Nature Art Adds More Wonder to Children’s Nebraska West Omaha Pediatric Specialty Care Clinic

When we first worked with Children’s Nebraska West Omaha Pediatric Specialty Care Clinic, the goal was to fill the space with uplifting colors and nature imagery that would comfort young patients and give the entire care team a visual connection to the outdoors.

The result was a collection of nature images on acrylic, printed and installed by Renze, along with a couple of showstopping murals. You can get the full story in our original post, Uplifting Pediatric Hospital Design Brings Hope and Healing.

Since then, the facility has added more nature art, mainly in corridors and staff spaces, creating more moments of calm, color, and inspiration throughout the building.

A duckling now floats quietly at eye level near an exit door. A swallowtail butterfly lands on a zinnia just down the hallway. An owl is camouflaged behind tree branches, and a colorful parrot watches over a staff area.

It’s the same nature-centered, corner-by-corner discovery that made the original installation work, just more of it.

One thing that still surprises people is that when researchers surveyed 64 pediatric patients ages 5-17 about which hospital images they liked, nature was a clear favorite across every age group.

Animals and color came up again and again, bright images consistently beat out pale ones, and content mattered more to kids than whether the artwork was made specifically for children. Preference varied somewhat by age, reinforcing that a one-size-fits-all approach to pediatric art doesn’t quite hold up (Nanda et al. 2009).

Designing for children doesn’t mean making everything look “kid-like.” What children respond to has more to do with the subject matter than whether or not the artwork was created specifically for kids.

The intricate wings of a butterfly or the peacefulness of a group of wild horses grazing is just as captivating to a toddler as it is to a teenager who’s aged out of cartoon murals. Nature doesn’t have an age limit.

Nature images give children of different ages something to notice and discover.

One thing we love about the new images added by Children’s Nebraska is that a lot of the pieces went into staff areas and corridors, not just patient-facing rooms.

Staff walk those same hallways dozens of times a day, so it’s good to see the calming effect of nature imagery extended to them too.

A 2020 review of research on pediatric healthcare design found that access to nature and art are associated with healing and well-being for children (Gaminiesfahani et al. 2020). While much of that research focuses on the patient experience, we think the people providing the care deserve an environment that feels welcoming and uplifting, too.

Like the original installation when the clinic opened, the new artwork was also taken by Kurt Johnson Photography and printed and installed by Renze, allowing it to fit seamlessly into the new space.  The photographs, printed on vivid acrylic, don’t feel like an afterthought. They have the same bright palette and sense of “what’s around the next corner,” extending deeper into the building.

This new round of nature images is another sign that Children’s Nebraska understands the research behind biophilic design and keeps investing in how spaces feel for kids, families, and care teams who spend time in their facilities every day.