S7E03 Sensory Alchemy with Ramy Elnagar

This episode features Ramy Elnagar, founder of White Mirror, talking about how color acts as a frequency and a sensory tool to bridge the gap between our inner and outer worlds. Ramy elaborates on his studio's philosophy of "experiences as medicine," which utilizes nature-inspired awe and sensory congruence to move beyond mere engagement toward profound physiological and psychological transformation. The conversation explores the future of "secular spaces of worship" ultimately advocating for intentional design that helps individuals navigate loneliness and environmental anxiety through clarity, quietude, and ritual.

As the founder of White Mirror, a wellness innovation studio at the intersection of science, arts, and technology, Ramy believes the environments we design shape us, influencing how we think, feel, and connect. Guided by this philosophy, he applies evidence-based approaches to create spaces, experiences, and interventions that improve quality of life across the hospitality, real estate, automotive, and wellness sectors. He works toward building the future we want to live in, exploring how wellness can become part of our spaces and systems. Ramy’s holistic approach to human health addresses our emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical wellbeing through what he calls “experience as medicine.” 

Transcript

Judith van Vliet: Foreign. Good afternoon everyone and welcome back to the Color Authority podcast. Already season seven, the third episode of this year. Today I'm going to be talking to Ramy Elnagar. He is founder of White Mirror, a wellness innovation studio at the intersection of science, arts and technology. Rami believes the environments we design shape us, influence how we think, feel and connect. He is guided by this philosophy as he applies evidence based approaches to create spaces, experiences and interventions that improve quality of life across the hospitality, real estate, automotive and wellness sectors. He works towards building the future we want to live in, exploring how wellness can become part of our spaces and systems. Welcome to the Color Authority podcast. Ramy, I'm happy to have you here and to have you back in Europe.

Ramy Elnagar: Yeah, it's good to be back and I'm really happy that we're doing this as the first month of the year.

Judith van Vliet: First month of the year. It's exciting to talk about what's coming and what's next, but also what's been the inspirations over the holidays because I know you've been to a place and I'm sure you want to share something about this place because apparently it's the most colorful country in the world. But before we start on that, can you also share with the audience what color is to you as a person, as a professional?

Ramy Elnagar: I think at a base level, color is a frequency before it is an aesthetic. Right. So I work a lot with sensory scientists and sometimes my mind starts going at it from a very sort of mechanical standpoint. But then the other part of my heart always links color to psychedelia. I was very influenced by psychedelia growing up. And the first thing you notice in psychedelia is this amplification of color. You know, you're like, you step into that magical realism so fast and it is very much color first and giggles, but mainly color. And almost like at a mystical level, color, like how little we see of the color spectrum compared to animals, is such an interesting reminder of the mystery of life. Like, we miss thousands of pigments and images the animals see and from the ultraviolet to the colors that we don't see. So it's kind of like this constant reminder that the mystery, as much as we think we solved life, there's so much of it that we cannot see. We can, we can't even physically see.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we, we, we are, I mean, I, I, I read a lot of scientific research as well because it's part obviously of anybody who does research and, and obviously trend forecasting. I mean, we're focused on that 1% of what we visibly can see with the eye, and then the rest is even. Not even what we see or not see, between animals or not and human beings. It's energy, you know, and nobody speaks about this either. You know, the energy that life and other people's energy and colors and forms and shapes what they transmit. Nobody talks about that.

Ramy Elnagar: Absolutely. And I think, like, being in the wellness industry, which, honestly, I completely randomly bumped into a handful of years ago, you somehow get this privilege of being able to talk about wellness and spirituality very openly. And so I think this kind of, like, marriage of the inner world and the outer world is becoming more of an aesthetical conversation between designers. It's like, how do we design a space that feels safe, that allows our inner world to match our outer world? Because I think, like, a dissonance between the outside and the inside is where the colors get very muddy and things get a bit anxious. But I think we're getting more and more open about being able to use words like energy and auras and just things that a designer will keep in mind when they look at a space and what is safety.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I mean, we ran. I was listening to a different podcast just over the weekend about how it's now completely normal that you go into a meditation space with a group of people. Like, oh, no, on Thursday evenings, I can't, because I have recitation and meditation spaces with a group of. A bunch of people. I don't know. I mean, this used to be something that was absolutely not part of, something you'd share, like, whether your Thursday evening plans. And now it's very common, you know. No, that's the moment I'm going to disconnect, and just this is what I'm going to be doing, and nobody is even surprised anymore.

Ramy Elnagar: Absolutely. Like, someone asked me in October, I think, like, do you think social wellness is a fad or a trend that's going to stay? Absolutely. Something that will say, like, not because only that we have a loneliness epidemic, and we definitely have a loneliness epidemic, but just the fact that it is our most natural instinct as humans to come together and celebrate and, you know, like, whether you're religious or spiritual or secular, this kind of, like, collective congregation of people coming together is something to absolutely celebrate and bring closer to our identity and not maybe try to box it as, you know, like, you're a wellness person, but, I don't know, like, just break more barriers. Especially with the way we started this year. I don't need to talk much about the political standpoint. So I think, like, these gatherings are crucially needed more than ever. And I will bring India here. I was in India last month, and because I was really curious about traveling into spiritual sites and explore, like, what the masters did, you know, thousands of years ago. And when you come back to our community, there's a very clear kind of trend the way but evolution of space from functional spaces where we gather to eat or work to social wellness spaces where we gather to heal. And I think the next evolution of that will be very much spiritual spaces. That will be like a hybrid between what we've learned from temples and what we learned from nature and places where we come together, and I use the term often secular spaces of worship. We're not coming to connect to a certain dogma. We're coming to connect to the aesthetic of the space, to the music. Like music amplified through a temple or through a spiritual structure is a holy experience on its own. It doesn't need any books and mythology and anything else around it. So I think we will definitely see that growing as a footprint in the next handful of years of designing spiritual spaces, modern spiritual spaces.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. I sometimes wonder if this is something that indeed is just happening, because I've personally been connecting much more over the last couple of years pre Covid already at a spiritual level now, starting with Kundalini activations. But I feel also this is just like you're saying, it's not for a certain God or for a certain religion. Perhaps it's you within and the space that surrounds you. Right.

