Dean Renée Cheng shares her journey as a woman in architecture, offering valuable insight into how her perspective has shaped her path.
Category: Dean
From the Dean: Welcome Back!
As we usher in another academic year at the College of Built Environments, I want to extend a warm welcome back to all our faculty, staff, and students.
CBE Celebrates 2023 Faculty & Staff Award Winners
The CBE Faculty & Staff Awards recognize exemplary faculty and staff for their dedication and service to the CBE community. View the list of winners.
From the Dean: January 2023
After adopting our strategic framework nearly two years ago in 2021, the beginning of the year offers us a great opportunity to reflect and celebrate on what we have accomplished so far and where we plan to go. To learn more about our college’s efforts and outcomes towards these goals, please see the strategic plan implementation progress report.
From the Dean: November 2022
Gould and Architecture Halls have been full of excitement and activity with classes and community events in full swing. In our second year of our two year strategic framework implementation, we are asking important questions about how CBE can be more of a leader in showing how built environments can elevate the experience of our students, faculty, staff, and other members of the community.
Elevating the Spirit: Dean Renée Cheng on Architecture’s Role in Our Lives
Haley Ha, SAM’s Manager of Public Engagement at the Asian Art Museum, spoke with Dean Cheng about her background, why equity matters in architecture, and how architecture can respond to ecological concerns. Dean Cheng participated in the University Lecture of the 2022–2023 series at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. | SAMBlog
Partnership for equity and inclusion in design and planning schools welcomes a second cohort of early career fellows!
The Dean’s Equity and Inclusion Initiative, a partnership of now over two dozen U.S. schools and colleges of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, preservation, and design, welcomes a second cohort of 17 early career faculty to the scholarly development program.
Diversity, America’s cities, public safety hot topics at Day 2 of A’22
Dean Cheng was one of the keynote speakers at this year’s AIA Conference. See what she had to say about the role of an architect during this unique moment in time.
From the Dean: June 2022
Congratulations to this year’s graduates and also to those from 2020 and 2021! Even with all of the changes that the past two years have brought us, our community has continued to be resilient, creative, passionate, and kind. Here’s what we’re celebrating and looking forward to.
UW announces John and Rosalind Jacobi Family Endowed Deanship in the College of Built Environments
The University of Washington today announced the establishment of the John and Rosalind Jacobi Family Endowed Deanship in the College of Built Environments, strengthening the school’s vision of a more just and beautiful world for all. | UW News
Between the Lines: Falling back into place
Read Dean Renee Cheng’s autumn 2021 newsletter welcoming everyone back to Gould Hall. She shares updates from the past and work starting in the spring.
Video | Breaking through the Bamboo Ceiling – Asian Americans as Leaders in U.S. Academia
Dean Renee Cheng joined the Columbia University Asian Faculty Association to discuss Asian Americans as leaders in U.S. academia.
What Does DEI Have to Do with Architecture?
Dean Renee Cheng joined ARCHITECT magazine podcast with consultant Nancy Alexander and Perkins&Will principal Gabrielle Bullock to discuss common myths and questions about diversity, equity, and inclusion.
COVID-19 & the Future of Architectural Education
The Midnight Charette is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by architectural designers David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features a variety of creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions. A wide array of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes provide useful tips for designers, while others are project reviews, interviews, or explorations of everyday life and design. The Midnight Charette is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week hosts David and Marina are joined by Marc Neveu—Chair of Architecture, The Design School, Arizona State University and Executive Editor of the Journal of Architectural Education; Renée Cheng—Dean of the College of Built Environments, University of Washington; and Kiel Moe—Gerald Sheff Chair in Architecture, School of Architecture, McGill University to discuss how COVID-19 has impacted teachers and students, the future of education (changing studio, reviews, and lectures), and more. Enjoy!
A letter to my Asian women students looking for answers
My mom loved Obama, she loved his measured speech, his cool, his handsomeness, how he reminded her of JFK. She loved that America had a Black president. A few weeks before she died, her stamina wasn’t great, but she stayed up after dinner to watch his State of Union address. Sitting in her tiny rocking chair, she was rapt, nodding at the good parts, making comments like, “so smart” and “so true.” I noticed she was starting to nod off, so I offered to help her to bed. She readily agreed, “Yes, I don’t need to see anymore, he’s got it right.” She died in 2009, confident that America had moved into a post-race era. While I will always wish she lived longer, lately the stronger emotion I have when thinking of her is gratitude. I’m thankful that she died never knowing how wrong she was.
