There’s a big problem when it comes to fixing homelessness: The research-backed solution is not always the one the public agrees with. Gregg Colburn, assistant professor of real estate, is quoted and his new book is discussed. | The Seattle Times
In honor of Women’s History Month, we asked Teaching Assistant Professor, Darlene Septelka, to share her experience as a woman with 50 years of experience in the construction field.
Humans re-shape the environments where they live, with cities being among the most profoundly transformed environments on Earth. New research now shows that these urban environments are altering the way life evolves. Marina Alberti, professor of urban design and planning, and the Urban Ecology Research Lab’s research is highlighted. | UW News
This is the first installment of an essay series annotating and exploring the intersection of history, architecture, and activism in the Chinatown International District. Jeff Hou, professor of architecture is quoted. | International Examiner
Concrete creates huge carbon emissions. Why can’t data center builders turn that around, and use biological material that stores carbon instead? The Carbon Leadership Forum at the College of Built Environments research is quoted. | Data Center Dynamics
Gregg Colburn, assistant professor of real estate, believes housing market conditions — specifically, high housing and rental prices, and low vacancy rates — exacerbate economic and personal challenges for society’s most vulnerable. And it’s the housing market, aided by the private and public sectors, that can provide the solution. | UW News
Amazon on Tuesday announced that it has allocated $42.5 million to help pay for the construction of 318 affordable apartments near two light rail stations in the greater Seattle area. Gregg Colburn, assistant professor of real estate, is quoted. | GeekWire
The Mountlake Terrace Recreation Pavilion is an iconic public recreational facility that provides entertainment and activities for people of all ages. Tyler Sprague, associate professor of architecture at the University of Washington, provides insight on how the structure came to be.
Three groups of student designers led by UW CBE faculty Drs. Julie Kriegh, Chris Lee and Jan Whittington took on a near-impossible challenge: low-carbon server farms.
Master of Urban Planning Graduate, Isis Moon Gamble, dove into equity and access within the King County transit system in her thesis research, and we sat down with her to learn more.
Upstream, a winner of Metropolis’ inaugural Responsible Disruptors competition, is an open-source calculator that designers with a comprehensive view of the carbon impacts of their wood-based materials choices. Upstream was created in partnership with the College of Built Environments Applied Research Consortium and led by CBE student, Chuou Zhang. | Metropolis
The CBE Diversity Council, made up of Faculty, Staff, and Students, recently shared a message in honor of Black History Month that celebrates the contributions of a few Black scholars and built environment professionals. We invite you to take the time to honor Black History Month and participate in the observance in some way! Read the message below and see a selection of resources shared to help you in your learning about justice, equity, and inclusion.
Dear CBE Community,
As we enter February, we begin the celebration of Black History Month, an annual observance that was first proposed by Black educators and the Black United Students at Kent State University in February 1969. This observance was then formally recognized by the US president in 1976, and has been practiced ever since. Now, in 2022, in the face of continued oppression and structural racism, we continue to celebrate Black History Month as a way to honor Black life, voices, history and art and the African diasporic peoples who have built this nation.
We wish to honor the contributions of Black scholars and built environment professionals who have thrived despite racism to help build a better world. We call out a few initiatives that have inspired us, including:
Nehemiah Initiative created to empower the African-American community by to supporting the retention of historically Black institutions by advocating for development of real property assets owned by historically Black institutions
Wa Na Wari– a Seattle Central Area-based non-profit organization that creates space for Black ownership, possibility, and belonging through art, historic preservation, and connection
For those interested in learning more around justice, equity, and inclusion, check out the list below, which represents just some of the vast resources on this subject.
Please take the time to honor Black History Month and participate in the observance in some way!
