Kudos To Janelle Baglien

Anytime you are in a Kaiser Permanente facility, notice the art hanging on the walls. It isn't "plunk art" or there's a blank space, let's plunk something there! There's a vision behind the placement. At At Kaiser Permanente’s new Westside Medical Center, in Hillsboro, Ore. The owner set out to “make the best patient environment through the use of such elements as daylighting, natural views, and outdoor awareness,” and art is a big factor for achieving that feeling.

At the Westside Medical Center, Kaiser established an overarching theme, “tranquil relief through nature,” to help guide the design of its 38^th hospital, which includes a 126-bed hospital and 110,000-square foot medical office building (MOB). Then it hired Janelle Baglien, president of  Studio Art Direct (Portland, Ore.) early on to procure an art program with AECOM (Minneapolis), which handled the architecture and interior design. Themes were created for each floor, such as forests, water, wildflowers, and mountains/long-distance views, with corresponding wall colors, flooring, carpeting, and artwork.

Baglien procured 975 works of art—only 35 of which are off-the-shelf. In addition, the program used all regional artists from Oregon and Washington. Read the whole story in Healthcare Design and more about how the works were created on Baglien's blog,