Mermorial Hermann Medical Plaza Ambulatory Care Center - Houston, TX

Especially when we install large-scale artwork, a signature piece in a certain art program, we have to think ahead about maintaining the work after the job is done.

This article in Installments, the newsletter for The Art Commission, discusses several such examples. Did you know that a bronze sculpture needs to be washed and waxed at least twice a year?

When we installed a handmade wooden mechanical clock in Long Island Jewish Medical Center, the artist James Borden trained their staff to wind the clock weekly, to adjust the period of the pendulum by means of a wooden weight, and to reset the hands regularly to keep the correct time. And for a large atrium mobile by Jonathan Clowes at the Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center, we enlisted the services of the project architect, WHR, to design and build a pulley system so that the 18-foot metal form could be lowered and cleaned regularly.

We take special note that positive distraction, specifically artwork, is a means to “address resident stress and agitation” (A.1.2-3.5.3.4 (5)), and that when their environment provides artwork, “Residents exhibit fewer unsafe exiting behaviors.” (A.1.2-3.5.4 (3)). Furthermore, positive distraction is addressed throughout the guidelines in the criteria for resident rooms and quiet rooms.

Good design in long-term care facilities is an urgent concern, of course, as highlighted recently by Jennifer Kovacs Silvis in response to this year’s Environments for Aging Conference.

Dining Room at The Solana at Cinco Ranch, Katy, Texas. Design and photo by StudioSIX5.

Without discounting the significant benefits for infection control, confidentiality, and hospitality-inspired comfort for patients, Gunderman points out the unintended consequence that patients may feel isolated, even locked away. There may even be important therapeutic benefits to allowing patients “opportunities for compassion and community,” which may be prevented by isolating patients in their own rooms.

“Sometimes what we need more than anything else is a friend. What a shame it would be if our zeal for privacy prevented us from making a friend at the very moment in life when, perhaps more than any other, a friend is just what we need most.”

Is it possible that Gunderman is not taking into account what is in fact a rather extensive record of research into what is called “social support” in healthcare design? In fact Ulrich and Zimring’s 2008 mega-analysis of hundreds of relevant studies concludes that single-patient rooms actually provide better social support than multi-bed rooms.

Still, Gunderman’s anecdotal evidence and probing questions keeps us critically engaged, and reminds us to consider social stratification and ethnic and cultural differences in our expectations concerning privacy and medical care.

Single-Patient Room and Bathroom at Katz Women's Hospital (Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Hyde Park, New York).

http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/04/05/2013/-drunk-tank-pink-finds-clues-to-behavior.html

Image from the cover of Drunk Tank Pink by Adam Alter.

For example, we knew that a view of the outdoors improves recovery times in hospital patients, but also aids learning in classrooms and boosts productivity in the workplace.

We have a few artists whose works honor and incorporate the proportions of the golden rectangle — also discussed here. What a powerful case for this sort of imagery!

We are planning an amazing blow-out April 4 just for you. Our annual spring social calendar will be honed to just one evening showcasing amazing new works of art, toasting our friends old and new, and enjoying the incredible sounds of Houston’s own Kashmere Reunion Stage Band.

As documented in the recent film Texas Thunder Soul, KSB was formed and directed by Conrad O. “Prof” Johnson at Kashmere High School in the 1960s and 70s, incorporating the newest sounds of jazz, R&B, funk, and rock music. He recorded these students’ tight, big-band sound onto disks that resurfaced 30 years later as samples in popular tracks by Handsome Boy Modeling School and DJ Shadow. Alumni of the original band reformed in recent years, and they prove that they are as vital and original as they were when the Prof made powerhouse musicians out of a bunch of unlikely kids from Kashmere Gardens.

Children in Houston area schools present their environmental visions in wonderful artistic renditions for the annual art competition. After the works are juried, Skyline Art Services professionally frames and reproduces the winning artwork for the Art Auction and Art Tour – with the help of other sponsors Que Imaging and Expert Art Services.  These enthusiastic students will have their artwork judged and auctioned off on April 25 at the Skyline Art Services Showroom, with all proceeds benefiting the winning schools and Air Alliance. All the winning art will also be on public display throughout the city from March to January. Please visit the Air Alliance Earth Day Art Contest website for more information. And check out this clip from Great Day Houston.

Schedule of Events

6:00 pm     Performance by the Conrad O. Johnson Youth Orchestra
……………(of Kashmere Stage Band fame – see Spring Fling)
6:30 pm     Awards Ceremony
7:30 pm     Live & Silent Art Auction

Refreshments provided by Sorrell, Irma’s, and Canopy

Also…we hope you will stop by and say hello to our friends at the Air Alliance booth at Earth Day Houston at Discovery Green on  April 14.