In solidarity,
CBE Diversity Council
*Some of the resources below were pulled from existing sources across campus and we thank the School of Public Health and the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center, among others, for their work and willingness to share
READ – books, essays, articles, poems
Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism, by bell hooks
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates
Black Landscapes Matter by Kofi Boone
Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African-Americans to the Great Outdoors by Carolyn Finney
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
Gang of Four by Bob Santos
Gather the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Heavy by Kiese Layman
Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America by R. Eric Thomas
Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Catherine De Almeida remembers picking up trash on the playground, seeing people throw trash out their car window, and noticing trash flying around while she played outside as a child. The presence of litter in landscapes upset her so much that she would spend her elementary school recesses picking up trash.
Ken Tadashi Oshima is Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he teaches trans-national architectural history, theory and design.
He has also been a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and UCLA, and has taught at Columbia University and the University of British Columbia. He earned an AB degree, magna cum laude, in East Asian studies and visual and environmental studies from Harvard College, an MArch degree from University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in architecturalhistory and theory from Columbia University. From 2003 to 2005, he was a Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in London.
Dr. Oshima’s publications include Kiyonori Kikutake: Between Land and Sea (Lars Müller/Harvard GSD, 2015), Architecturalized Asia (U. Hawai’i Press/Hong Kong U. Press, 2013), GLOBAL ENDS: towards the beginning (Toto, 2012), International Architecture in Interwar Japan: Constructing Kokusai Kenchiku (U. Washington Press, 2009) and Arata Isozaki (Phaidon, 2009).
He curated GLOBAL ENDS: towards the beginning (Gallery MA, 2011), Tectonic Visions Between Land and Sea: Works of Kiyonori Kikutake (Harvard GSD, 2012), SANAA: Beyond Borders (Henry Art Gallery 2007–2008) and was a co-curator of Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive (Museum of Modern Art, NY, 2017) and Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noemi Raymond (UPenn, UCSB, Kamakura Museum of Modern Art, 2006–2007).
He was an editor and contributor to Architecture + Urbanism for more than 10 years, co-authoring the two-volume special issue, “Visions of the Real: Modern Houses in the 20th Century” (2000). His articles on the international context of architecture and urbanism in Japan have been published in journals including Architectural Review, Architectural Theory Review, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians,Kenchiku Bunka, Japan Architect, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, and the AA Files.
Dr. Oshima was president of the Society of Architectural Historians from 2016 to 2018 following service on the SAH Board of Directors and Executive Committee from 2008 to 2016. He joined SAH in 2000 and is a Life Member.
The Board of Directors names as Fellows of the Society of Architectural Historians individuals who have distinguished themselves by a lifetime of significant contributions to the field. These contributions may include scholarship, service to the Society, teaching and stewardship of the built environment.
In spite of the many challenges we faced, it was a year of many accomplishments for the College of Built Environments (CBE), below are some highlights of the many events and achievements to celebrate from 2021.
Gregg Colburn, assistant professor of real estate, and James Young, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate, discuss the role corporations play in solving the homelessness crisis.
The cost of construction materials rose during the fourth quarter at a national average of 1.5%, according to a new report. Seattle led the survey with a 5% quarterly increase. John Schaufelberger, professor and dean emeritus of construction management, is quoted. | Puget Sound Business Journal
2020 was a year that shifted how we did most things. This was no different for Associate Professor Kimo Griggs and his Furniture Studio, sponsored by the Scan Design Foundation in the College of Built Environments. See how they adapted in 2020 and beyond.
Developers are converting former grain, textile and water mills into vibrant destinations, saying they offer strategic locations, scenic views and flexible designs that offer ample room. Catherine De Almeida, assistant professor of landscape architecture at CBE is quoted. Source: The New York Times
Shortly after the end of a devastating wildfire season, many B.C. communities are cleaning up after disastrous floods that have swept away highways, submerged homes, triggered deadly landslides, stranded hundreds of people and forced thousands more to evacuate. Bob Freitag, senior lecturer of urban design, and planning at CBE is quoted. Source: CBC
On Monday, November 8, AIA Seattle hosted the 71st annual Honor Awards for Washington Architecture to celebrate excellence in design. The Honor Awards is a nationally recognized program that provides an important opportunity for the design community to share and celebrate its achievements, both among practitioners and with the community-at-large.
