Wayfinding That Heals: Highlights from HCD 2025

If there was one thing everyone was talking about at HCD 2025, it was wayfinding and how it can transform healthcare spaces from stressful to soothing.

Designers, architects, and healthcare leaders are rethinking how people experience healthcare spaces, from the first step through the door to finding their way to care. And the takeaway was clear: wayfinding isn’t just about signage anymore. It’s about the experience of moving through a space.

It’s about how design makes you feel.

Everywhere we turned at HCD, the conversations circled back to calm, connection and, of course, healing.

Color, light, and art all play an important role in how people feel as they move through a space. From color-coded corridors to thoughtfully placed visual cues, wayfinding helps people orient themselves naturally (pun intended). When paired with biophilic design and nature imagery, it becomes even more powerful by:

• Effortlessly guiding the eye.
• Easing anxiety (the research backs it up!).
• Creating a sense of calm in environments that often feel overwhelming.

The conversations at HCD reinforced something we’ve always believed: every detail in a healthcare space matters, from signage and color to the art on the walls. Nature photography doesn’t just look pretty (although it does that too!).

It’s a tool for clarity, calm, and connection. And in many ways, it becomes part of the care team.

Simple strategies, like using landscape photography to define areas or highlight key transitions, can help people instinctively know where they are and where they need to go, all while providing moments of beauty that uplift patients, families, and staff.

Wayfinding in Action: Real-World Examples

Across the country, healthcare designers are using nature imagery not only to bring beauty into their spaces but also to support intuitive wayfinding. Here are two recent installations that show how thoughtful artwork selection, from curated collections to fully custom commissions, make a meaningful difference in the patient experience.

Allina Health’s United Hospital – St. Paul, MN

One inspiring example comes from Allina Health’s United Hospital in St. Paul, MN, where bold colors and local nature photography work together to make navigation intuitive and healing.

As part of a refresh, designer Monica Albertson developed a wayfinding strategy that combines color-coded floors with nature photographs to distinguish different areas of the hospital. This approach simplifies navigation and incorporates biophilic design principles to improve outcomes.

Working closely with the design team, we provided a collection of images aligned with each floor’s color palette and visual theme, allowing the client to choose from numerous options curated for healing and clarity.

While many of our nature photographs are available on our website, our catalog extends far beyond that, featuring thousands of images from regions across the country. This makes it easy for designers to find artwork that complements their project’s color, mood, and location.

Each floor tells its own visual story using different colors and themes:

Blue (2nd Floor):

Calm, slow-moving water imagery reflects tranquility and balance. Studies show blue tones lower heart rate and promote relaxation, which are essential qualities in healthcare environments.

Green (3rd Floor):

A nod to growth and renewal, green enhances balance and harmony, connecting people to the restorative power of nature.

Pink (4th Floor):

An uplifting, hopeful color that promotes wellness and joy through imagery of thriving flowers and natural blooms.

Together, the colors and imagery create a soothing rhythm throughout the hospital, a visual language that gently guides patients and staff while reinforcing Allina’s mission of comfort and care.  Click here to see more photos from this breathtaking installation.

UAB Medical West Hospital – Birmingham, AL

At UAB Medical West Hospital in Birmingham, AL, wayfinding began with a simple yet powerful idea: bring the local landscape indoors.

Working in collaboration with HKS and KPS Group, we created custom photography that highlights the region’s distinctive spring flora. Each floor features a different native flower and color palette, transforming wayfinding into an experience that celebrates place and promotes peace.

To bring this vision to life, our team made several trips to capture plants and flowers at the peak of their bloom, each species requiring a different season and timing. This commitment ensured the images were authentic to the local ecosystem, connecting the hospital environment to the surrounding landscape in a deeply meaningful way.

As designer Catherine Brooks (KPS Group) explained,

“Our design intent was to bring nature indoors. With each level of the hospital representing different flora found in our region of Alabama, we used this as a means of bringing in color but also as a sense of wayfinding.”

The result was a cohesive, biophilic wayfinding system that pairs art and architecture seamlessly by using color, light, and local imagery to improve orientation, reduce stress, and celebrate the healing power of nature. Learn more about this groundbreaking project and the photo Kurt almost fell out of the boat for by clicking here.

The Big Picture: Collaboration and Connection

What we saw at HCD 2025, and throughout projects like these, is the power of collaboration. When designers, architects, and artists work together, the result is more than functional spaces; it’s environments that heal. And that’s what makes The Healthcare Design Conference and Expo such a powerful event.  Bringing the best and brightest minds in healthcare design together results in limitless possibilities for healthcare design which equals improved outcomes for the entire care team.

Wayfinding and nature imagery go hand-in-hand to create spaces that are not just easier to navigate, but emotionally restorative. Whether you’re designing a new facility or refreshing an existing one, integrating nature photography into wayfinding is a practical, human-centered approach that transforms both the journey and the destination.

Want to explore how nature photography can support your facility’s wayfinding strategy?

Reach out; we’d love to brainstorm with you!