Are You Getting Ready to Improve the Space in Your Office or Lobby?

As school gets ready to start around the country, many principals are faced with presenting the same old same old dull school walls to their students and parents. Principals who have the funds or the donations, however, are excited about opening their buildings for the year. From large murals that showcase a sequence of American history events to school mascots, schools that can afford to have found ways to improve and update their buildings. With the help of art strategy partners, in fact, schools, hospitals, and other large public spaces work to make decorating and space decisions that are both calming and relaxing or motivational and inspiring.
Based on what the space is used for, art strategy partners can work with art consulting firms to help create any kind of environment that you want. For parents who are spending days, and even weeks or months, with their infants or children in a hospital, inspired spaces can make the stay a little more manageable. From bubbling fountains that run throughout the lobby of the admitting area to inspirational artwork, art consulting services for hospitals have many ideas that can help create unique spaces. Spaces that can help parents and their children escape from the fact that they are in a hospital for a few minutes a day.
In a typical business office, art strategy partners can also provide spaces that promote relaxation or inspiration. With relaxing conversation areas that promote the free exchange of ideas outside of scheduled meetings and other open spaces, art consultants indicate that this kind of consideration boosts productivity. Likewise, open window spaces with life green plants and seats can provide a welcome mental break for many workers.
Consider some of these other facts and figures about how consultants and art strategy partners can help improve the spaces in your office, school, or hospital:

• Beautiful spaces reduce stress and promote relaxation. From the colors on the wall to the sounds in the hall, beauty is more than in the eyes of the beholder, it is also in the soul.
• Estimates indicate that 94% of respondents believe art makes their workplace more welcoming and that 61% agree it also stimulates creativity.
• Studies find that people working in enriched spaces, those that are decorated with art or plants, were 17% more productive than those in lean spaces, those that are bare and undecorated.
• The Cleveland Clinic recently found that as many as 60% of patients reported a reduction in stress as a result of the hospital’s contemporary art collection. According to people responding to the survey, works produced in the last 30 years, including exam rooms with fine art posters, public sculptures, nature imagess and abstract designs.






• Utilizing your public spaces to help patients be more relaxed or your workers more productive can pay off in the long run, even if the initial investment may be difficult to understand.
• Studies from 2011 University of London research indicated that blood flow increased 10% to the “joy response” part of the brain when subjects saw a beautiful painting. In fact, these responses are similar to the brain activity when someone looks at a loved one.
• Every wall or lobby is an opportunity to present an inviting or inspirational space for your patients, clients, or workers.






• One way that art consultants can help your company is to make sure that you are using space to the best of its potential.
• Fine art in the workplace helps businesses address key challenges. for instance, 78% of employees indicate that it reduces stress; 64% say that it increases creativity; and 77% report that it encourages expression of opinions.






• Stress reduction is a major benefit of art.
• Participants self-reported their stress levels before entering an art gallery and then spent 35 minutes exploring the space in any way they wanted. When they left, they expressed being less stressed. In addition, these participants also had lower concentrations of cortisol, the stress hormone.
• A basic guideline for budgeting art services is 1% to 2% of the construction budget. This is actually a small percentage of cost when it is measured against overall budget for the rest of the building.
• Calm, cool colors in a break room can help some workers relax in between their meetings and stressful planning sessions.
• Every single art decision can be a productivity or inspirational decision.