Earth as hybrid planet: New classification scheme places Anthropocene era in astrobiological context
For decades, as astronomers have imagined advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, they categorized such worlds by the amount of energy their inhabitants might conceivably be able to harness and use. Now, a team of researchers including Marina Alberti of the University of Washington has devised a new classification scheme for the evolutionary stages of worlds based on “non-equilibrium thermodynamics”…
Tour Bullitt Center with Integrated Design Lab
The Bullitt Center is billed as the world’s greenest commercial building. The University of Washington Integrated Design Lab will offer tours of the Bullitt Center at 1501 E. Madison St. in Seattle Sept. 9, 11 and 12. The Bullitt Foundation opened the $32.5 million building in early 2013, and bills it as the world’s greenest…
Can’t wait to see inside? There’s an app for that
A new school for computer science at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus won’t open its doors for classes for at least another 18 months. But students and faculty already have a sense of what it will feel like to sit in its classrooms and walk its halls. When completed in January 2019, the CSE2 Building, the…
Can Seattle avoid Bay Area problems? Using data to predict how neighborhoods will evolve
Seattle is experiencing unrelenting population growth, driven largely by its booming technology industry. If policymakers are to avoid some of the problems that San Francisco is experiencing due to its own tech boom, they will need to make data-driven decisions. A team of researchers at the University of Washington want to make it easier for Seattle…
UW-Auburn Livable City Year Concludes
University of Washington students have been working with city of Auburn staff and community members throughout the past year on a wide range of projects tackling challenges around livability and sustainability in the city. These projects were part of the UW Livable City Year program, which connects one Washington community with UW faculty each year. The faculty…
Mary Lund Davis: A champion of modernism in the Pacific Northwest
As an architecture student at the University of Washington in the early 1940s, Mary Lund Davis stood out. Not only would she go on to become the school’s first female graduate after World War II, but during long stretches of her education she was literally the only one in her class, as her fellow students…
Corporations Find a Place in the Classroom
The Jacobi family, founders of Windermere Real Estate, have donated $5.4 million to start the undergraduate minor in real estate this Autumn 2017. The University of Washington’s interdisciplinary mindset is clearly shown through the UW’s real estate program being housed in the College of Built Environments. Traditionally, they’re housed in the business school’s. Edgar Gonzalez,…
PSBJ Interviews Windermere Real Estate’s Jill Jacobi Wood
“Jill Jacobi, a board member in the Real Estate department at the University of Washington, says the biggest current challenge for real estate in this region is lack of housing. The co-president of Windermere Real Estate says developers aren’t building condominiums, which makes their business really hard. In an interview done by PSBJ, Jill says,…
Birds versus buildings
About one billion birds are killed every year when they unwittingly fly into human-made objects such as buildings with reflective windows. Such collisions are the largest unintended human cause of bird deaths worldwide — and they are a serious concern for conservationists. A new paper published in June in the journal Biological Conservation finds that,…
City of Seattle Hires Ginger Armbruster as Chief Privacy Officer
“With Ginger’s return to the City, we can expect Seattle to once again raise the profile of possibilities for protecting public interests in municipal data, setting an example for cities across the nation to follow,” said Dr. Jan Whittington, Associate Professor of the Department of Urban Design and Planning, at the University of Washington. College of…
Climate Change Solutions … from the Humanities?
City/Nature: Urban Environmental Humanities is a three-week institute where professors, graduate students, and scholars from all over the country explore how the humanities can make an impact in the age of climate change. UW professors Thaisa Way, Richard Watts, and Ken Yocom designed the institute, which resembled a summer camp, involving picnics, city tours, and…
eHAB Cabin Featured in New Book
LED lighting, a dual-flush toilet, and “energy-efficient” window systems are only a few of the reasons why Eric Cobb, Founder of E. Cobb Architects and UW College of Built Environments Alumni, is acknowledged for his cutting edge eHAB Cabin. The cabin is featured in Sheri Koones’ “Prefabulous Small Houses” book. She says, “Happily, I believe…
2017 CBE Graduation Celebration
Message from the Dean: It is a great pleasure for us to celebrate the many accomplishments of the 300 members of the College’s Class of 2017 as they depart the protective environment of the College to embark on their professional careers. All are well prepared to take on their professional responsibilities for shaping our future…
Lt. Governor Keynotes CEP Commencement
“Don’t ‘check your privilege at the door’,” Lieutenant Governor Cyrus Habib said, “It’s handy. Put it to use.” The Lt. Governor delivered the keynote address at the University of Washington’s commencement ceremony for the Community, Environment, and Planning program last Saturday. Housed in the College of Built Environments, the Community, Environment, and Planning program takes an…
Creating Experiences, Not Objects – Graduate Speaker David Goldberg
When Dave Goldberg – president and architect at Mithun – thinks back on his time at UW and what continues to resonate with him, two things come to mind. The first is the mix of great full time professors like Sergio Palleroni and Jeffrey Ochsner, and the inspiring local practitioners including Gordon Walker, Mark Millett,…
UW architecture students create vision for downtown Bothell’s future