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.
When Mayor Jenny Durkan announced a deal with Seattle Public Schools earlier this month — which includes a plan to demolish Memorial Stadium at Seattle Center — there was no mention of an option that would preserve and renovate the 74-year-old facility instead. Professor of Architecture, Jeffrey Ochsner quoted. Source: MyNorthwest
Brooke Sullivan, lecturer in the department of landscape architecture, is using a Resilience Lab seed grant to bring the compassion work to the College of Built Environments. She is also helping support compassion and mindfulness at Friday Harbor Labs and is participating in the cross-campus community of practice.
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.
Donald King, FAIA, an affiliate professor of architecture and president and CEO of the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle; Rachel Berney, Ph.D., an associate professor of urban design and planning; and Al Levine, an affiliate instructor of real estate. Aaron Fairchild, the CEO and co-founder of Green Canopy and the Nehemiah Initiative talked with Civil Engineering about the McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio.
Gregg Colburn, assistant professor of real estate, joined ‘Top of Mind with Julie Rose’ to talk homelessness and housing and his upcoming book “Homelessness is a Housing Problem.”
The Nehemiah Studio, a UW class on mitigating gentrification in Seattle’s Central District designed by Rachel Berney, Donald King and Al Levine with support from College of Built Environments Dean Renée Cheng, has been honored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The course supports joint efforts by the college and the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle to train graduate students to help mitigate displacement in Seattle’s Central District.
Seattle’s Central District once was a Black neighborhood. New arrivals and rising property values have pushed African Americans out, but many who have stayed hope to preserve and grow the Black culture that remains. Donald King, professor of architecture, spoke with KNKX All Things Considered.
Manish Chalana, associate professor of urban design and planning, discusses how development can alter the face and fabric of a community,and the role governments can play in the process. He talks specifically about Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Vikram Prakash reflects and writes on his father’s work and life in his book “One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash.”
We sat down with Master of Infrastructure Planning & Management (MIPM) graduate, Mike Stevenson, to hear about how the MIPM program has helped his career aspirations. Mike recently joined the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Indian Energy at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, CO.
Each year, the Husky 100 recognizes 100 UW undergraduate and graduate students from Bothell, Seattle and Tacoma in all areas of study who are making the most of their time at the UW. The Husky 100 actively connect what happens inside and outside of the classroom and apply what they learn to make a difference on campus, in their communities, and for the future. Through their passion, leadership, and commitment, these students inspire all of us to shape our own Husky Experience.
In honor of their many contributions to the University of Washington, each member of the Husky 100 is eligible to receive exciting benefits, and to participate in a range of activities and opportunities offered by the UW’s on- and off-campus partners.
The students from the College of Built Environments represent a range of disciplines and causes: Lan T Nguyen and Reese O’Craven.
Lan Nguyen, PhD student of Urban Design and Planning and Husky 100 2021 recipient
“Xin chào! In my research and practice, I center the knowledge, culture, and lived experiences of BIPOC, immigrant, and refugees in risk communication, disaster preparedness, public health, and community resilience. As a community development scholar-activist, I work in and with communities to advance social and spatial equity and justice. As an educator, I support students in the classroom and careers. My UW experience allowed me to apply knowledge to practice for social change.” – Lan Nguyen
Reese O’Craven, CEP student and Husky 100 2021 recipient
“We live in a world that is beautiful and diverse, yet deeply unequal and unsustainable. My work and academics focus on the intersection of human connection and sustainability: I intend to devote my career to moving the needle towards a future where wealth is more evenly distributed, communities are designed to be resilient and connected, environmental stewardship and sustainability are valued, and overall wellbeing and happiness are greater.” -Reese O’Craven
Congratulations to all the students selected for this year’s Husky 100 award! To learn more about their experiences, please visit the Husky 100 page.
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!
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 .
