Designers often apply color to connote certain feelings in their products, buildings, and spaces. Green for health, red for love, blue for calm. But can color also heal?
At the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital in Iowa City, they believe it can. The hospital’s Blooming Wall was created with that belief in mind, designed to greet hospital patients and visitors and help lift their spirits.
The Blooming Wall is an artfully composed array of 2,780 triangle-shaped aluminum panels set into the lobby’s undulating wall. Each 5-inch panel supports a gradient color pattern that enchants and gently distracts through architectural scale and coloration.
Visual Wonder
For families of seriously ill or injured children, this two-story-tall visual wonder signals that hope is at hand: They’ve entered a realm of exceptional intelligence, care, and beauty.
The Blooming Wall is an apt metaphor for this new $360 million, 14-story world-class pediatric care center. The project team worked hard to create a positive, comforting experience for patient families and visitors from the first impression.
The project team included representatives of the University of Iowa, lead architect Heery International, interior design architect ZGF Architects, glazing contractor Forman Ford, metal fabricator Industrial Louvers Inc. (ILI) and public works artist and designer Larry Kirkland. The collaboration yielded design magic.
Iowa Quilt
Kari Thorsen, AIA, directed ZGF’s work on the hospital’s interior design. “What I love about Iowa and the Midwest is how people rally together to make a difference in these kids’ lives,” she says. “They actually make quilts for patients that are here for a long period of time.”
Thorsen and her team used color to knit together the hospital like an immense quilt. “We wanted to celebrate the idea of community, like a quilt,” she says.
The idea proved effective for the lobby design.
36 Custom Colors
The concept of an array of panels for the lobby emerged early in design discussions. But, what colors should be used? And in what pattern? ZGF recommended that Kirkland propose a solution. He devised a color scheme that blended 36 custom colors across a range of light blue, blue, and green. To help dramatize his vision, Kirkland crafted a 30-foot-long scale model to assist university officials in their decision-making.
Today, the realization of the Blooming Wall “creates this beautiful movement in this space,” Thorson says. “As you walk by, you see it from one color and gradation. On the other side, it gradates and blooms in a different color. The colors and movement reminds me of driving by farmland at dusk.”
Enduring Bloom
Getting 36 colors to match Kirkland’s specifications was a challenge. Panel coatings are expected to preserve the blooming effect for many years. ILI recommended Valspar, now Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings, for their Fluropon extrusion coating. They knew Fluropon, a high-performance 70 percent PVDF coating would meet the durability challenges posed by this high-traffic environment, especially from curious little hands.
For family members and visitors to the Stead Family Children’s Hospital, color’s power to heal now has a name: the Blooming Wall.