Ramy Elnagar: I think so too.

Judith van Vliet: Because, I mean, this is absolutely not really what you studied for. I mean, not really. What moment in your life did you realize this was something like it just hit you and you were like, feeling this. This is a path I need to follow. Was that. And when was that moment? Was it when you started to understand that environments really profoundly shape how you felt perhaps in that moment and connected and want it to feel.

Ramy Elnagar: I was writing a speech in October for a conference, and I was trying to TED talk it a little bit, to connect a little bit to my personal story, which is something I always avoided for some reason. And obviously it brings out the warmth in the conversation. And I realized two things. One, that very honestly, my career has been driven by various frustrations in various spaces. So I was in advertising, and I found myself that I'm wasting my creativity to sell an IKEA chair, hopefully not a sponsor of this podcast. And then after that, I find myself in immersive technologies because I thought maybe by Infusing technology with intentionality, we design a better world around us. And that was a virtual reality, augmented reality, AI. And eventually I got to the Zuckerberg fallacy, if you want to call it where I'm designing tech for tech's sake. I'm like, this is still a frustration because the world is going into where it's going to. And I think it's really important to have, like, this moral ambition to help. And so I think the last round of frustration got me into White Mirror to set up a company that hopes to always infuse our vehicles, our spaces, our apps, any, any point to interact with. With some sort of content and experience or space that helps people feel better. Right. Psychologically, physiologically, and even just driving the movement of intentional design is already a big step forward from just human centricity, because it's not just about that. Like, think brands need to ask themselves at every point when they're engaging with consumers or guests, like, how can I make you feel less anxious or sleep better or, you know, connect deeper to your partner. And so when I was writing that speech, I was going back to this notion of, like, we designed the world the way it designs this back, right? There's an ontological relationship. And I realized this talk that I went to And I think 2012, by this British sociologist, sharing his story of him being in Beirut where. Where I'm from, and I came in rolling my eyes, going, like, what is this British sociologist going to teach me about my home? I was so shocked. He spoke about this notion called the post memoryscape, the idea that a generation can be influenced by a space and an event they've never lived. So I've never lived through the civil war. But according to him, my generation was experiencing it through the bullet holes in the wall, through the stories our parents tell us, the half demolished buildings everywhere, and the very political art you see everywhere in the streets. And so his notion is that, yes, you never lived that difficult time, but you live somehow indirectly through it. And that was a big aha moment for me of like, wow, I thought I left Lebanon and I'm cool, I'm good. I'm in Europe, I'm in London. Everything is great. And you carry this environmental heaviness with you. That was a big aha moment. But very honestly, retrospectively, it's not like I always thought about it. It was a moment of realization.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I think we all realize in certain points a more profound way of being and thinking and understanding as well. And then there's ancestral trauma as well. I mean, what Lebanon is going, what went through is going through, and it will probably keep going through, is something that's. It's in you, it's in your parents, it's in your family. I mean, there's no way in ignoring that. Even though, you know, as you said, I'm in Europe, you know, I'm doing well, my company's doing well.

Ramy Elnagar: Yeah, yeah. No, that's. That's the irony sometimes. And. But I'll say one thing that I remember speaking to a friend about this a few years ago, that at least in some of these difficult areas, beyond the fact that it builds an amazing resiliency for you, that you can handle a lot of things, you know where the problem is. So you see it in the street or wherever it's meant to be. I found myself in Europe in my early days of being here, I found it harder to pinpoint why I would be anxious in an environment because everything looks pretty soft and serene, so it must be me. I assumed I was the issue. And of course, the more I got into my practice and my work and my collaborators, you see how, you know, as the rise of neuro aesthetics and all of that, you see how sensitive we are as humans. And we're definitely living on the spectrum, you know, whether neurodivergence or not. I believe there's a spectrum of sensitivity that we live on. And the more inflamed we feel sometimes because of anxiety, lack of sleep, the more our environment suddenly is loud. And I think, like, we live in quite static environments. And sometimes you almost want to ask yourself, like, can some elements adapt to me? Because I'm not always the same personality. And often with hotels that I work with, I try to push them to step out of the demographic Persona, like this person is this age, that age, to also ask about the psychographic Persona, like, who am I at this time? Who am I at that time? Because I feel in one stay you can be four different personalities, even though you are the same demographic. Because of the spectrum that we oscillate on.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I mean, we even have. We experienced that you probably arrived in India a different person than you were at the end of the trip, staying perhaps in different places, different retreats and hotels, and you have different experiences. What was it in European environments? Coming from Beruti interior, What was. What really did not work for you as a Lebanese in Europe? Did you find out what wasn't working? Was it lights? Was it functionality?

Ramy Elnagar: It's hard to pinpoint. I think I was always used to externalizing an issue. Like there's a. There's a bombing or there's a. There's a riot or whatever it is. And so you externalize that locus and you're like, that's the problem. And when you're. Everything is quite serene, it's hard to pinpoint anything. So then the, the compass goes back to you. So there's almost like an avoidance factor of always like pointing at other things that might be the things from making you uneasy. But if you fast forward a few years later, like another aspect in my life that really opened my eyes on environment was immersive theater. I was obsessed in uni, I was doing in St. Martin's my thesis on how can immersive theater change behavior, which I never used until years later I came back to it like, as this whole, like transformative media. And I was obsessed with punch drunk. And I think Felix Barrett is one of the geniuses of our era of like being able to morph as an individual in different rooms and have a mask, which means you're anonymous. So your agency doesn't matter anymore. It's you and the environment. And I remember Josephine Machon had a book about immersive theater. She spoke about this notion of a silent contract. The idea that every space in immersive theater, and I think every space in general, it has a silent contract. So there's always an invitation to engage more or to engage less. You can be the quiet one or you can be touching all the set design. And that really stayed with me that like, how do you design silent contracts and spaces that naturally, without signage, without specific, like LED lights going like touch, touch here.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah.