College is a time of exploration and discovery for all students. It is a time that often shapes how we view the world. Going through this transition during a moment of turbulence in the world can shape that experience significantly, which is exactly what happened for Assistant Professor of Real Estate, Arthur Acolin. As an undergraduate, international student in the US in 2008, the housing bubble and subsequent recession shaped Acolin’s future as a researcher and professor.
Amanda Siok, Master of Urban Planning alum and Department of Urban Design and Planning Affiliate Instructor, discusses earthquake preparedness. Source: The Seattle Times
We are living through a new reality, adjusting to life during a global pandemic. We are all changing our routines, our travel plans, our holiday traditions. For those of us who have been able to keep our jobs through this economic crash, we have had to adapt to a new working environment, working from our homes. Some of us have transformed our homes to accommodate remote learning, and others have moved to be closer to family. Whatever your current living situation is, it’s almost assuredly different than it was a year ago.
Gil Kelley is the general manager of Planning, Urban Design, and Sustainability for the City of Vancouver, British Columbia. He is an internationally recognized urban strategist, having served as chief planner for several West Coast cities (including San Francisco, CA and Portland, OR) and as an independent advisor to cities and governments across the globe. Vancouver, BC is one of North America’s most innovative cities in the field of urban planning. The City recently adopted a Greenest City Action Plan and is currently working on a major comprehensive plan update, called “Planning Vancouver Together.” Kelley will share his insights into how he uses a forward-thinking approach to address challenging planning issues, including equity, climate change, and civic engagement. On November 5, 2020 Gil Kelley spoke to our UDP community- watch his presentation here!
A view from Smith Cove of a proposed new neighborhood in Seattle’s Interbay area. Photo: CREDIT: UW "ECOBAY" TEAM EDDIE KIM, SARAH LUKINS, SIIRI MIKOLA, DANG WU
Architecture and planning students love to wrestle with big ideas. And while their end-of-the-quarter presentations sometimes include out-of-the-box ideas, they usually don’t have the attention of public officials. But this time was different.
Students with the University of Washington Built Environments Studio recently had former Governor Gary Locke, State Representative Gael Tarleton, and Seattle Office of Community Development’s Sam Assefa sitting in the front row, saying things like “this could happen if we start planning now” and “the public needs to see this.”
The project these students are exploring — building a new neighborhood in Seattle from scratch — is unique in the city’s modern history. The neighborhood is slated for 25 acres near the Magnolia Bridge. And so, people with influence over this project came to nod, clap, and encourage these students to keep dreaming.
Andris (“Andy”) Vanags was instrumental in the initiation of the design/build program and the creation of furniture studios that have become hallmarks of the Department of Architecture. The furniture program has grown from a 3-credit course introducing students to the study of “making,” to a 6-credit studio that now sometimes includes traveling to Denmark and working with renowned Danish furniture makers.
Each year, students have the opportunity to design and fabricate their own piece of furniture using the facilities located in the College of Built Environments. Students, many of whom have no furniture making experience, are able to learn how to craft and design their pieces using tools in our wood and metal labs, in addition to the laser cutters and CNC routers. Keeping in mind scale, costs, deadlines, and materials, students are expected to complete their furniture piece within the ten week quarter. The pace is quick, with students spending most of their free time outside of studio and on weekends in the shop making mock-ups, sanding, and sketching out ideas.
Prof. Jeffrey Ochsner, author of the 2012 book Furniture Studio, was a longtime colleague and friend of Andy’s. Upon Andy’s recent death (on October 13, 2019, at his home in San Diego, CA) he penned the following tribute, which we share with you below.
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As a member of the Department of Architecture for forty years, Andy was a key figure in the development of the department and college culture of craft and making, Andy was born in Latvia, in 1942. In 1944 his family fled to the west, and eventually came to the United States settling in Brooklyn, where Andy graduated from high school in 1960. During the summers he worked as a carpenter. After a term at Pratt Institute, he came to Seattle and soon found work as a member of the team working on the Dyna-Soar space plane at Boeing. In December 1964, he entered the UW Art School in the program in industrial design.
