The July/August 2008 issue of Orion magazine included an article about the broad impact of Texas A&M College of Architecture professor Roger Ulrich’s landmark research on nature’s effect on the recovery of hospital patients.
“Even the most mainstream administrators, hospital architects, and interior designers now acknowledge that environments with nature imagery—from reception to radiology to restrooms—empower patients in their healing, provide relief for worried families, and fortify care providers,” wrote Nalini Nadkarni in Orion.
Ulrich, a professor of architecture and holder of the Julie and Craig Beale ’71 Endowed Professorship in Health Facilities Design, reported in the journal Science in 1984 that patients who had a view of a patch of trees from their hospital room recovered more quickly from gall bladder surgery than their counterparts who had a view of a concrete wall.
Nadkarni’s article in the July/August 2008 issue is available at http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3052.