Ramy Elnagar: How does it encourage people to step and use the word? People move from audiences into percipients. Like they transform into these beings of interaction. And that always stayed with. In the less dystopian Lebanese sense.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Oh, it's so interesting when you, you experience. I mean, you're talking about immersive theater, which obviously is an experience. I mean, experiment. I mean the experience economy. Everybody talked about it for so long, but it's only growing. And it's only growing. But you also describe it as medicine. Having experiences is medicine. How do you think color factors into this philosophy? I mean, I know about color and what it can do for you, but do you feel that color, for example, can really play shape, emotional and physical well being in spaces as well?

Ramy Elnagar: I guess maybe to take a small step back. So experience as medicine is a term we use in the studio to describe intentional Spaces and experiences that not only have a positive effect on your psychophysiology, meaning like lower cortisol heart rate, brain is in like a deep meditative state, but then takes the extra leap to touch a fabric of your being. So can you go into, for example, with Thurman Gruppe, Joseph Wund, we worked on this virtual forest bathing experience where you go into the water, you're submerged. I don't know how I ended up working in spas, but it's become my most favorite thing to do because the word immersed only exists when you're in the work and there you're in the water, you're half naked, or in Germany, you're fully naked.

Judith van Vliet: Also in the Netherlands.

Ramy Elnagar: Yep, you guys are doing it right where I'm sitting here. No, no big message to the English human beings anyways. And you, you laid down these vibroacoustics, you're listening to the nature sounds and you're going through this 24 hour journey of a tree. So you're embodying it, you're getting closer to it. And so we've done the psychophysiology research and you see the effects on your biology and everything's positive. But then the team we worked with, the amazing marshmallow laser feast, who are like friends of ours and amazing immersive designers, wanted to go the extra step in terms of opening this flower in the end, this blossoming of the Queen of the night, which opens once a year and it dies. So it's a story of like death, impermanence, ephemerality. And you see people having these profound conversations about why am I not spending more time in the outdoors? And like, what is time? And it goes quite philosophical. And so I think for us, this experience as medicine notion is how do we not just design engaging experiences, but experiences that when people leave, something shifted inside of them. And you could argue that art always shifts things by. I of that's true in the era of scroll, like, you know.

Judith van Vliet: No, it needs to be in a museum for sure. It needs to be probably still in person, at least not. Not on the screen.

Ramy Elnagar: Yeah, that's it. And I'm very, I'm very passionate about experiences that exist outside of the cultural world. Like the spa is amazing, the bedroom is amazing. And the bedroom is a great segue to your question. The long full circle. When we design experiences in the evening to help people have a ritual in the bedroom in a hotel, you have to go away from a white blue spectrum because that, you know, spikes your cortisol and you have to go reddish, amberish spectrum, so you can actually watch the content. But the brain is not interrupting the melatonin production. So here, the spectrum of color is a necessity for you to have a breathing ritual or whatever experience you're having without sparking this awareness. Because at the end of it, if you had a moment of relaxation, but then you flash in white, you're not gonna sleep, or you're not gonna sleep as much, or it'll take you longer to go to sleep. So it's almost like in some aspects, you have functional color that is a prerequisite for something to work in the context. And we're never that, let's say, formulaic about the sensory design that we approach. Even though we helped launch with Johns Hopkins in December, a report on neurosthetics, I think the field itself of how our senses influence our psychophysiology. There's almost a shift that needs to happen in the industry, both academically and commercially, where we stop trying to formulaically decompose the human into five senses and then checklist like multi sensory. Ah, we did sound, light, scent. I'm like, I don't think this is what multisensory is meant to be like. If anything, if you think about cross modality, how senses affect each other, and the work of amazing people like Dr. Charles Spence, where you can have the same whiskey in your hand and then you walk in three different colored rooms and it tastes more sour and more bitter. These are senses playing into each other, not just going, oh, we had smell and sand and you touch something on the wall, it's like, this is not how the brain works. And so I think the fascination with color is it's how it mixes with other senses. And if it's congruent, then a space that's meant to feel safe will feel safer. And if it's incongruent, then the space will be like, something's off here. So I think the inter sensory correlation is really fascinating and we don't know much about it except, yeah, what we know and there's a lot more that we don't. And that's really fascinating. That's. That's really psychedelic.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. No, and that's also why I started the podcast, because color and everything that. Where color is applied and how it involves in so many processes, there's still so much to learn. We're still learning about it for sure. Especially in your field. Yeah, yeah.

Ramy Elnagar: We have friends in LA that have a studio called Chromasonic. And Chromasonic translates sort of light waves into sound waves and vice versa. I think they call it refrequencing. And independent of what you think of the artwork, when you're sitting inside the space, they've done this beautiful trick where you kind of see endless color because of the way they build the space. And so you feel like you're sitting in a chroma infinity. And it's hard to put words as to what you feel. Some of the research that they've shown, they've noticed people connect to each other more, they talk more, they connect more.

Judith van Vliet: Because you lose track of time.

Ramy Elnagar: They lose track of time, actually, that's a really good point. Like the timelessness and the. And the spacelessness means you're in this kind of infinitude. So maybe in a spiritual sense, quite heart opening. And it defies even space and time. And you're in this. Yeah, I really like the word. Like color. Inducing a sense of timelessness, which makes it easier for people to forget who they are and thus easier to connect to other people.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah. Oftentimes when you have a monochromatic space, like really monochromatic, and there's no windows, there's no other light, so you lose track of time. And that's why you tend to connect indeed more. And you tend to have obviously deeper, more profound feelings because you're focused on you. You know, because there's only one color to see.

