By now, it’s common knowledge that art can make a lasting positive difference in healthcare settings. It bolsters desirable patient outcomes, boosts the morale of guests and healthcare workers alike, and measurably reduces anxiety. It brings hope and color to environments where it is vitally needed.
In context of that reality, the special material properties of kilnformed glass offer incredible potential benefits to the boards, administrators, and artists tasked with creating environments that are optimized for healing.
A short video demonstrating the special properties of kilnformed glass at work.
Paul Housberg’s sawtooth glass tiles for a meditation chapel on the campus of the Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. Photo courtesy of Paul Housberg. Learn more…
The benefits of kilnformed glass include:
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Revelatory for Art and/or Architecture. Kilnformed glass is able to be canvas and paint and wall and window—all at the same time. It is able to unite color, light, and structure in a way that is completely unique among materials. It can also convey words, images, textures, or layers, uniting them in a single substrate. For these reasons, it is an ideal material for exploring the lines between art and architecture, and for uniting them at fundamental levels.
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Outdoor Durability. Kilnformed glass can go outside! Like all glass, it will maintain its color, clarity, and shape outdoors in ways unmatched by most other materials. Uniquely, it also allows for the creation of custom thicknesses, textures, images, and textual elements that all exist as part of the same monolithic whole, with equal weatherproof hardiness.
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Low-Maintenance Practicality. Beautiful and exotic things often prove impractical to care for. The opposite is true of kilnformed glass. It is easy to maintain in its original state and is often favored because it will meet and surpass 100-year requirements.
Elks Children’s Eye Clinic “Sensory Garden” glass (OHSU, Portland, OR). Designed by landscape architects Mayer/Reed. Fabricated by Bullseye Studio. Image courtesy of RANGE. Cami and Ryan designed and managed the ECEC site design while employed at Mayer/Reed. Learn more…
- Contextual Responsiveness. Unique as a building material, kilnformed glass can be integrated into any space as a multidimensional design element, an element that interacts with changing lighting conditions, one’s proximity to it, its proximity to other spatial elements, and movement. Glass affords unique opportunities to take a static structural material and use it to facilitate dynamic experiences.
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Transmutability. Because of the rich depth and layering inherent in most kilnformed artworks, and because of their evocative, ever-changing interactions with lighting and position, they are continuously revealing themselves and therefore continuously generating new visual experiences. In healthcare settings—where patients often return for weeks, months, or even years—this responsive, self-refreshing quality becomes especially desirable. Rather than fading into familiarity, the kilnformed artwork can continue to engage and inspire patients and staff alike with novel hues, tones, materiality, and luminousness.
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Customizable Opacity. Kilnformed glass can be fine-tuned to reflect or transmit light to varying degrees and for a variety of purposes. Accordingly, kilnformed artworks can be designed and fabricated to provide specific levels of opacity and/or translucency. This customizability allows the artwork to realize exacting designs for privacy, expansiveness, illumination, and spatial atmosphere.
We welcome all questions about how this vital and exciting material might benefit the healthcare settings within your purview.
Garden Glass Panels located in the garden at the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, TX. Designed by Wayne Design Group. Learn more…