Baystate Health

Project Challenge:

Create a calming environment that mirrors Baystate Health’s re-engineered workflow in its new state-of-the-art facility in Springfield, Massachusetts. Balancing technology with nature in the 600,000-square-foot campus addition was important to support this hospital’s rhythm for healing. Adhering to principles of The Green Guide for Health Care™, the facility incorporates eco-friendly materials and generous use of natural light throughout the hospital—especially in its five-story atrium at the building’s core.

Skyline Design’s Solution:

Integrating light and artwork is just what patients need for healing. Steffian Bradley Architects partnered with designer Suzanne Tick to create artwork from images of New England landscapes. In the atrium, Skyline applied our Eco-etch® process on one side of glass to present these abstractions in a rhythmic, vertical, panorama—from marshes to wildflowers and upward to trees. In the “living room,” a custom mural utilizes Eco-etch on the front and AST™ digital glass printing with Vitracolor® on the back, creating a shadowing effect for perspective and depth.

Result:

When light reaches the interior of the facility, its interplay with artwork brings nature to life as the sun moves through each day and season. These light wells create both a rhythm of nature and community from floor to floor. It all came together seamlessly through effective collaboration among creative visionaries.

Process:

Working together, Steffian Bradley, Suzanne, and Skyline cultivated a unique collaboration to meet deadlines and budgets, while providing beauty in abstractions of nature for Baystate Health’s new facility. It started with landscape images by photographer Peter Kitchell and Suzanne’s vision for applying them to glass. As she manipulated the photography electronically, assigning colors and tones to the various layers, Skyline Design offered several techniques for etching to address variations in scale throughout the facility.