Ramy Elnagar: Let me. Let me. Let me ask you a question. Cause I know I'm the one who's meant to be answering them, but what are your thoughts on chromotherapy as a practice?

Judith van Vliet: I think I know it. I mean, obviously I'm a. I go to the sauna because I'm Dutch. I was born and raised Dutch, and we even had a sauna in our home. So. So for me, it's like, first of all, it's the most relaxing thing I think you can do. And then when we would visit saunas, which we now do more frequently, every time I'm in the Netherlands, there is the red. The red sauna, for example, which is obviously for your whole torso, your intestine, your digestive system. So I already know works. So it's. I think it's something that we just are not applying yet. Because just like you said, in a space, the light and the color, even interior design, getting light and color correct is still tricky, let alone that you're using it for a more important reason, which is possibly healing. And that can be healing of a pain. It can be healing. But yes, definitely red. Chroma. And it has. Not on a profound level, but on a more superficial level, it does have healing properties.

Ramy Elnagar: So yeah, I find the field really interesting because I've met people on all ends of the spectrum, from people I raised eyebrows to going like, I don't think there's anything serious here scientifically, all the way down to things that were really impressive. And it's a tricky one with color sometimes because the example I used to give is, yeah, red can be alertness, but also red could be. Be sexy. But also if you were naughty as a kid, then your mom would spank you with something that was red. There's a psychological relationship.

Judith van Vliet: That's trauma.

Ramy Elnagar: Yeah. And you're like, red is not a thing for me. So this constant tension between the objective and the subjective nature of color is a really interesting area because.

Judith van Vliet: And that's why it's tricky.

Ramy Elnagar: Exactly.

Judith van Vliet: It's purely private. Not private, it's personal. Color is not objective. So it's, it's not scientific research perhaps yet, but I think we can both agree there's more to this world than what scientific research is showing right now. But there's new research coming out, especially when it comes to color and always connected with lighting because you can't see the two separate. I think there's more and more to be discovered for sure. When you design for, I mean, we're talking about emotions, we're talking about spaces, obviously. But when you design for emotional, psychological, but also spiritual and physical well being, I mean, there's a lot of the topics there. Where do you begin? Like what's the first thing that you'll act upon besides talking to your clients, perhaps?

Ramy Elnagar: Yeah, we have a process that we follow. I'll share it just for structure, but also riff around it a little bit. So typically we start by imagining the future of the space that we're building. Right. So we try to look at what are the future needs of the people that will live in it. And we try to go a little bit further than like one or two years into construction. Like in the next five to 10 years, how will people pray? How do they eat? How do they connect to wellness? What is their perception of this actual space? And then we try to take these future needs and bring it back. The first thing that we typically do is turn to nature. So we believe it's really the ultimate teacher and not just for like biomimicry purposes. Although by definition it is what we're doing, but it's just like from an experiential standpoint, you Know when you look at the way the sun comes between the clouds, you know, the God rays, it can inspire a design of lighting inside the sauna. Or if you look at the way the water refracts light and vice versa. Like we find a lot of inspiration in nature and then we turn to sensory sciences to see, look, what does neuro aesthetics tell us about light, sound, vibration, sense. And we try to extract some principles to help brief the artists or designers or creators to get closer to the physiological outcome. We never get exactly it because obviously senses are mixing as well. It helps a sound designer to understand certain music psychology principles that downregulate individuals, like rhythmic entrainment. Like the rhythm goes from faster to slower and then that brings down the energy. And a few more of these across the board and eventually we look at the technology. So we try to leave the tech almost a step three because it's easy to go like ah, we're going to have a VR headset and the lighting thing and then you're just going tech first. Half the time we know where it's going to be, but it's still, it allows the intentionality to take a little bit of superiority in the process. And eventually when we get to the last part, which is art, like we wrap everything together with a layer of art because we believe that people don't do things because they're told they're good for them. They do them because they feel them and that's that behavioral stickiness. Like we try to experience this medicine, everything because we believe that when you feel something and you go home, that spark is what makes you go, I think I should take care of myself more. Right? And then eventually you get into your practice, your yogas and routines and breath works and. But the power of awe, especially once nature inspired awe, that's why we go to, you know, the big dolomites and like these massive awesome awe inducing natural spaces because they change us, you know, and there's so much research around awe and interpersonal connections and you feel something's bigger than you and you almost like it's good to. Reminds me of like when I ask people, I don't have kids, but I asked many friends of mine, like the best thing of having a child, they say finally my life is not about me anymore, it's about something else. And I feel all induction has that effect. You go there and it's so grand that you're like, I'm just tiny in this whole experience. And so we try to capture bits of that in our experience because we believe that that's the ultimate behavioral change. And it touches to your point on physiology, emotion, social, spiritual is like the spaces, hopefully after we test them, do make you feel either better or calmer. But then on top of it, as I gave the example before, it touches a spiritual aspect of you that connects deeply to yourself and then you and other people suddenly sharing and talking. So, yeah, going from nature to science to tech and then the wrapper of art is kind of the way we try to do it.

Judith van Vliet: And I mean, it's definitely not simple what you're doing, but beauty lies and experiences lies sometimes in the most simple things, which is indeed traveling, which you just did. And I also traveled over the last couple of weeks, but also just a simple sunset. And even if you have sunsets every night, every time, we're like in awe. And research also shows that when you're in awe, even it's just a 30 seconds thing, sometimes your ego lowers. You know, that's a good thing for this world.

