Story at a glance:
- Vibrant health care design includes custom wallcoverings that bring life and comfort to patient spaces.
- Koroseal offers wallcoverings, architectural films, specialty textiles, acoustical products, and more.
- Designers can consider everything from nature-inspired custom art to soft textures from Koroseal—all of it easy to clean.
The health care industry is poised for dynamic change. Health care spaces and how they look and feel are increasingly recognized as part of the healing process rather than simply the landscape on which it occurs. Take children’s hospitals and their evolving design, for instance. Refocusing on holistic, individualized care; prioritizing caregivers and their well-being; and a shift toward sustainability—the changes are coming quickly with every new hospital, renovation, and idea.
“One of the things we’re seeing is health care systems really putting patients and patients’ families first,” says Traci Kloos, vice president of design and development for Koroseal Interior Products. “They want them to feel at ease and to be as comfortable as possible.”
Photo courtesy of Koroseal
Over more than 65 years Koroseal has amassed a unique breadth and depth of knowledge about the needs of commercial interior design. Focusing on creating inspirational, functional, healthful interiors, Koroseal has become the go-to manufacturer, distributor, and design company for everything from hospitality to health care. As something of a one-stop shop with an experienced sales force, dedicated customer service, growing roster of skilled designers, and custom capabilities to help clients bring their vision for a space to life, Koroseal is able to reduce downtime and therefore cost for its customers. “It can be new construction; it can be renovation. We’re reducing the time a facility is going to need to turn that space around and get it up and running,” Kloos says.
From durable, flexible wallcoverings and wall protection products for surgical suites to digitally crafted, customizable looks for lobbies to architectural films, specialty textiles, and acoustical products for everything in between, Koroseal has set out to revolutionize the form and function of your next hospital stay. What’s more, they’re dedicated to integrating sustainability and healthfulness into their day-to-day activities, responsibly using the limited resources our planet has to offer. Koroseal offers all this in what Kloos calls a “curated package” so designers can remain on trend and under budget.
This wall covering was designed by BWBR. The design options for patient rooms are endless with Koroseal’s wallcovering capabilities. Photo by Kenneth Petersen
“When you think about the different spaces designers are having to work around, it might be entryways and lobbies, elevator banks, or doors. We can offer something that really makes a statement, really sets the tone.”
With their menu of creative capabilities, Koroseal can offer more ways to break into trends like biophilic or nature-inspired design—an aesthetic that’s much more than a trend as it’s shown to be beneficial to building occupants. Think macrophotography, greenery, natural color palettes, organic patterns, and rich textures all coming together to invoke a positive emotional reaction. “It can be very dramatic,” Kloos says.
We can offer something that really makes a statement, really sets the tone.
This breed of design has the power to transform a health care experience. The waiting rooms of old, for example, tended to be bleak, forgotten realms doused in beige and cream, where patients and families sit anxiously staring at blank walls. Imagine that space instead as a calm oasis, lined in warm wood (chosen from more than 100 species, colors, and cuts of Koroseal’s Arbor Wood Wallcoverings), adorned in nature-inspired art (through their Digital Lab capabilities), soft textures (hundreds of performance wallcovering designs available in a wide range of colors), and specialty surfaces like acoustic treatments and architectural films. It’s all these products plus the added benefits of cleanliness, privacy, and peace. That’s Koroseal’s wheelhouse. “It’s about the diversity in the products that we have and the ability for them to all work together as a system,” Kloos says.
This wall covering was designed by BWBR. Koroseal is a go-to manufacturer, distributor, and design company for everything from hospitality to health care. Photo by Kenneth Petersen
Koroseal’s business model is just as seamless—a point of pride for the company. “We are one of the only vertically integrated manufacturers, distributors, and designers of wallcovering,” Kloos says. “And the majority of our manufactured products are sourced, procured, and made in the US. We have a facility in Louisville where all of our products are manufactured, and we’ve invested in that facility with state-of-the-art equipment.” Equipment like rotogravure printers from Emerson & Renwick. “That’s the Ferrari of printers,” she says. “With that investment, it really gives us quality, color, and design aesthetics that are unparalleled within our industry.”
And as the design world is racing to incorporate more sustainable practices, Koroseal has an answer for that, too. “A large part of our portfolio, made with Type II vinyl, has an average lifespan of 10 to 15 years. It’s phthalate-free, Class A fire-rated, and meets California indoor air quality standards. We use post-industrial recycling, and with the benefit of being made in the US, it really meets all of the environmental standards of today,” Kloos says.
Digitally printed wall protection from Koroseal. Photo by Kurt Johnson Photography
Koroseal’s Arbor Wood Wallcoverings are the other side of that coin, offering the beauty of natural wood without the impact on forests. “This is a great replacement for millwork. Being a thin veneer product, it doesn’t require large quantities of lumber.” That’s why Koroseal products are often part of customers’ larger aims at meeting green-building benchmarks.
Kloos says Koroseal is excited by the push for more sustainable, healthful, and healing spaces. “Having the ability to enhance someone’s well-being, to promote healing through aesthetics, that is important to us. And we’re so very proud of the balance we have struck between that and cleanability, durability, low maintenance, and cost,” she says. “It all works hand-in-glove.”