The rebuilding of Main Street could be just one of the changes to come to the historic area in downtown Bothell. As part of a spring quarter class, University of Washington (UW) architecture students have been working with city staff and local business owners to develop a vision for the future. As part of the…
Pacific County market heats up
Pacific County home sales up 20%, prices up 15% in 1st quarter 2017 Washington state’s housing market showed the continuing influence of high demand and tightening supply in the first three months of the year, according to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington. Pacific County reported some of the…
Honored by Olmsted – David de la Cruz
Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, David de la Cruz spent his high school years attending Communities for a Better Environment youth meetings, while also watching his mother grow to become a pillar of the community, shaping his ideas for the potential of his own impact. “Communities for a Better Environment’s commitment to social…
The Man Who Gave Us the Fremont Troll
Who was it that possessed the perverse audacity to look at a dark patch of dirt under the Aurora Bridge and imagine a peculiar form of immortality? It is, of course, the world famous Fremont Troll, a colossus of engineering and vision and quirky, twisted madness. A tourist stands atop concrete fingers and says, “I…
University of Washington, City of Tacoma announce Livable City Year partnership for 2017-2018
The University of Washington’s Livable City Year (LCY) program has selected the City of Tacoma as the program’s community partner for the 2017-2018 academic year. This partnership establishes a yearlong relationship connecting students and faculty with city staff working on projects that advance goals outlined in its One Tacoma: Comprehensive Plan and Tacoma2025 strategic visioning…
Amazon builds a tree-filled crystal jungle in downtown Seattle
Americans tend to think of brown shipping boxes when it comes to Amazon. But in Seattle, the company is increasingly known as a real-estate owner. That’s especially true downtown, where Amazon employs more than 24,000 — some of whom will soon hold meetings and take lunch breaks inside three gigantic glass spheres that add a geodesic flare to…
Construction Students help Seattle Children’s Theater
The Seattle Children’s Theatre is regarded as one of the nation’s top children’s theater companies. Its home at Seattle Center was completed in the mid-1990s and a pavilion was added in 2000. But the building, part of which was originally built in 1956, is not as energy efficient as it could be. The theater has…
AIA Honors and Awards Luncheon
Celebrating design excellence at the AIA New York Chapter’s Honors and Awards Luncheon on April 21. This year’s honorees include former UW Department of Architecture faculty member, Sharron Egretta Sutton, FAIA. Dr. Sutton is an activist educator and scholar who promotes inclusivity in the cultural makeup of the city-making professions and in the populations they…
On Earth Day, check your privilege
On the first Earth Day 47 years ago Saturday, some 20 million Americans marched to focus attention on the need to protect our environment. Here in Seattle, many of us say we care about the environment, but it is communities of color and poor and low-income people who are bearing the brunt of environmental pollution…
A Visual Tool for Guiding Urban Change
Photo-powered “urban diaries” can give residents a powerful new way to contribute to the dialogue that shapes their cities. Affiliate faculty Chuck Wolfe explains: At this moment of epic political gridlock at the national level, localism is back. Increasingly, cities are devising local solutions to the pressing challenges of the 21st century — from transportation…
Mexico City Studio: Affordable Housing in a Mega-City
For 12 CBE students, their home, studio, and living laboratory for winter quarter was Mexico City. With a population of almost 25 million people, Mexico City is facing critical deficiencies in infrastructure, transportation, and affordability. For the fourth Mexico City Studio, the Department of Architecture challenged students to address the issues of affordable housing and…
CBE Husky 100 Student: Ru’a Al-Abweh
Planning with People and Questioning the Answer Throughout fall quarter, second year Master of Urban Planning student Ru’a Al-Abweh spent much of her time listening to people’s stories for her thesis project. She asked them about where life had taken them and how this had shaped what home and community mean to them. People contemplated…
2017 CBE Research Open Labs
Data, Climate Change, and Design May 19, 2017 Gould Court 12:30 – 3:00 p.m. Organized by the College of Built Environments in collaboration with Urban@UW RSVP Now How can we use the rapidly increasing available data and data analytics to create better urban design and policies to address climate change? Six panelists will share their…
Designing on our National Treasure: The National Museum of African American History and Culture
Zena Howard, AIA Wednesday, May 17, 2017 6:00 p.m. Location: UW Seattle campus Presented by: the College of Built Environments Register for the event Zena’s presentation will focus on how the design team behind the Smithsonian Institution’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture realized the owner’s vision for creating a distinctive new cultural experience…
Moving Toward Zero: Q&A with Associate Professor Kate Simonen
What is the Carbon Leadership Forum and why is the group is relevant? The Carbon Leadership Forum is a collaborative research effort between industry and academics. The group is focused on understanding and reducing the total life cycle carbon emissions in buildings. In particular, we study embodied carbon emissions—or the emissions that takes place…
Design in Drawing: A Year-long Workshop Series
The Department of Landscape Architecture has joined forces with Seattle’s GGN firm to launch a series of weekend workshops, which focuses on representation in design. Drawing is a means of thinking and it is a language of dialogue. “Drawing is a language that expands and enhances our visions for the future of our landscapes and…
Protectors of the Presidio – Alumni Robert and Christina Wallace