Ramy Elnagar: I think I promised myself in podcasts and talks to avoid talking about politics. So I'll go with absolutely, yes. But Barney Steele, the creative director we worked with on a few of these immersive wellness installations and the Therma Group in Germany, the second installation we did with them, Immersive Horizon, is this kind of like breathing planet experience that connects your breath to the planet and kind of shows you the connection between that little breath that comes out of you and just the flow of the planet. And it's hard to explain experiences without showing them. And he came up with this idea by being, I think in Italy in the water sunset, saw the little refraction on the water and then was created this little like foil based experiment where he had the sun on the screen and the foil. And I was trying to show us. Look at the refraction of what. Look at what I saw in the water. And that was the main inspiration for the whole piece. So absolutely. It's the, the little things, simplicity, override, millions of creative strategy briefs and all that kind of stuff. And in the end we built it based on his tiny vision of that little. I'll send you the. The proof of concept. It's the most hilarious, simple, practical, probably cost him €5 to make it.

Judith van Vliet: And it's genius best ideas. I mean, those are probably the, as you said, genius ideas. Yeah. When we talk about perhaps lack of being a genius, what do you think is still the most overlooked aspect of environmental, well, being in the spaces that we live in? Like what is really something that most designers and architects just keep on forgetting.

Ramy Elnagar: I would go back to that point I made earlier around sensory congruence. It's not the single out that scent is missing or light is missing or sound is missing. And if I had to pick one, I would say sound, absolutely. Because sound as a background is very different from intentional active listening. And we helped design a sauna in Germany where you're going inside and it's a full body, deep listening experience, and you feel the difference because, like, so saunas, as much as people want to tell me, ah, it's a great experience. I know from everybody I've interviewed, it's if we do it daily, it's a boring experience.

Judith van Vliet: No, of course.

Ramy Elnagar: You're like looking at the timer going, please finish. I need to go out. You know. And so it's an amazing time in these 20 daily minutes to add a layer of deep listening, because eventually it shifts and it heightens the way you relate to space because you listen with your whole body. And that sound song, that was an amazing experience. Again, simple. Just increasing the value of sound in a space where sound is usually background music or nothing. But to go back to the sensory congruency, I think when you design a space that is meant to be calming, I think making sure, like, the. The warm light, the soft sound frequencies, the cool air temperature, the softness in the materials, the lack of visual clutter, like, everything just cohesively working together means that the senses are amplifying each other so you'll be more relaxed. Cause they're working really closely together. And when that congruency is ignored, sometimes you end up frying people a little bit. Like, we. We're launching a project next month with the amazing Novak Djokovic and his team. And it's a pod that uses different senses to help you recover better or to perform better. And we've gone through so many iterations with their team to get the right programs to work, because if you crank up everything, you're just frying the individual inside the pod. And so the senses are too much. And if you miss Mis regulate them, then they're working against each other. So you're hypo almost designing, and yeah, they're falling asleep. People are not getting much out of it. So we had to do so many different iterations to find, like, what are the principles that work for these sensorial scripts to get people closer to the outcome that they're after. So I think congruency is such a complicated topic because when you put so many variables into a blender and you Turn it on. You never know what the outcome is. And we haven't been thinking cross modally for that many years. Like we used to think. If I'm correct, each part of the brain was responsible for one sense and that was it. Now we know it's such a big mishmash and. Yeah. So I would say, like, the interlink between the senses is as important as what we do with them individually.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. There's not one sensor cue that's more powerful. It's all of them together. And they have to interact at almost a perfect level, which is difficult because I imagine I'm in a space. You're in a space. We react differently, isn't it? Yeah. So you have a. Almost. Well, perhaps a more difficult job even than I do with color. How do you.

Ramy Elnagar: We are as good as our collaborators. Like we, we act as, as a rubber band between different people. We. We. We rarely see ourselves as experts in any field, but more so really like trying to find a common language between different people who don't necessarily speak to each other.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah.

Ramy Elnagar: And so, yeah, we are as good as our collaborators, for sure.

Judith van Vliet: Solutions and answers. Yeah. What do you think about contrast in terms of color? In color? Very often in spaces. So there's certain colors that you can use in spaces with light that indeed are calming. They're very easy. They bring you calmness and tranquility. And then this calmness, which obviously creates a dopamine level. Is that something that you work with or is that then indeed something you devoid?

Ramy Elnagar: That's a good question. It takes me more to the immersive theater days. Immersive media, like when we talk about this silent contract, how shifting light, colors and frequencies on some objects can make them interactable without saying anything. And like, the team at Punchtruck was amazing at using lighting as a silent tool to guide you through a space and to amplify how you react to a space and for you to know, like, maybe I should spend more time in this area more than the other one. And even when you had too many people in the space and they wanted to divide them into two, they used light and sound and they contrasted different areas for you to naturally go here and the others were going there and separating people. So it was a silent exchange on how to get people to move around in terms of space itself. Like when we design, let's say, wellness environments, I actually go with. I'm not sure how much we leverage that, but it's something I should probably sit down and think about.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. No, no. I'm just, I mean, for example, my logo is made with contrast, not the extreme contrast because obviously if orange it would be blue, but it's, it's something that dopamine layering and this type of things is something that at least in interior design industry, a lot of people are indeed talking about. Yeah, it's interesting too. But then have spaces with both. I mean, you need a space where you then another space that perhaps for creativity boost, you'll lose. You'll use different lighting, you use different colors, different tactility and materials to boost energy. You know, just like you did with the focus. You know with the focus. There's also a different probably intention than with just calming people. It's a different intention that you set.

Ramy Elnagar: Yeah, I guess that's the, that's the big promise of adaptable spaces. Now that how do we move from static environment to adaptive one? I think we're absolutely not there yet and.

Judith van Vliet: No, that was my next question. Indeed, adaptable future. No, it's fine. I mean it's nice how it just flows. But how far are we from adaptable environments?

