Creating comfortable surroundings for patients and their visitors is an important part of designing healthcare spaces, emphasises LG Hausys, designer and manufacturer of solid surfacing material, HI-MACS.
The company says: “Well-designed, attractive hospital environments can have a real impact on patient recovery and welfare – leading to growing demand within today’s healthcare facilities for ‘homely’ environments fitted out with fashionable materials. However specifiers must equally take account of the strict infection control guidelines governing the properties and characteristics of materials that can be used in medical settings.
“HI-MACS was developed for use in creating awe-inspiring buildings and installations, but simultaneously meets the strictest hygiene criteria. Its bacterial and chemical resistance make it ideal for use in healthcare facilities such as hospitals and laboratories.”
Alongside these benefits, LG Hausys says HI-MACS is “extremely durable”, offers an “excellent cost-performance ratio”, is “visually seamlessly processed”, and non-porous.
Designers and architects can use it “to create everything from welcoming reception areas and patient rooms, to efficient, practical treatment areas, surgeries, and laboratories”. LG Hausys adds: “HI-MACS’s aesthetic qualities can help to dispel the traditionally harsh, clinical image of hospitals by creating a warmer environment that enhances wellness and promotes healing, without sacrificing hygiene and efficiency.”
The “new generation” HI-MACS complies with the international LGA and NSF standards, and has been certified by an independent laboratory. It has also been approved by Greenguard in the US as “a low emitting product” for improving indoor air quality.
Composed of 70% natural stone powder derived from bauxite, 25% high quality acrylic resin, and 5% natural pigments, HI-MACS Natural Acrylic Stone is distributed across Europe from LG Hausys’s European headquarters in Geneva.
The product has been specified by well-known architects and designers including Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, David Chipperfield, Ron Arad, Marc Newson, Elke Delugan Meissl, and Joaquín Torres.
HI-MACS is available in over 100 colours within the following ranges: Solids, Granite, Sand, Pearl & Quartz, Volcanics, Lucent, Galaxy, Marmo, and a new recycled range of colours.