By: centraljersey.com
Michael Graves’ Princeton-based firm has expanded into yet another arena for the famed architect and designer – healthcare design.
"Since my paralysis eight years ago," Mr. Graves said, "we’re really committed to this area of design, along with other things we’re doing. We haven’t given them up, but we’re now using healthcare as a major focus for our work."
The accolades for Mr. Graves are many, among them are 1999 National Medal of Arts and the 2001 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects, but the newest one to add to the list speaks to this shift in focus in recent years. "Michael was just named one of the 25 most influential people in healthcare design by the Center for Health Design," said Linda Kinsey, a principal for Michael Graves Design Group.
Mr. Graves is contributing his talents, and those of his firm, to the new Capital Health campus under construction in Hopewell Township. His paintings will be scanned and enlarged and hung in several areas in the hospital. The firm has designed a serenity garden, and it has also designed a line of furniture for Stryker Medical that Capital Health will use in patient rooms.
"We happened to be engaged in a design project for Stryker Medical, and we needed access to research opportunities within the hospital," Ms. Kinsey said.
The firm contacted Capital Health, who gave the it access to the hospital staff and assisted with the information gathering the firm needed to do for Stryker for the patient room suite of furniture, Ms. Kinsey said.
"As we progressed through the design development of the patient room suite of furniture, we got to know a few people at Capital Health," Ms. Kinsey said, "mostly to preview the furniture we designed."
"What we did for Stryker was a suite of five pieces," Mr. Graves said, which include a bedside table, an easy-glide chair, a nightstand, and dressers.
The chair will help people to sit in a proper way, Mr. Graves said. "It will help everybody from bariatric patients to people with arthritic conditions."
"The chair has large arms on it and it enables you to pull yourself forward and then push yourself up," Ms. Kinsey said.
"One of the things we encourage people to do using the chair is to get the position of their body in a way so they’re not struggling to get up and down," Mr. Graves said. "A lot of elderly have a very difficult time in getting in and out of furniture, especially if it’s big and soft and low."
The handles allow the person to scoot forward so that your nose is over your toes. "Once your nose and your toes are aligned, your body is in a position so it’s not with the weight forward or the weight back, but the weight vertical," said Mr. Graves, who himself is in a wheelchair. "So then you can, with a little push from your arms, you can stand up."
The suite of furniture is simple by design. The over-bed table, for example, has a hospitality handle, which enables the user to move it around easily.
"One of the issues is to try to keep these things light," Mr. Graves said. "Existing furniture from lots of different makers are very heavy, very hard for the nurses aides, the nurses, the clinicians to push around the room. And they do push them around the room because they rearrange things. So, it’s very important for us to make these things very accessible."
"One of the biggest issues in hospital settings for the staff is that there are a lot of back injuries," Ms. Kinsey said. "The nurses and the other clinicians who are working in this space have to move things around very quickly often to convert a room from one function to another, depending upon the issue with the patient."
About the lightness of the bedside stand, Ms. Kinsey said, "You can hip-check that thing across the floor and it won’t hurt you."
The design of the pieces were influenced by the research; for example, the firm discovered that drawers are rarely used, so they created cavity space which allows for easier access.
"They were extremely helpful and instrumental in how this stuff got thought about and ultimately designed," Ms. Kinsey said.
"Which was surprising to us that after they helped us, they felt a part of its design, and so they’ve latched onto it and asked Stryker to sell it to them for the new hospital, which we’re very pleased about," Mr. Graves said. "So, the timing worked out perfectly."
"What’s so interesting about this, from the hospital administration and executive level administration down to the developer, Anchor Health, of the hospital, to all of the consultants, the architects – it’s all been a great spirit of cooperation and interest in including some of the great talent that happens to be really, fortunately for them, in their backyard," Ms. Kinsey said.
As a result of this partnership, Ms. Kinsey said, "they came to know Michael, not only for the architect and designer that he is, but also for the artist that he is. One of the things they were looking to do was to feature and highlight New Jersey artists in the new hospital."
Mr. Graves’ paintings will adorn walls several walls as well. There will be two floral paintings in the reception area, four vertical paintings in the Wifi room and five landscape paintings in the women’s oncology area. All of the pieces will be digitally scanned, enlarged and framed.
His firm was also asked to design a serenity garden for the new campus.
"Capital Health is making a really big effort to incorporate gardens and landscaping and walkways and pedestrian areas in the landscape," Ms. Kinsey said. "What’s great about this hospital is that it’s designed as a community center." "They wanted a space for contemplation outside," Mr. Graves said. "If you’re a mother or having an operation, or you wanted to talk to the family or you wanted to get away from hospital, you could go outside and sit someplace – and they asked us to design that place. They also asked if I could use two existing bronze doors that were pieces from the former hospital."
"There’s a lot of sentimental attachment to them," Ms. Kinsey said.
"What we did was make a long garden path," Mr. Graves said. We put the doors in two places so that, in a sense, they help you through that path by being opened, he said. Adjacent to each one is a seating area under a trellis, which will be covered with wisteria in time.