Ramy Elnagar: I've had this conversation with a few people because it's often a brief that we get or a conversation clients because, you know, all of us want to adapt spaces for different people. And I think there's, there are some aspects, you know, like circadian lighting can adapt lighting in a space according to the time of day. That's a level of adaptability. But that almost for me is a minimum requirement. It's not even like the promise that we're both, I think imagining of like what is a genuinely adaptive environment. I think the first limitation is the congruency conversation. Second is how do we capture the state shifts in people through biometrics, through voice? Because from voice you can gather a lot of sort of effective data. And then once you know that, how do you adjust it? Let's leave the public conversation out because I always ask people like, what is an average heart rate? It's, it's a random number. It's like one person's up, one person's down, one person's hyperventilating, one person's too chilled. So the average is nothing. So I think the averaging of many people at the same time means we're not really personalizing. It's a, it's a, it's a big bell curve. No, so it's more the private spaces like a bedroom or an office. That can be so. And the thing, the other aspect as well is thinking like, how do we achieve this Promise of states on demand. If I'm nervous, can the space know that I'm nervous and calming down? I think the first step will absolutely be I have to choose what I think I want because it's easier just to go into modes, into sensory modes. And I think we'll be there in the next few years.

Judith van Vliet: Do you really think people know what they want?

Ramy Elnagar: That's the caveat. The asterisk at the end of it, you know, the whole faster horses. Like if we knew when we're stressed and we can downregulate, that's half the problem. Like this, the inner awareness. That's why interoception is so fascinating as a concept. Your awareness of your inner world that I feel inflamed or my digestive system is sending me a signal that maybe cancel your meetings in the evening because your loneliness is giving you a signal for social. But your body's saying, just have a bath, man, just read a book and just do, do nothing. So our inner awareness and interoception is absolutely half the problem. So maybe it's probably easier for the artificial intelligence sort of promise that it's crunching a lot of data and saying, look, I think you're stressed, that's why I'm doing this. Versus humans knowing what they need. But it's definitely a fascinating area. And yeah, I think the big promise of adaptive spaces is a lot of sort of built environment specialists and people in computational design and things like that are actively investigating how our spaces can change and breathe and adapt to us.

Judith van Vliet: I would personally hope that we, even if it's with the help of technology, that we can learn more about ourselves but not have. Need to have a machine to tell us what we need and what we feel. Because I think. Exactly. I mean, you always see duality in what, what's happening in the world. Technology is really booming and we're all addicted to our phones and. But at the same time, I think there's this quest for finding more how we feel, what we want and what we need. I think there's both things are happening probably as a consequence, one of the other. But yeah, I like to hope that we can get closer to knowing what we want so that even if somebody wants to work with you, they can literally tell you what they want and what they need. And we all know very often briefs are just like, okay, can we have the real conversation or should we just skip the brief and have a real conversation about really what are the values? What are the feelings and emotions that you want to transmit Right, Yeah, Especially.

Ramy Elnagar: This whole, like, how do we move from the brief to being more real? In my talk in the Global Wellness Summit in November, I had a big photo of behind me. And with no offense to anybody who's listening, whether this is with or against their political views, I was just pointing at him and saying, like, this is the world that we're designing for. And we need to remind ourselves that, yes, because the theme was about longevity. I'm all for living longer, but I'm also all for solving this reality of the poly crises that we live in. Like, people are inflamed and they're lonely and we have to make a better environment for them before we get into any other promises beyond that. And yeah, on the point of adaptive spaces as well, I watched the David Bowie documentary and I ended up going into this rabbit hole of what is heterochroma when your two eyes are different colors, and connects also to how chameleons change color. And then there's something about material futures. Every time I go to universities and I, and I see there, I always run to find if there's a material futures course. Because these, these, these students are doing absolutely phenomenal work. It's fascinating because it's the original technology, you know, it's the net, the natural world, showing us how a space can change color because of some change in some organic material that maybe when exposed to light, shifts color. And that for me is really where the alchemy of magic is like, where technology hides into nature, or we're like extracting its intelligence through design and then putting it back into our built space. And when you think about the work of Neri Oxman and people like that, that's where it gets beautifully fascinating. And I do hope that this kind of like agentic AI expansion and organic material futures, like, marry really well together because it might completely rethink what we think of a space, because now we have functional spaces. A kitchen, a sleeping room, eating room, a social room. And yeah, maybe adaptability will shift into multifunctional spaces that just switch.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, well, already, Asia, that's very much the case. It's not less the case in the Western world. Indeed. I just read today about this material. Indeed, it's rapidly changing color and surface texture from Stanford University. So it's soft and flexible, and they took indeed key from the adaptive skin of octopuses and cuttlefish. I mean, and that's an awe as well, if you would see that in a space. And it's working. And it is, as you said, it just all fits. You're creating an awe moment, you know, and you're creating that ultimate experience.

Ramy Elnagar: It's a very interesting concept here. Let's see if we can turn this podcast into a brief. But maybe I need to call Barney and put him on the phone. He starts making little, little experiments. There's a term I learned in university when I was doing a philosophy course called qualia. And qualia is about, and I'll explain as well as I can, is the. Is the almost the texture of the reality of something. So the qualia of a bat is when you're upside down, you're blind, you're echolocating your environment. So what it's like to be a bat is the quality of a bat. And to your point about, you know, octopi and animals like that, and the cuttlefish that change color, there's something as a concept that could be interesting of thinking, how do we allow people to embody what it's like to be a non monochromatic being, but an ever changing being from a color and texture standpoint? Because there's something quite powerful about that idea. You know, like, we as humans, we think a lot in static terms. And life is very ephemeral, you know, and even like our notion and relationship to death is very much rooted into that as well. That we want things that last. And ephemerality scares us and death scares us. So I wonder if there's some embodiment experience related to this constant flux of color, constant change that reminds us. I mean, this is what India was to me. Nothing works. So I'm like, okay, I have to pull out my ocd, throw it out, and just accept it's conscious surrender. I wonder if there's a marriage between these two things, you know, of like conscious surrender, ephemerality and change. And do send me the Stanford article. I'm very curious.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, it's. I think there's. I mean, this is also. This is good. There's a lot of excitement, stuff happening that is improving the world and hopefully helping us to heal. But when we talk about those spaces, for example, some of spaces that you've designed, how. How do you measure the healing state of one or even more people? I mean, how can you even measure that besides people saying after a week or a month, oh, my headache is gone, of course, you know, I don't have migraines anymore. Or like, how. How would you.

