Roger Ulrich, professor of architecture at Texas A&M University, joined famous Irish actor Gabriel Byrne in an effort to raise public awareness on the benefits evidence-based design as part of the Irish government’s multibillion-dollar effort to modernize its healthcare infrastructure.
“Despite becoming a wealthy country in recent decades,” said Ulrich, “Ireland's hospitals and other healthcare buildings remain among the most obsolete in Europe.”
Ulrich is the holder of the Julie and Craig Beale ’71 Endowed Professorship in Health Facilities Design at the Texas A&M College of Architecture.
A mainstay on the silver screen for nearly 30 years, Byrne has appeared in “The Usual Suspects,” “Little Women,” and “Excalibur.” Currently, he portrays Paul, a therapist in the critically acclaimed HBO series “In Treatment.”
“Gabriel’s participation ensured much greater public interest and attendance, and helped to increase awareness of the importance of using evidence-based design to create better healthcare buildings,” said Ulrich, who has been advising government entities and foundations in Ireland about the benefits evidence-based design in healthcare architecture for the past couple of years.
“Gabriel's presence, eloquence, and his ability to bring humanity to the topic of healthcare environments empowered the public and political impact of my barrage of research findings,” said Ulrich. “I conveyed the science, data, and design recommendations, and Byrne brought the emotion and framed key issues in personal, human terms.”
At one of their public appearances, the crowd was so large that organizers had to move the event to St. Ann’s, a cavernous old church that has stood in the heart of Dublin for more than 300 years.
“I spoke for an hour on evidence-based design from an elaborately carved pulpit to an audience of more than 1,000 people,” said Ulrich. “It was a novel departure from C-105 (a classroom in Texas A&M’s Langford Architecture Center).”
A report on a press conference where Ulrich and Byrne spoke from RTE, an Irish television network, is available at http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0619/9news_av.html?2389261,null,230.
An article on hospital design in the Irish Times, which includes a description of Ulrich’s apperance at St. Ann’s is available at the Irish Times website.