Robert Wallace, B.A.E.D. ’77, M.Arch. ’83 and his wife, fellow UW graduate Christina Wallace, ’85 have spent the last 24 years in charge of restoring and preserving one of the oldest continuously operating military posts in the United States – the Presidio of San Francisco. Now converted to a national park, the 1,491 acre Presidio…
New Books: Planning for a complex world
Three Urban Design and Planning faculty have published new books that cover long-term planning efforts, the complexities of intersecting ecology and the built environments, and what individuals can do to help planners make smart decisions. Cities That Think Like Planets: Complexity, Resilience, and Innovation in Hybrid Ecosystems By Marina Alberti, Professor of Urban Design and…
Celebrated Change Maker: Diane Sugimura
Diane Sugimura, MUP ’07 spent 38 years working for the City of Seattle and for the last 14 years of her career led the City’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD), responsible for the full range of development activities. During that time, she worked with six mayors and through the economic highs and lows experienced…
RELEASED: Lean and IPD Case Studies Show Striking Uniformity of Project Success
Construction Management faculty, Dr. Carrie Dossick, joins colleagues from the University of Minnesota and the University of British Columbia in releasing findings from IPDA/LCI funded study. “The overall findings are consistent with the larger body of research showing that teams using IPD and Lean are more reliable in terms of the schedule and cost and in…
Cars vs. health: UW’s Moudon, Dannenberg contribute to Lancet series on urban planning, public health
Automobiles — and the planning and infrastructure to support them — are making our cities sick, says an international group of researchers now publishing a three-part series in the British medical journal The Lancet. University of Washington professors Anne Vernez Moudon and Andrew Dannenberg are co-authors of the first of this series that explores these…
Award for 20 Years of Storefront Studio
Each spring a dozen undergraduate students arrive in a new community with notepads and drawing pencils. They walk the streets, meet locals, and sketch prominent and underutilized spaces and are thinking about how the community can be more inclusive and better identify the town’s strengths. These students are beginning the Department of Architecture’s Storefront Studio…
Bringing the UW to Your City
Twenty eight miles south of Seattle is the City of Auburn. Native land of the Muckleshoot people and home to 70,000 residents, 28 parks, and a durable central business district, Auburn is the first partner for the University of Washington’s new Livable City Year (LCY) program. The LCY program dedicates one year to a regional…
Storefront Studio Recognized for Public Service
Each spring a dozen undergraduate students arrive in a new community with notepads and drawing pencils. They walk the streets, meet locals, and sketch prominent and underutilized spaces and are thinking about how the community could better identify the town’s strengths and find ways to be more inclusive. And with that, the students begin a…
University of Washington and City of Auburn launch first Livable City Year partnership
The University of Washington has begun a yearlong partnership with the City of Auburn, under the new Livable City Year program. UW students and professors will work with the City of Auburn to advance the city’s goals for livability and sustainability throughout the upcoming academic year. In this inaugural year, UW faculty will lead classes to work…
New book ‘Cities that Think Like Planets’ Imagines Urban Regions Resilient to Change
As human activity and environmental change come to be increasingly recognized as intertwined phenomena on a rapidly urbanizing planet, the field of urban ecology has risen to offer useful ways of thinking about coupled human and natural systems. On the forefront of this discipline is Marina Alberti, whose innovative work offers a conceptual framework for…
UW College of Built Environments Chosen for National Architect Association’s Design and Research Consortium
The University of Washington College of Built Environments and School of Public Health have been selected as part of a national initiative seeking to translate research on how design impacts public health into architectural practice. The two UW schools have been selected to join the American Institute of Architects’ multi-school Design & Health Research Consortium….
UW Alum Wins First Place in NASA 3D Printed Habitat Competition
NASA – the US space agency that announced the discovery of flowing water on Mars this week – has chosen a winner in its contest to design proposals for 3D-printed housing on the Red Planet. The Ice House has been awarded first place in the NASA-run 3D Printed Habitat Challenge, receiving a prize of $25,000 (£16,500) from competition sponsors NASA and…
CERC Hosts VR Hackathon
The Seattle VR Hackathon was held this past weekend in the University of Washington’s Center for Education and Research in Construction. The event consisted of two simultaneous competitions, the AEC Hackathon and the Virtual Reality Hackathon organized by Damon Hernandez, Greg Howes and others from the local AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) and VR communities. Only…
UW Ranks Fifth Globally in Scientific Research
Continuing a recent string of noteworthy accolades, the University of Washington held its place at No. 5 in the world on the National Taiwan University Ranking of Scientific Papers, which was released Friday. The ranking is based on performance of scientific papers in three major categories — research productivity, research impact and research excellence. “One…
President Cauce to Focus More on Research at UW
President Cauce told the Puget Sound Business Journal earlier this year that she wants to continue the school’s emphasis on commercializing its research. She also said UW should broaden that focus to include more basic research, in addition to spinning out companies. Read more at http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/health-care-inc/2015/10/cauce-will-focus-more-on-research-at-continue.html