Ramy Elnagar: Before this call, I texted Joseph Pine, who has a book coming out in February, which I'm really excited about. He talks about the transformation economy, how we're moving from the experience economy to the transformation economy. And it was very resonant, even though I haven't read the book, but just a small little bits here and there, because as I was writing a lot of my speeches for this year, I was talking about how do we shift from superficial guest engagement to deep, measurable transformation? So it was very serendipitous to read that. He's launching a book on that. And of course, there's layers of measurements, you know, like there's biometrics that we tend to measure when we're doing experiences. We have behavioral research as well. But for me, the interesting point is, above all of the metrics is that behavioral shift and that transformation. Like, how do we move from a bedroom that gives you a good night's sleep to a bedroom that teaches you how to become a better sleeper? You know, it's phase that gets closer to you and wants to transform something about you. Because I believe, and let's take hotels as an example, this guest engagement conversation and the loyalty factor will evolve from I slept well today, which in the future will be the minimum I need from you to give me, because you are a sleep establishment, into every new place that I go to. I will always remember you because you took the time to teach me how to make my own priestly ritual, or you showed me that when I go back to my bedroom, I look up and I'm like, why do I have a white light at night? Why don't I change that? So I think the transformation aspect for me is really. And transformation will shift every new space. Like, how can a spa to continue with a hotel, move from a classic space of relaxation to a deep sanctuary of introspection? Can I transform the spa of a place where I go and I really think about my life, or I embody a certain concept, or I have a spiritual experience, or I learn empathy between me and my partner. And those transformations, I think will, and I imagine that's what his book is about, is we've had a few decades of experience and now we're going into decades of transformation, which is obviously catalyzed by the macro political state of the world. Like, it's hard to be somewhere and just be escapist when you have to come back to reality and look out so you're more precious with your time. And so you're asking, like, that's why I think wellness travels become such a big thing. It's not because you don't want to unwind of Course you want to unwind, but you want to come back with better habits, better nuances, perspective shifts, all to your point. You know, like wellness travel is all about awe. Can I come back and be less egotistical and be more present with my family, et cetera? So I think the question probably that builds on your question is what do we measure transformation against? And I think that's why this year a big point of curiosity for me is to meet people like Joseph and other researchers and academics that are doing work in this notion of transformation so that we can deepen our design briefs from aesthetic to, I guess, a healthy marriage between aesthetic and transformation. Because we still want nice things.

Judith van Vliet: Has anybody already asked you to work on the big eclipse event of next year in August 2027?

Ramy Elnagar: If you know someone, please, please let me know. I have a call.

Judith van Vliet: Because we talk about transformation and this is pro. This is going to be a human and spiritual level, one of the biggest ones that this living earth will probably at least this generation that's living currently will experience. And interesting, at least for me. Interesting it is. South of Spain is where you can view it best. Well, southern Spain is where it starts and it's the whole Maghreb and then it is obviously the whole line of Saudi towards India. So it's a different world than. So it's spiritual and it's eclipse and it's in the desert for a large part and it's Middle east or technically West Asia. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, that would be. If I were in your shoes, that would be like something like, oh, that's what I want to work on. That was a page for anybody listening.

Ramy Elnagar: Exactly. I will take a brief. I will work on it for free. And I will regret these words after six months. But probably my partner is a person who's very connected to the mystery of nature, very spiritual person. A person that drew me into realizing how little I see. And I really underlined the word mystery of nature. Not just beauty, but the mystery of it. And you know, when there's a full moon or a new moon night, I already know after two years that I don't make plans with her. Like, she will have her own ritual and it's her own space and she's connected to this cycle independent of whether you believe in the astrology or not. And I think that's the limited fallacy that a lot of us experience. Like, ah, Geminis aren't X or Y. I'm like, sure. I also don't believe a lot of that stuff. But I love that there's a certain rhythm it's connected to. And that rhythm makes. Makes sense of the chaotic nature of life. Or just makes you realize that there's actually not that much chaotic. If you just look and pay attention to the rhythm. Things have a certain flow to them. So to your point, like, if there are moments that come every, imagine a few hundred years, it's definitely something to stop and really, like, celebrate. And what celebration means, I think, is where the design brief comes from. What does this mean to us? You know, how can we influence millions of people's behavior that potentially might have this eclipsing moment, might reconnect to the cycle I just mentioned? And then they start paying more attention to the cyclicality of nature. And that. Yeah, like, I think it was on Pinterest. The highest. One of the highest words that were researched during COVID was ritual. People were trying to make their own rituals. And I don't think everybody were thinking in the same spiritual sense. I think they just saw when they don't leave the house, there's no more rhythm. And so they're trying to find, like, can I make my own rhythm? Can I create? Can. Can I celebrate certain things? And, yeah, it's fascinating that that's actually one of the words that was most researched during COVID Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: And I think it's only gonna increase. I mean, whether it's whatever you're into ancestral constellations, understanding trauma, doing tarot readings. I mean, it's interesting because there is so much more out there. Something. I think it's interesting. And with the moons and it's just interesting. There's a reason why they bottle wine only in a certain point of the month or how certain. For example, the anchovies fish. You can only catch it in a certain wave or in a certain time of the year. I mean, there's reason for that. And we tend to completely go against it as human beings. And that. I think that's what's hurting us emotionally as well.

