Kaiser Permanente’s National Design Excellence competition awarded Studio Art Direct and colleagues, HMC Architects of Los Angeles and PKA Architects of Portland, Oregon, first place for projects over $10M for the Beaverton Medical Dental Building completed this spring 2019 in Oregon. The custom art collection was noted as a significant factor in elevating the design.

Janelle Baglien, president of Studio Art Direct, hand painted eleven custom watercolors on Hahnemuhle Hot Press fine art paper, then scanned sections, stitched images back together for a super high resolution image, and printed on highly durable, PVC free, 30% post consumer wallcovering material. The immersive wallcoverings, called The Patterns of Nature, depicted the theme for each floor and were installed in the open, porch-like waiting rooms in the main corridors. Some wallpapers were as large as 10x32 ft. The three floor themes were earth, land, sky.

In addition to the wallcoverings, Baglien designed, fabricated and installed a 40’0”H x 13’0” W floor to ceiling sculpture in the main lobby. The sculpture is strings up through the 3-story stairwell and was created to encourage patients, visitors and staff to use the stairs for their health. This is an initiative of Kaiser Permanente’s #TotalHealthEnvironment. The sculpture, titled “The Falling Rain Wall” is fabricated of 365 hand-cast and hand-colored acrylic beads representing the days of the year. The beads are strung on 13 stainless steel cables and tensioned at the bottom. The beads, like raindrops, trickle down the 40’0” cables like rain on a spring day. More dense at the top and lighter at the bottom. The raindrops are colored to match the interior design created by #HMCARCHITECTS of Los Angeles, California and represent Oregon’s seasons - the orange of summer, the green of spring and the blue of winter. The entire sculpture is lit with 36 programmed LED lights at the top and bottom which light the sculpture with a feeling of rain pitter-pattering down softly and then stronger.

The entire sculpture is touchable yet cleanable and creates a sense of awe as one enters the lobby. Its height encourages people to look up in an almost church-like fashion to feel the expanse of the 3-story atrium and the stainglass-like sparkle of the raindrops cascading down the cables.