Year: 2021
Role: Digital World Art Direction and User Experience, Hardware Integration
Client: Studio Elsewhere for Lazarus Children’s Abilities Center
Media: Large Scale Projection, Touch Designer, Unreal Engine.
Team: Andre Zakhya (3D artist & animation), Torin Blankensmith (Real-time Graphics Engineer), Mirelle Phillips (Concept Design), David Azar (Software Engineering), Erik Anderson (Sound Design), Tim Fain (Music), Kaitlyn Darby (Interior Design), Yanbo Li (Interior Design)
In 2020 the Children’s Abilities Center team approached Studio Elsewhere with the task to holistically reimagine children’s rehabilitation experience while sparking wonder and engagement for children, and building trust and sense of calm for family members. A visit to the hospital can be stress-inducing and challenging experience for many families. For families with children with cerebral palsy or traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), the experience is particularly burdensome. At Charles Lazarus Children’s Abilities Center, the world class group of doctors and scientists is transforming the way pediatric rehabilitation of conditions such as cerebral palsy, paralysis, traumatic brain injuries, and concussions is approached. Their flagship physical therapy model is Therapy-as-Play that delivers innovative and affordable care through adaptive gaming.
As we worked closely with the Lazarus Center team on designing multi-modal immersive, interactive environments for patients and family members, one of the major design considerations was how the environment itself could be an active intervention as well as facilitator. During the research stage, we identified the waiting room interactions, patient evaluation and treatment experience as the major areas for interventions. The design concepts took inspiration from different magical forest environments, specifically temperate, tropical and boreal forests.
Most families spend on average 15 min waiting to be seen by the doctor. One of the most stressful elements of the check-in process is having to deal with the necessary paperwork while attending to a child. Our goal was to transform the waiting time into a therapeutic sensory experience, creating a bonding activity for children and families. The experience consists of a large-scale projected meadow that was inspired by cinematic worlds of Hayao Miyazaki, and "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild". The meadow is inhabited by friendly animals - elks, foxes, fish and butterflies. The forest is alive and ever-changing keeping children engaged throughout their time in the waiting room.
Below is the iteration board of the world creation process. We wanted the world to be warm, inviting, reminiscent of real nature outside, but just a little embellished with magic to engage children imagination. We worked with a 16 foot wide wall, and had to make sure that the prospective and the sense of scale would work with the kids. At the end, we made a world that was expansive enough to encourage exploration, yet it provided a sense of refuge and felt safe.
As we worked on the the design of the space, we didn't want it to be just a passive viewing experience - we wanted to give children the sense of agency and exploration. To help kids inhibit the space, we created a complimentary digital app, Mariposa Grove. Mariposa Gove is a drawing application that enables children of different mobility range to engage in the act of creation by drawing a butterfly that can be released into the projected environment.
Whenever a child creates a butterfly in the Mariposa Grove app, it activates a special kind of magic within the world. A musical composition (created by Tim Fain) is a bridge between the two digital worlds of the app and the projection. The experience moves between the app as the butterfly flies away from the iPad screen and reappears in the room through a portal while being carried by the music. The butterflies become children companions and create continuity throughout the medical visit and future experiences. In the next stage of the project, we're striving to incorporate additional digital experiences throughout the center that would allow the created companions to travel between the rooms, and accompany little visitors throughout their entire time with the center and introduce at-home care as well.
You can learn more about the Mariposa Grove app
Neurological rehabilitation often requires many long hours of therapy for meaningful recovery, and it can be hard to motivate children to complete their therapies. To keep children engaged, we utilized the concept of adaptive gaming in the context of the environment, and developed a personalized playing experience that adapts to the child’s ability level. A real-time interactive application, Stardust, employs computer vision to track the child's movement and visualizes the body as a colorful cloud of stardust - a reminder of their inherent beauty and perfection at any stage of rehabilitation. In the next stage, the program works in conjunction with the child’s clinical provider to help patients with training motor skills in an engaging and responsive way.In the next stage, the program will help the provider to assess and evaluate their gross motor skills from limb control to whole-body movements.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) in children is a significant public health problem in the United States. It disrupts the normal function of the brain, and can lead to a menagerie of problems across behavioral, emotional, cognitive and physical functioning. To support evaluation and treatment of pediatric TBIs, we develop an immersive environment, Alpine Lights, to help train emotional regulation and engage the whole family to participate together with the child. The environment was designed to be suitable for individuals with a concussion and provides a very gentle stimulation without causing cognitive fatigue or disorientation.
To support evaluation and treatment of pediatric TBIs, we develop an immersive environment, Alpine Lights, to help train emotional regulation and engage the whole family to participate together with the child. The environment was designed to be suitable for individuals with a concussion and provides a very gentle stimulation without causing cognitive fatigue or disorientation. The motor markers of TBI can be very hard to evaluate by observation only. Studio Elsewhere designed the Sway app, an evaluation tool that gathers positional data of the patient and quickly and accurately assesses their balance and coordination. Using the app reduced the evaluation time from 30 minutes to 90 seconds, resulting in significant provider, patient and family real time-cost savings.
You can learn more about the Sway app
The experiences at Charles Lazarus Children’s Abilities Center were designed, fabricated and installed during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The design of the space is flexible and can expand and construct to accommodate various occupancy. Although challenging at first, it helped establish a new gold standard in hospital design which showcases that a sense of safety, calm, imagination, and wonder can thrive even during a pandemic.