Ramy Elnagar: The built environment was not made for us. And look, like I. When I go to safari sometimes, and I see all these wild animals, and I'm reminded that I am the prey at the bottom of the food chain. Of course, I'm very grateful when I come back to a built environment, like, oh, thank God we have a built environment. But it's definitely, like, something that we're still adapting to. Because we've lost sight of, really, the rhythm of nature. And that's why, even in hospitality, I've noticed how much more the Word ritual comes back into design briefs and I think it connects to that. It connects to bringing not just presence to space, but bringing a celebration of presence. And what does that like? For me, that's what ritual is. It's a celebration of presence. And if in that moment of presence there's pain, then it's really learning how to sit with that pain benefit. All we want to do is always feel better and avoid. There's a whole spectrum of emotions. They're like, no, no, no, no, this is not for me. And sitting with pain and sitting with discomfort and can the space facilitate grief is a topic I talk a lot about with friends because obviously we're getting older, we're losing loved ones and, you know, probably a different conversation for a different podcast. But how can space hold space for you in difficult emotions is fascinating. And yeah, especially in the difficult times that we live in. It's. How do our environments regulate us when we're inflamed and, and help us support us?

Judith van Vliet: I think.

Ramy Elnagar: Yeah, there's a, there's a quote that I, that I closed the talk at in November, which was modern luxury is our ability to think clearly, sleep deeply, move slowly, and live quietly in a world designed to prevent all four. And I love that quote so much because it's so, it's so representative of the time that we live in.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I have that place. Well, I don't live there. So that's also life choices and changes everybody talks about, obviously the fire horse, obviously of 2026 and how multiple changes are going to happen. It's, it's, it's. I think it's going to be an interesting year in many different aspects. But if you, I mean, we're talking about health and well being, everybody. This is like a topic that will only grow. I mean, that's something that I'm fully convinced of and numbers show also, by the way, what is one small environmental change anyone can make to improve their daily well being?

Ramy Elnagar: I will not be a hypocrite and say that I do it because otherwise I'll be lying. I'll say it again based on how my partner designs her space. Something I tried to do and I failed a little bit. So I'm 2026 is when I'll achieve it. She travels with a little pouch and she makes her little altar wherever she goes. It's familiar objects and not necessarily spiritual objects. Some are, but many others are just familiar objects. It's objects of safety, objects of familiarity, objects of poetry. Objects are. And not only is it in her room when she's here, but when she travels, she takes it with her. And if you think about, like, the first night effect, which is the idea that when we. When we sleep in a new space, half the brain is awake. Because when we used to sleep on a cave or on a tree, this predator is in a new area. So the brain is like cheetah, and so keep you half awake. But at a very basic level, like, what makes us feel safe in new spaces. And we traveled a lot to new spaces. I love this idea of carrying familiarity with you wherever you go. Then you choose what is familiar. It's a T shirt. It's a shirt. It's a. It's a. It's a smell. It's a crystal. It's anything else in between that I find, you know, is an amazing touch to context engineering that goes a long way.

Judith van Vliet: I love that.

Ramy Elnagar: Hopefully by RDX podcast, I will be actually doing it.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah.

Ramy Elnagar: I admire people who do so. And my. And my roommate in Lisbon as well does the same, like a whole area for it, and I really admire them for it because if you step into the room and you get too close to it, they will bite.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah.

Ramy Elnagar: It's my safe space, and I love that.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. Yeah. It's like touching somebody else's crystals. Like, what? Don't. It's.

Ramy Elnagar: It's luxury.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. It's energy also. You're transmitting your energy, and they just cleaned it, so sure. Lastly, what is your personal color power? If you have any on it or.

Ramy Elnagar: You mean like a favorite?

Judith van Vliet: No, just something that you just know well, maybe a favorite or something that makes you feel good. Like a color or something that for some reason in your projects you see, perhaps the color always come back for some reason.

Ramy Elnagar: I'm very attached to fashion as not a superficial statement, but really like second skin. When I studied in St. Martin's I remember going from business school to art school, and it was a shock. I remember the first day I walk in and there were two people in leopard onesies walking out, and I'm like, people were wearing suits in my university, which is a crime. Which is a crime, but different topic for a different day. And I always joke that St. Martin's always taught me how to dress because it showed me, like, it's your biggest comfort. Talking about comfort. It's your biggest comfort zone. Like, it's your second skin. So long way to say black as a color of fashion. Even though I'm completely the opposite, today is really something that I hold onto because if you look at my suitcase. When I travel, one half is black, one half is extreme color. And days when I feel like I need to really connect to myself, I find that wearing black goes a long, long way. And probably that's why the whole of Berlin is black, because in this, they're in this deep rage, punk moment. So, yeah, black fashion for me goes a long way. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: Makes you invisible. It absorbs energy. So you can indeed focus on yourself and you're less outgoing.

Ramy Elnagar: Exactly, Exactly. I guess back to the whole having kids, it's when you wear black, life becomes not about you anymore. Like, you're just blending into the background. It's about something else. Yep. Yeah. Black fashion.

Judith van Vliet: Black fashion. Thank you so much, Rami, for all this sharing. I think I could go on for hours still, but maybe part two.

Ramy Elnagar: We'll see.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. Oh, no, for sure. If you'll have me, yes, it would.

Ramy Elnagar: Be my absolute pleasure. And have a really amazing year. And to everybody else who's listening, like, it's a big year to come. So have safe environments, have good fashion, have good safety, because as you said, we will witness a lot. And maybe we do the next one same time next year, and then we'll.

Judith van Vliet: Do it and see what happens. Yeah, that's a deal.

Ramy Elnagar: And yeah, I'll speak to you soon.

Judith van Vliet: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Color Authority podcast. Next month, we'll be talking to a new guest again on everything that is shaping 2026 and color. See you back very, very soon and have a colorful rest of your day.