Over the past year, the historic hate against Asian, Asian-American and Pacific Islanders has once again exposed itself. But a few weeks ago, as I drafted a message to my college community after the murders in Atlanta, I experienced something new. I tried so hard to stay in my identity as a leader and public figurehead of our college, which is usually a comfortable skin for me. But this time, for this message, for the first time in a year’s worth of tough messages, I resented being a leader crafting a statement for my majority-white colleagues and students about tolerance, culture, and bridging differences. I understand that what I say can help you, and most of the time I welcome that responsibility. But today, can’t I opt out? How can I speak when I have so much confusion over my own race?
Like many of us, my concept of race isn’t simple and can be traced to experiences over a long period of time and to the people who taught us. My mom fiercely loved America and believed it truly lived up to its promise as the land of opportunity, even when she found many aspects of America “qíguài” or even more extreme “qíguài sǐ le” which, depending on the context and the topic, translated to odd, baffling, perplexing and/or wrongheaded. When I was a child, my mom used to tell me about how hard it had been to come to the U.S. from China, homesick and disoriented. Part of earning her college scholarship was visiting places in Ohio that had never seen a Chinese person before. She dressed up in her qipao, and let schoolchildren touch her, and made small talk at country clubs, patiently correcting assumptions, assuring her audience that she grew up with both running water and books and if the curiosity seemed genuine, she mentioned that those amenities were no surprise in a country that had movable type printing presses and infrastructure at the time when many in the Western world were living in caves. She said it made her skin crawl to be touched, and that presenting felt like being a performing seal, but the scholarship was important.
My mom drew as fluidly as the most accomplished Walt Disney animator. I asked her once how she learned to draw so fast, and she told me that when she was in college, she busked to earn bus fare to visit her sister who had married a man in Florida. Drawing faster meant more caricatures, bigger crowds, and more money. As a child, what struck me most about her description of Florida in 1950 was that when she wanted to go to the bathroom, she had to choose between the “colored” and “whites only” doors. Deeply puzzled, I asked:
Which one did you go into?
I didn’t know what to do.
So which did you use?
I waited until we got home to go.
Couldn’t you ask someone?
I didn’t want to ask.
Couldn’t you wait to see what the other Chinese people did?She shook her head and laughed.
What ‘other Chinese people’? There were no other Chinese people.
What did Aye say to do?
She said, ‘don’t drink anything so you don’t have to go until you get home.’
Are we white or colored?
Well, we aren’t white.
So are we colored?
Maybe, I don’t know. But you don’t have to worry about it, it’s one of those strange things that happened a long time ago and no one cares about that anymore.
To Mom, race didn’t matter but culture did. Chinese food, not American, was comfort food. All those cool things my friends did that I wasn’t allowed to do, hanging out at the mall, having sandwiches for dinner, calling grown-ups by their first name, treating report cards cavalierly, were all off-limits to me. The default reason was always “because our family is Chinese.” For all those reasons and more, I’ve known since childhood that I’m not white, yet I’ve never known if that meant if I was in Florida in the 1950s, would I use that door marked “colored?” Let alone answers to even more haunting questions: If that door still existed today, would I use it? If there is an equivalent metaphor for that door, have I been passing by it or through it without conscious choice?
A few years ago, planning a diversity training, I disagreed with the much younger white woman who was in charge of the program. I can’t remember what the issue was, but I remember her dismissal of my viewpoint “since you aren’t really a minority.” It’s true that I’m hardly the only Asian walking around my campus, but it’s also true that the Asian perspective is not part of the dominant white culture. The first time I was in a majority-Asian event, my freshman year of college at a Chinese volleyball tournament, I walked around in a daze, wondering to myself “What is this feeling? Look at all these Asians and not one of them is my cousin or someone I know.” It took me many more of these events over a couple of years to identify what I was experiencing was a tiny part of me relaxing, a consciousness of difference didn’t need to be held. The feeling was a missing tension, a release of pressure to try to see through white eyes; I didn’t have to be vigilant that something I said might be heard differently because of my Asian face.
A few weeks ago, sitting down to craft the message to my college, I felt an unexpected resentment. Why can’t I be that freshman at the volleyball tournament, able to speak as just me – a Chinese-American person in a crowd of Chinese-Americans. I felt burdened; I yearned to be that Chinese-American daughter being reassured by her Chinese-immigrant mother that America was the greatest country in the world and race no longer mattered. I felt insecure, as a leader that people look to for answers to complicated questions, how can I talk about this if I don’t know for myself the answer to the simple question – which door would I enter, the one marked “colored” or “white”? When my university excludes Asians from the category of “underrepresented minority,” does that close a door that I might want open, if not for myself, for my students or faculty?
In the end, I know if my words can help my college community, my built environments community, I will always take the opportunity to talk or engage about race to an audience willing to listen. I know my actions matter in a different way from my white colleagues as we work on the systemic issues that impact all historically marginalized people. But today, I’m taking the time I need to work out some things for myself. And I’ll let you know if I have answers to share.
Renée Cheng, FAIA, DPACSA, is Dean of the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. She is the lead researcher for a multiyear project resulting in the American Institute of Architects Guides for Equitable Practice .
Archinect Deans List: Renée Cheng on How Comprehensive Design Can Engender Inclusivity
The Deans List is an interview series with the leaders of architecture schools, worldwide. The series profiles the school’s programming, as defined by the dean — giving an invaluable perspective into the institution’s unique curriculum, faculty and academic environment.
For this installment, Archinect spoke with current University of Washington College of Built Environments dean Renée Cheng. A licensed architect with years of experience working at firms like Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners and her personal practice, Cheng-Olson Design, Cheng has specialized in researching the application of new technologies within the design and construction process while also helping to pioneer innovative project delivery approaches. In our interview, Cheng shares how these approaches can be applied to the wide-ranging curriculum of an integrated design program.
Dean Cheng speaking at a recent Women in Construction symposium in Seattle. Image courtesy of McKinstry.
Briefly describe CBE’s pedagogical stance on architecture education.
The University of Washington’s (UW) Department of Architecture sits within the multidisciplinary College of Built Environments (CBE) that includes the specific disciplines most central to the built environment: architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning, construction management, and real estate. The Department of Architecture recently completed a major revision of the professional degree program to further emphasize research, collaboration, and integration. These three themes are reflected in the other departments as well, creating a college with unique disciplinary strengths that can collaborate effectively.
What insights from your past professional experience are you hoping to integrate or adopt as the dean?
Running my own firm, as well as working in architectural firms large and small, has given me a healthy respect for the hard work it takes to run a firm today, as well as unbounded optimism for how architectural profession can become more relevant, resilient, and equitable.
My research and teaching experience has focused on emerging practices, everything from technologies like parametric design to organizational systems like lean and/or equitable practices.
I’m also interested to see how far we can carry the focus around collaboration, asking what it would mean for all of the faculty, students, and staff to be effective collaborators.
With these experiences in mind, I am applying some practices of inclusion and values-based decision-making to understanding the processes of the college. I’m also interested to see how far we can carry the focus around collaboration, asking what it would mean for all of the faculty, students, and staff to be effective collaborators.
All of this is related to the research practices program that I started at the University of Minnesota. I am in the process of growing that model and network here at the UW with the multiple disciplines of the college. At UW, for example, we are starting an applied research consortium with a group of founding members we hope to announce before the start of the next academic year.
AIA releases new chapters of “Guides for Equitable Practice”
WASHINGTON – June 19, 2019 – The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the University of Washington are releasing three new chapters of “Guides for Equitable Practice” today.
“Architects can do great things, if we work together to lead the changes we need to secure a better future for our profession, without regard to race, socio-economic background, gender, physical ability, native language or sexual orientation,” said AIA 2019 President William Bates, FAIA. “The guides are a one-of-a-kind resource that can help architects build a greater understanding of one another, which is the foundation to creating the meaningful changes we want to see in the architecture profession.”
Newly released chapters of the guides cover strategies for attracting and retaining talent—for individual firms and the profession as a whole—using equitable recruitment and retention practices; skills for equitable and inclusive negotiations; and insights for how mentorships and sponsorships can make workplaces more diverse and inclusive. Last year, AIA released the first three chapters of guides, which explored intercultural competence, workplace culture, and compensation. AIA will issue three final chapters later this year.
Guides are developed using current research on gender, race and culture in the U.S. They include perspectives from architects on what equity, diversity and inclusion mean as well as moral, business, ethical and societal cases that can help individuals, architecture firms and others build equity in their organizations.
“Guides for Equitable Practice” are one component of the AIA’s broad commitment to work with members to overcome inequities and advance the profession. In 2015, AIA formed the Equity in Architecture Commission to address broader concerns about the equitable practice of architecture. The development of the guides was one of the Commission’s eleven recommendations adopted by the AIA’s Board of Directors.
In 2017, the commission’s work was assumed by the AIA Equity and the Future of Architecture Committee. The committee is tasked with helping implement the commission’s recommendations and tackling other equity, diversity, inclusion and workforce issues.
Learn more about AIA’s equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives online.
Download
Guides for Equitable Practice – Introduction >
Guides for Equitable Practice – Chapter 1: Intercultural Competence >
Guides for Equitable Practice – Chapter 2: Workplace Culture >
Guides for Equitable Practice – Chapter 3: Compensation >
Guides for Equitable Practice – Chapter 4: Recruitment and Retention >
Guides for Equitable Practice – Chapter 5: Negotiation >
Guides for Equitable Practice – Chapter 6: Mentorship and Sponsorship >
Building equity: A talk with Renée Cheng, new dean of the UW College of Built Environments
Renée Cheng comes to the University of Washington from the University of Minnesota, where she was professor and associate dean of its school of architecture and design. A licensed architect, Cheng is a leader in the American Institute of Architects and advocates for equity in the architecture field and practices related to the built environment. She joined the UW on Jan. 1.
Cheng answered questions about the college and her new role for UW News.
What is it about the College of Built Environments, the UW and the Seattle area — with its many challenges — that attracted you?
It was actually those challenges — particularly around housing and homelessness — that attracted me, especially because the College of Built Environments has a real chance to have an impact on an urgent societal issue. It goes without saying that housing and homelessness is incredibly important, but we also know that it’s not the only “wicked problem” or grand challenge facing us. It’s clear to me that the college can establish a method or approach to contribute positively to the dialogue and lead where we are best suited to do so.
You’ve had an interesting career path, starting your education with pre-med in mind, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and social relations, and then a master’s in architecture — and founding your own firm. How do these diverse experiences help inform your work?
It’s easier to see now in hindsight, but all my choices have been based in trying to make a difference in the world through action and to take those actions with respect for humanity. I try to have my actions — whether they are large or small scale, on my own or with others — to be the best: with care, integrity and beauty.
What are some of your priorities coming in as dean, both in the short and longer term?
I’m fortunate to come at a time when our college, students and faculty are very strong. I’m not starting with a blank page, instead I’m helping add a chapter to a wonderful book. My first step is to speed-read that book to catch up with everyone else who understands it so well. That content includes internal college matters but also its partners, alumni and community as well as its past history and context.
Moving forward, I would love to amplify and enhance the college’s contributions to advancing solutions to our most intractable problems that involve or include the built environments. I think most people know that College of Built Environments disciplines are good at looking to the future and designing beautiful places, but its even more than that: The college has great visionaries and designers, but they work with historians who know that the future is in the context of the past, and with scholars who understand the policy and financial models that shape the parameters in direct dialogue with designers. In the ideal world, faculty and students from our disciplines respect the distinct differences and find ways to work effectively to impact society.
In Seattle as in Minneapolis — where you headed the University of Minnesota School of Architecture / College of Design — there is a great focus on homelessness, housing affordability and density in communities. How can the college contribute to conversations on these topics and pursue solutions?
Housing, homelessness, affordability and density involve some of the most difficult issues in society and there needs to be a diverse set of skills and great depth of information brought to bear to make progress. Lots of good ideas with many insights and resources are needed to have constructive dialogue.
The college offers a great platform for multidisciplinary collaboration including a coalition of academic experts, students, communities, public and private institutions. In addition to providing the space for productive dialogue, we are able to envision scenarios and we are comfortable with holding open multiple parallel options simultaneously. This lateral thought process, sometimes called “design thinking,” can be incredibly powerful to define and solve complex layered problems.
Coming decades will bring continued environmental challenges such as rising seas, warming temperatures and extreme weather. Innovation is bringing driverless cars, the proliferation of drones and more. How might — how must — the built environment world respond?
The built environment has already adapted, not always in positive ways, to changes in climate and technology. Changing in a positive way is the key.
We also need to realize that we don’t just react to those forces of change, we have a responsibility to attend to the social justice implications of environments. Change will happen, it’s guaranteed. Positive change is not guaranteed, it will take concerted efforts by colleges like ours to define, nudge, cajole and lead.
You are an advocate for equity in the built environment professions and recently led the research effort for the American Institute of Architecture’s guides for equitable practice in the workplace. How will this inform your leadership in the college?
You asked earlier about my background; I think in many ways I’ve come full circle to my focus on human interaction and relationships. Practicing equity and inclusion have shown me that bridging across differences — cultural, gender, disciplinary — is at the heart of so many things I care about. It has also taught me that we learn through taking risks and making mistakes.
I love that the UW has been such a leader in equity, diversity and inclusion. President Cauce has set such a great example in her aspirational yet grounded approach, and she has well defined values that are clear and shared among the deans. It’s impressive and exciting to be adding to this mix that which I have learned about equity in the practice of architecture.
Originally posted on UW News. Questions by Peter Kelley of UW News and Kailey Waring of the College of Built Environments.
$250,000 gift from NBBJ to the UW College of Built Environments will advance applied research in the built environment
NBBJ – a global architecture, planning and design firm – will donate a quarter of a million dollars to establish a ground breaking partnership with the University of Washington’s (UW) College of Built Environments (CBE). The gift will forge multiple relationships over many years, touching faculty, students and researchers who advance knowledge of our understanding of how the built environment positively affects human health and wellbeing.
The partnership will strive to translate basic research into action, create innovative solutions to design problems, and engage the next generation of leaders through the teaching and research at CBE and across the University of Washington. CBE dean Renée Cheng, FAIA, says partnerships like the one between NBBJ and the CBE are essential to define and identify solutions to the grand challenges of the 21st century.
“Connecting the knowledge loop between practices and academy is key towards ensuring our buildings foster and nurture human health. Partnerships between a leading design firm like NBBJ with a leading multidisciplinary college like ours will accelerate the impact of our research, directly benefiting our industry, our communities and society. While our initial focus will be on human health, we see this as a model for collaborative, complementary and applied research that this college can and will use to address the most urgent issues of our society – from finding smarter ways to deal with carbon to increasing affordable housing and addressing homelessness,” said Cheng.
“The built environment is a powerful tool to provoke change, and is inextricably linked to positive health outcomes,” said NBBJ Managing Partner Steve McConnell, FAIA. “The partnership between NBBJ and UW will advance the next generation of research related to design and health by anchoring it more deeply in project work and sharing it more broadly across competitive boundaries. Our entire industry – and ultimately our clients and the community at large – will benefit from its impact.”
NBBJ will engage with students and faculty from the CBE and across health sciences at the UW. The specifics of the multi-year partnership will evolve organically but it will engage faculty, students and practitioners in activities such as projects, studios, seminars, charrettes and symposia.
About NBBJ
NBBJ creates innovative places and experiences for organizations worldwide and designs environments, communities and buildings that enhance people’s lives. Founded in 1943, NBBJ is an industry leader in designing corporate office, healthcare, commercial, civic, science, education and sports facilities. The firm has won numerous awards and has been recognized as the world’s “Most Innovative Architecture Firm” by Fast Company magazine. The firm has a history of spearheading innovative partnerships that provide benefit beyond its walls — including the creation of VR start-up Visual Vocal, the formation of NBBJ’s Fellowship program focused on neuroscience research, and a collaboration with Time Inc. to “hack” the future of work. Clients include Alibaba, Amazon, Beacon Capital Partners, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Boeing, Cambridge University, Cleveland Clinic, GlaxoSmithKline, Massachusetts General Hospital, Microsoft, Reebok, Salk Institute, Samsung, Stanford University, Starbucks, Tencent and Tishman Speyer. (http://www.nbbj.com)
Contact: Daniel Skiffington, dskiffington@nbbj.com
About the College of Built Environments
The UW’s College of Built Environments (CBE) is one of a few institutions where Architecture, Urban Planning, Landscape Architecture, Construction Management, and Real Estate come together under one roof. The CBE has three foci which are professional practice, public service, and research and each serve the College, University, and community in profound ways. Its mission is to teach students to be skilled practitioners and strong collaborators, who are conscious of the natural environment and cultures they serve. (www.be.uw.edu)
Contact: Kailey Waring, kcwaring@uw.edu