Chiba University Hospital

For a couple of their diagnostic suites, the hospital opted to install Luminous SkyCeilings above their X-ray fluoroscopy Hitachi Curevista systems. The virtual skylights easily capture a patient’s line of sight when laying on the equipment bed, helping to dissipate any distress or anxiety caused by the operation of the equipment.

As part of an initiative to incorporate biophilic design benefits to all their diagnostic suites, Chiba University Hospital commissioned a collection of Luminous SkyCeilings. These research-verified virtual skylights generate a palpable feeling of vertical depth that helps dissipate feelings of claustrophobia and anxiety.

The hospital chose photographic Open Sky Compositions with spring foliage above several of their Computerized Tomography rooms. The illusory sky captures a patient’s line of sight in an effortless manner, which triggers our physiology’s automatic relaxation response. Relaxed patients can stay still more comfortably, which reduces the need for sedatives or a longer recovery period after the scans have been completed.

Most imaging vaults are located in the basement floor or in an interior area of the hospital closer to the building core.

This placement is necessary as imaging vaults feature specialized shielding to contain any scatter radiation during equipment operation. In order to counteract the sealed quality of a CT environment, Chiba University Hospital opted for Sky Factory’s Luminous SkyCeilings.

The design framework that creates these research-verified illusory skies uses high definition, large format photographic Open Sky Compositions. These images of the sky use daylight-quality LEDs to generate a color temperature (6500K) that dovetails with what the human eye identifies as a clear midday or early afternoon.

The crisp blue skies, cloud formations and colorful buds from the overhanging branches create a recognizable pattern that engages focal and peripheral vision, effortlessly creating the palpable illusion of vertical depth in close proximity to the supine patient.

Chiba University Hospital features one of the most complete array of imaging suites in Japan outfitted with Luminous SkyCeilings.

The hospital’s X-ray fluoroscopy Hitachi Curevista systems are equipped with 6’ X 8’ (1.80m X 2.40m) Open Sky Compositions directly over the patient’s line of sight when laying on the equipment bed.

Even for the shorter 15 to 20 minutes X-ray procedures, the illusory overhead view helps dissipate any distress or anxiety by engaging the patient’s imagination, pleasant memories of the outdoors, and relaxing experiences in nature.

The spatial reationships around our bodies are powerful somatic markers that our Autonomic Nervous System immediately detects and which we consciously perceive after the affective imprint has been subconsciously generated.

The therapeutic power of biophilic illusions of nature lies in their ability to mimic the spatial maps that we remember from beautiful and clear days when our imagination soars and we are totally relaxed.

Chiba University Hospital’s numerous imaging suites gave their team the opportunity to create an intuitive wayfinding system that identified each suite by the type of clouds and foliage seen in each Luminous SkyCeiling. For example, the hospital’s X-ray fluoroscopy systems featured spring foliage and colorful blossoms while the General Electric CT suites featured dark green tropical palms and rich blue skies.

The 6’ X 8’ (1.80m X 2.40m) Open Sky Compositions enable everyone occupying these isolated rooms, from patients to staff, to experience a tangible source of relief.

Resting one’s gaze directly overhead as it explores the perceived vertical volume has effective therapeutic qualities.

A biophilic illusion of nature enables the parasympathetic subsystem of the Autonomous Nervous System to engage visual-spatial stimuli that is familiar, comforting, and enables the mind and emotions to settle, evoking positive associations with the observer’s past memories of biophilic encounters in wide open natural environments.