Press Room

Contemporary healthcare design attempts to maximize exposure to beneficial daylight and views to nature* to reduce stress and improve healing outcomes. But, it is not always possible to achieve perfect results. The Sky Factory designs and manufactures Luminous SkyCeilings™ and Luminous Virtual Windows™, both of which provide valuable daylight-balanced light and compellingly realistic views of nature that promote relaxation and well-being.

The key to producing the benefits is to create an authentic 'illusion' of nature, an illusion so compelling that the mind is 'tricked' into triggering the same psycho-physiological response as one would have enjoying an actual encounter with nature. Illusions, like magic tricks, rely on understanding our habits of perception, and manipulating them to create unexpected experiences, i.e. a magician tricks us into believing that he is pulling rabbits out of a hat.

Patient and staff testimonials from hundreds of Luminous SkyCeiling installations in stressful radiological procedure suites confirm the benefit in reducing stress and alleviating anxiety. Luminous SkyCeiling installations over patient beds in pre- and post-operative areas have proved especially effective in smoothing the transition for patients into and out of surgery. Nancy Jipp, Surgical Services Manager at Mississippi Valley Surgery Center in Davenport, Iowa, said, "The SkyCeilings help patients relax. When patients are relaxed, they experience less pain and recover faster. Therefore they leave the facility sooner, which decreases our personnel cost as well as the cost of supplies that we use to keep them comfortable."

The Sky Factory achieves its superior results by paying keen attention to the details of color, quality of light, spatial orientation, user perspective, and image resolution to create believable 'illusions' of nature. Luminous SkyCeilings evenly distribute the incorporated 6500K, daylight-balanced light to eliminate shadows and striping on the image. The even lighting across the high-resolution photographic images of real skies create a color and quality of light that the mind recognizes as 'real daylight'. Patent-pending Luminous SkyTile Elevators™ contribute a robust 3-dimensional look, like a real skylight. In concert, the elements of a Luminous SkyCeiling simulate a view to nature that is both perceptually and physiologically real.

The designers of a new facility for Renown Medical Center in Reno, Nevada were so confident of the benefits of The Sky Factory's Luminous SkyCeilings that they have installed them over 330 patient beds. Now, virtually every patient in the hospital has a valuable view to nature and daylight.

* The Role of the Physical Environment in the Hospital of the 21st Century: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity, Roger Ulrich, Xiaobo Quan, Center for Health Systems and Design, College of Architecture, Texas A&M University, and Craig Zimring, Anjali Joseph, Ruchi Choudhary, College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology.