Studio Nalca · Habitarmonía Academy
A masterclass series by Dominique Gentillon
Most homes are designed for people who arrived and stayed. This series is for everyone who has ever crossed a border — and for the designers building spaces for them.
Secure your place now.
Why this series exists
We talk about mental health, burnout, loneliness — and we look for the causes everywhere except the most obvious place: the spaces we inhabit. For people who have crossed borders, this disconnect runs deeper. They grieve the place, the culture, the version of themselves that existed there. And most of the time, the homes they land in were never designed to hold any of that.
Before a person can name what they've lost, their nervous system is already responding to unfamiliar environments as potential threat. The body knows first. The design profession hasn't caught up.
This series exists because that gap has a name, a science, and a design response. And almost no one in the built environment has connected those three things — until now.
"You can grieve a place the way you grieve a person."
60 minutes. Free. Open to all. An introduction to migrational grief, the nervous system, and why the spaces we design either hold people in transition — or make the process harder. Includes live Q&A.
2 hours. Live online. How displacement lives in the body. What nervous system science and migration psychology tell us about the homes people land in. How to read a space for what it's missing — and name it.
2 hours. Live online. The design response. Practical tools, biophilic anchors, and the intake methods for creating spaces that honour where a person is from while grounding them in where they are now.
What this series addresses
This gap between what displaced clients need and what standard design delivers has a name, a science, and a design response. Almost no one in the built environment has connected those three things — until now.
Unfamiliar environments register as potential threat. This is not metaphor — it is biology. Understanding this changes everything about how you approach a displaced client's brief.
The objects, textures, light, and spatial sequences that once grounded a person are gone. The home they've landed in speaks a different language. Design can respond to this — if the designer knows how to listen.
Practical tools, biophilic principles, and a new intake methodology give you a structured way to create spaces that honour where a client is from while grounding them in where they are now.
How it works
The series opens with a free 60-minute intro webinar — a first encounter with the psychology of migrational grief and what it means for the built environment. Includes live Q&A. Between the webinar and Session 1, you will receive a short guided reflection to help you arrive at the first session with greater clarity about your own experience — or that of the clients you work with.
How displacement lives in the body. What nervous system science and migration psychology tell us about the homes people land in. How to read a space for what it's missing — and name it. Includes live Q&A.
The design response. Practical tools, biophilic anchors, and the intake methods for creating spaces that honour where a person is from while grounding them in where they are now. Includes live Q&A.
What you will take away
A clear understanding of migrational grief as a psychological process — what it is, how it unfolds, and why it matters for the spaces you design
The language to read a space through the lens of the nervous system and cultural identity — and to name what is missing
A practical biophilic toolkit for designing spaces that regulate, anchor, and hold people in cultural transition
Intake methods and design questions that open a different kind of conversation with displaced clients
The SLOW methodology applied to transitional clients — a replicable framework for your own practice
Confidence to hold a design conversation that begins not with style or budget — but with story
Who this series is for
The gap between what your displaced clients need and what standard design delivers.
Architects, interior designers, and landscape designers working with clients in cultural transition
Creative professionals in the built environment who want to bring a deeper understanding of wellbeing and identity into their practice
Biophilic designers and wellness practitioners working at the intersection of space and human experience
Anyone — designer or not — who has navigated migration themselves and wants to understand what their body was responding to
"A home doesn't have to choose between your past and your present. And neither do you."
Dominique Gentillon · Studio Nalca
About the facilitator
Multicultural Well-being Designer · Habitarmonía Academy Certified Biophilic Designer · Founder, Studio Nalca
Born in Chile with Franco-German roots, living in the Netherlands after fifteen years across multiple European countries. Dominique navigated migrational grief firsthand — the burnout, the depression, the slow erosion of belonging — before finding, through Biophilic Design, a language for what her spaces had been failing to give her.
She has built her entire practice around the people her experience prepared her to understand: expats, global nomads, and families in transition who deserve homes that hold all of who they are. This series is her most personal work — and her most precise: where nervous system science meets the lived wisdom of someone who has had to learn, more than once, what it means to belong.
What's included
The Body Before the Room — live online, open to all. No enrollment or payment required.
A short personal reflection sent before Session 1. An invitation to consider your own relationship to space, belonging, and cultural identity. Around 15 minutes. Entirely personal.
2 hours live online. Nervous system science, migration psychology, and how to read a space for what it's missing.
2 hours live online. Practical tools, biophilic anchors, and a new intake methodology for designing with clients in transition.
Both paid sessions include dedicated time for questions, conversation, and exchange with Dominique and fellow participants.
Issued by Habitarmonía Academy upon completion of both paid sessions.
Investment & enrollment
Both sessions are live and online. Sessions run when a minimum of 5 participants have enrolled. If this threshold is not reached, you will be notified and offered a full refund or transfer to a future edition.
Because places are limited and preparation begins immediately after enrollment, your booking becomes non-refundable once your place is confirmed and the guided reflection has been sent to you. By enrolling, you agree to this condition.
Questions