Dr. Lou Cooper founded New York Pediatric Dentistry in Rye Brook, New York, to bring his decades of experience as a prominent Manhattan pediatric dentist closer to his home in Westchester County. The new office design included an illusory skylight to provide the well-established therapeutic benefits of views to nature. Sky Factory’s arc-shaped Luminous SkyCeiling was a custom biophilic design installation over the treatment area surprised and relaxed patients as ease back into the chair.
“I chose a Luminous SkyCeiling because I wanted to do something spectacular and different in our office,” says Dr. Cooper. “We don’t have exterior windows and this really opened things up, bringing light and the outside in. The sky image fits perfectly with our Westchester bay area environment. It creates an ambiance that is comfortable and unique for both kids and their parents.”
“Working with the Sky Factory was a very good experience. Everybody loves it. Some even wonder whether it is a real skylight! It’s very unique and dramatic, and makes all of us feel good.”
Sky Factory’s illusory skies are the only research-verified virtual skylights in the world. Genuine multisensory illusions of natureTM are designed to engage spatial cognition or depth perception in the observer, generating a deeply restorative wellness benefit in enclosed interiors.
Peer-reviewed studies on Luminous SkyCeilings published on the Health Environments Research & Design Journal (2015) found that these installations reduce acute stress by over 50% and anxiety by over 35% in patients exposed to these multisensory illusions.
Sky Factory’s proprietary Open Sky Compositions (the photography used for these installations), as well as the LED lighting systems and architectural reveals,have received multiple awards from architectural juries, including Architectural Record, Interiors + Sources, and Architizer.
