being become integral parts of the design process. She approaches each project as an opportunity to improve not only how a home looks, but how it supports the people living within it.
Beyond Design
She developed an award winning collection of ligature resistant door hardware for behavioral health environments in collaboration with Accurate Lock and Hardware, introducing biophilic imagery and fractal patterns onto safety compliant fixtures to create more restorative experiences for patients, families, and staff. The collection received the Nightingale Gold Award at the 2025 Healthcare Design Conference and Expo, has been featured extensively in Healthcare Design magazine, and was debuted as a leading example of biophilic design at HKS architecture offices across Dallas, New York, and Los Angeles during Earth Day events. It is also being published in the second edition of Nature Inside: A Biophilic Design Guide by Bill Browning and Katie Ryan of Terrapin Bright Green. The collection continues to expand into residential and commercial applications.
She has also created a rug collection in partnership with Ruggle Up, inspired by biophilic and neuroaesthetic design principles. Each piece features imagery drawn directly from the natural world including forests, water with tree reflections, and light filtering through branches, all incorporating the fractal patterns found throughout nature that research has shown have a measurable calming effect on the nervous system.