Andy graduated with his BFA in Industrial Design in 1968. During his years as a student, he had been introduced to our shop facilities through shared courses; he also befriended Professor Phil Thiel. When shop director Berner Kirkebo was forced to resign due to illness, the college (through Phil Thiel) offered the position to Andy. He became the shop director in April 1969. Initially Andy was a staff member, teaching just a single class on tools and materials, but once Gould Hall opened, he developed a suite of courses establishing the shops (now Fabrication Labs) as a center of pedagogy. Over time his courses included “Materials and Processes,” “Wood Design,” Light Frame Assemblies,” Technological Foundations” (Arch 300 studio) and others.
In 1977, Andy and Barry Onouye initiated the department’s first design/build offering, a summer course titled ”Playground Construction.” Almost a decade later, when liability became an issue, Barry and Andy redirected the design-build studio to other kinds of projects. (After 1992, Steve Badanes took on the design-build studio and he continues to lead it today.)
In the late 1970s and 1980s Andy made connections with the growing number of studio furniture makers in our region, and, in 1984, he offered the Architecture Department’s first furniture design and fabrication class, initially for only three credits. In 1989 the furniture class became a six-credit studio which Andy, assisted by new shop manager Penny Maulden, taught for the next twenty years. By 1991 the furniture studio was offered to graduate students one quarter, and to senior undergraduates another quarter — the pattern that continues today.
From the very first, the quality of the work in the furniture studio was recognized through the numerous awards received by student projects in professional furniture competitions in the region, and in a national competition in 2004. Five student projects were also included in the book 500 Chairs in 2008.
Andy fully retired from teaching after the Winter Quarter 2009 furniture studio. The furniture program has continued under the leadership of Kimo Griggs and Penny Maulden. Although some of the classes that Andy created have been discontinued, and others have changed with the introduction of digital tools and techniques, the culture of craft and making that Andy developed in his forty years in the department and college has become a significant part of our identity.
In 2018 Andy Vanags was recognized with the CBE Distinguished Faculty Award for Lifetime Achievement. Andy touched many lives and helped shape many careers.
Jeffrey Ochsner October 2019
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A celebration of Andy’s life will take place in Gould Hall on Saturday afternoon, January 25, 2020. Please watch for more details that should be posted soon.
The UW Landscape Architecture Croatia Design/Build program gives students the unique opportunity to make a lasting, physical impact in their host community. Professor Daniel Winterbottom, an expert in the creation of healing and therapeutic gardens, leads the program.
American and Croatian teammates together after final construction of the reflexology path.
With Professor Winterbottom as their guide, students explore the role of restorative landscapes in the built environment through hands-on learning. They study the history of healthcare in Croatia while also exploring the unique culture, food, and architecture heritage of the region. Finally, the students gain practical experience, working together to solve a real-world design/build problem. Last year, students were tasked with creating a new outdoor physical therapy rehabilitation space at the “Prim. Dr. Martin Horvat” Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital.
Located just outside the city of Rovinj, on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, the hospital is among the oldest orthopedic-rehabilitation institutes. It specializes in offering modern hydrotherapy treatments to patients coming from throughout Europe. The close proximity to the temperate waters of the Adriatic Sea allows the hospital to offer both indoor and outdoor hydrotherapy facilities during much of the year. For the students, this means having the opportunity to design a functional, therapeutic outdoor space to serve both patients and staff. The build portion of the program further allows students to become adept with key landscape construction techniques, materials, and project management approaches – skills that often aren’t practically addressed in a traditional classroom setting.
Professor Winterbottom leads a workshop on techniques for hand representation.
For Elizabeth Lange, a Master of Landscape Architecture Student, the most memorable part of the experience was the opportunity to build strong connections and foster teamwork with her fellow American and Croatian classmates.
“Every day it was a lot of work and long days, but it was fun to be with the people in the program and learn new things,” she shared. “I became very close with my classmates because of this program.”
