TKF Team Member Roger Ulrich, Ph.D Honored by The Center for Health Design

Roger Ulrich pictureThe Center for Health Design is honoring Roger S. Ulrich, Ph.D, Lead Researcher on the Legacy Health team for “A Nature Place” one of the TKF Foundation’s Nature Sacred National Awardees, with their annual Changemaker award. The award was announced in the May issue of Healthcare Design and recognizes individuals who have “Changed the way healthcare facilities are designed and built and whose work has contributed to the advancement of healthcare design.” Ulrich will receive the award this November at the annual Healthcare Design Conference where he will give the keynote address.

Ulrich is recognized as the founder of evidence-based healthcare design and has become its most cited researcher internationally. His studies have been lauded for their scientific rigor yet are also readily applied by design practitioners, health professionals, planners, and policy makers. His findings and evidence-based design concepts have impacted the design of healthcare buildings around the world. He is a pioneer in producing scientific evidence that visual exposure to nature fosters psychological and physiological restoration from stress, and can improve medical outcomes in patients.

He is currently working with TKF award recipient A Nature Place which is being built at the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, Oregon. A Nature Place provides healing gardens designed to address patients psychological, physical and spiritual needs while providing the opportunity for solid research into the benefits of nature in an otherwise stressful environment. Studies participants will include pregnant mothers and their babies, family members of patients in extended ICU care and health care providers working in ICU environments.

Dr. Ulrich is currently a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Centre for Healthcare Architecture at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden.