Sherwin-Williams STIR magazine introduces you to commercial designer Patricia Malick, a principal with Array Healthcare Facilities Solutons. Malick takes you inside her Ahuja Medical Center project in Cleveland, and talks about color's unique role in healing environments.

Video Transcription:

Ahuja Medical Center is part of the University Hospital health system, vision 2010, 1 billion dollar investment in the Ohio region.

My name is Pat Malick, and my company is Array Healthcare Facilities Solutions.

Early on, I discovered that a passion for problem-solving, doing work that felt more meaningful.

And that really have continued on that track for my entire career.

I look for inspiration in the region that the facility is located in.

I look for inspiration in the architecture, in the building materials.

How do we bring the outside in?

My goal when I’m creating a patient environment is to provide a sense of warmth, a sense of home, take away some of that scare that comes with staying in a hospital, when there’s so much out of your control.

Well, there’s a great deal of research being done right now on improving outcomes through designs.

We believe color choices, access to nature, views to the outside, help with pain perception help with healing, and getting folks out of the hospital faster.

Even more importantly, I think about what’s happening in this space.

What is the experience that we’re trying to create?

Is it a quiet space where we need to calm a patient down?

Is it a space where we need to energize them, like a rehab space?

So, it’s very much dependent on clinically what’s happening in that space and tying, the design solution to that.

No VOCs, or low VOCs’ extremely important, because environmental sensitivities -- not only from patients, but many caregivers and the folks that are taking care of the facility as well.

So, we took a very sustainable approach throughout the facility, and the coatings were huge from an interior design perspective.