Elizabeth also felt that the unique opportunity to participate in a design/build program was particularly useful for rounding out her educational experience, especially as she prepares to enter professional practice in the near future.
“A design build program forces you to think about your design and the practicality of it,” she explained. “In design school, we don’t normally construct what we design, so the sky is the limit in some sense, but in a design/build that isn’t the case. You can think of grand ideas but then you also have to factor in the budget and feasibility of it in order for it to work in the real world. I think that is an important thing to experience in school going forward.”
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the study abroad experience is the way in which it allows students to frame their own life and experiences in the context of a broader perspective.
For Elizabeth, her time in Croatia gave her valuable personal insights and allowed her to build stronger relationships with others – both key hallmarks of a successful study abroad experience.
“I learned a lot about myself and my abilities during this program through my relationship with my friends and through the relationship of design,” Elizabeth shared.
One of the design teams present to the hospital director and therapists.
MLA Sarah Wallace cuts rebar for project construction.
Students test out the new boardwalk.
Photo credits: Rhiannon Neuville and the 2018 Croatia Design Build class.
The Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative and Co-PI’s Mark Jarzombek and Vikram Prakash are happy to announce its receipt of funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This $1,000,000.00, three year award will allow GAHTC to fund the production of teaching modules, as well as Teacher-to-Teacher Workshops and Global Connections Fellowships. This is the third installment of a grant that was first awarded in 2013 for a total of $3.5 million.
Mission
At a time of rapid technological change and professional specialization, we can easily forget that the most important mission of schools and universities is to offer inspiring and horizon-expanding teaching to the next generation. Survey courses play a particularly important role as they open the world to students and help give them critical purchase on their own landscapes and lives. A good survey course balances breadth with depth, but in an ever-expanding world that balance can be lost, meaning that the problem is not just how to teach students, but how to prepare teachers. The GAHTC’s mission is to provide cross-disciplinary, teacher-to-teacher exchanges of ideas and material, in order to energize and promote the teaching of all periods of architectural history in a global way, especially at the survey level. Via our online platform, our workshops, grants and conferences, we support teachers in the class room.
Goals and Implementation
We will therefore focus less on outreach and digital innovation and more on the primary mission of GAHTC, providing member-made quality teaching material free of charge to teachers. We will use the upcoming grant term to round out our library content and work toward a sustainability for the digital platform, through the auspices of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning.
We will strengthen the breadth of our library content by focusing on under-represented areas that we feel are important to the discipline, such as gender studies, aboriginal studies, African studies and First Societies.
By focusing on these core goals, we can make sure by the end of the grant cycle that GAHTC’s materials are well curated, easily accessible and known to the broader community interested in global architectural history teaching content. Having a reputable body of material that is easily accessible and known to the community gives GAHTC the best chance to become a lasting resource.
In July, seven new teams were selected as Amazon Catalyst Fellows. The teams are a mix of UW faculty, students, and staff from eleven departments across campus. Each team received funding to pursue a big idea focused on one of this round’s themes: Computational Social Science or Urban Transportation. One winning team features CBE students, Janie Bube, Graduate Student, Landscape Architecture and Emma Petersen, Graduate Student, Landscape Architecture and Colton Brailsford, Undergraduate Student, Community, Environment & Planning
Summary: An off-the-grid LED and solar crosswalk that lights up directly under the pedestrian as they cross to increase awareness and commuter cooperation.
Description: Crossing a street is often a fraught affair for a pedestrian when there is no traffic light, even when they are at a crosswalk. Will drivers see them? And even if they do, will they stop? A cross-disciplinary team of graduates and undergraduates is designing and building the SENSOL Modular Crosswalk, a hybrid solar and LED crosswalk. The hybrid system will power luminaires embedded in a temporary, modular speed bump like structure. This will improve safety and visibility without permanently changing roadways. The SENSOL crosswalks will be triggered when feet, wheelchairs, or bicycles pass over them, illuminating their exact location, visible at both a distance and up close by cars, bicycles, buses, and other pedestrians.
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.
