CBE students, faculty, community members, and programs are often featured in local, national, and campus media. Learn about groundbreaking research and other accomplishments, and hear from faculty with expertise on issues impacting the built environments. Be sure to check our event listings for upcoming lectures, meetings, and more.
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Urban@UW: The Next Phase
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Upcoming Events
Celebrating the Husky 100
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…
COVID-19 & the Future of Architectural Education
Written by The Second Studio Podcast May 31, 2020 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…
UDP Professionals Council Autumn Quarter Lecture Presents: Gil Kelley
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….
BE Studio Envisions a New Seattle Neighborhood
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…
40 years of Design and Making: Celebrating the Life of Andy Vanags
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…
Building New Global Connections
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. With Professor Winterbottom as their guide, students explore the role of restorative landscapes in the built environment…
Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative Wins $1M Grant
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…
SENSOL Crosswalks project selected for Amazon Catalyst Fellowship
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,…
The Carbon Leadership Forum, in partnership with more than 30 industry leaders, announces breakthrough tool to easily evaluate carbon emissions of building materials
As the world builds the equivalent of an entire New York City every month, reducing the carbon emissions of materials is an imperative. The Carbon Leadership Forum, in partnership with a coalition of more than 30 forward looking and innovative building industry leaders announce that they have taken on a long-elusive goal – measuring and…
UW colleges, offices share three-year NSF grant to make ‘internet of things’ more secure
Several University of Washington schools and offices will team up to research how organizational practices can affect the interagency collaboration needed to keep the “internet of things” — and institutional systems — safe and secure. Cooperating in the work, funded by the National Science Foundation, will be the UW College of Built Environments, College of Arts &…
Congratulations to our 2019 Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) Olmsted Scholars
“Using ideas, influence, communication, service, and leadership to advance sustainable design and foster human and societal benefits.” These are the qualities of students recognized through the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s Olmsted Scholars Program, considered one of the most prestigious national awards for students of landscape architecture. The College of Built Environments is proud to recognize two…
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. Read entire Q&A on Archinect For this installment, Archinect spoke with current University of Washington College of Built Environments dean Renée Cheng….
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,…
Seattle Growth Podcast: Finding Community in Public Spaces
In Season 6, Episode 3 of Professor Jeff Shulman‘s Seattle Growth Podcast, he chats with Maisha Barnett, an alumnus of our college. Maisha Barnett is a public space developer with over a decade of experience shaping community gathering spaces. She talks about her work with the Jimi Hendrix Park development and the redevelopment of Powell Barnett Park,…
Livable City Year celebrates partnership with city of Bellevue
This year’s Livable City Year partnership with the City of Bellevue mobilized 285 students from a variety of schools and colleges, representing all three UW campuses, to work on 30 projects in the city. The students’ research, findings and recommendations were on display at a celebration at Bellevue City Hall on Monday, June 3. The Bellevue City…
CBE PhD candidates take home awards
Barbara Rodriguez Droguett wins UW Three Minute Thesis Competition In front of a panel of judges, graduate students from a variety of disciplines competed to receive recognition and cash prizes in this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition. Each student was tasked with the simple, but unenviable task of summarizing months worth of research and planning…
Life Building Exchange awarded the Environmental Design Research Association Certificate of Research Excellence
The Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) has announced its 2019 Certificate of Research Excellence (CORE) recipients and UW alumni Dr. Julie Kriegh, AIA, was recognized for her submission focusing on factors in addressing climate change. Her research, entitled Life Building Exchange: Investigating the Intersection of Pro-Environmental Behavior, Place Meaning, and High-Performance Design, begins with the idea that future progress…
Team of UW seniors wins ‘Re-imagining Red Square’ design competition
By Stevie Riepe, The Daily The winners were announced. Shouts of joy echoed from the back of the room as five men raised their arms in excitement and disbelief passing out high-fives. They quickly formed a line and made their way to the front of the room standing in front of the large crowd of…
UW students face food, housing insecurity, survey shows
Kim Eckart | UW News Preliminary data from a survey of food and housing insecurity at the University of Washington’s three campuses shows that an estimated 190 students may lack a stable place to live, and about one-quarter of students have worried recently about having enough to eat. Results of the online survey, conducted by UW…
Seattle-area universities and colleges declare Affordable Housing Week, May 13-17
By UW News staff They join 25 cities and King County in recognizing the importance of safe, healthy, affordable housing The presidents of four Seattle-area universities and colleges have joined forces to declare May 13-17, 2019 as Affordable Housing Week on their campuses. Dr. John Mosby, president of Highline College; Dr. Daniel J. Martin, president of…
Remembering George Rolfe
George Rolfe, the founder of real estate education at the University of Washington, passed away April 30, 2019 at 81 years old. A celebration of his life will be held at Plymouth Congregational Church (1217 6th Ave, Seattle, WA) on June 2, 2019 at 2:00 pm followed by a reception. George Rolfe, the first director…
Husky Builders Go For Gold in Green Energy Challenge
Students from the College of Built Environments’ Construction Management department are once again participating in the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) Green Energy Challenge. A team of six junior level students calling themselves “Husky Builders” are competing against teams from all over the county in this annual competition co-sponsored by Electri International. The team’s approach…
Meet our College’s 2019 #Husky100
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…
Bellevue named national “Outstanding Community Partner” for Livable City Year Partnership
In a partnership with the University of Washington expected to generate out-of-the-box solutions to civic challenges, the City of Bellevue has been named Outstanding Community Partner by a national group of universities. All 31 schools in the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities Network (EPIC-N)are working together with cities to improve livability and sustainability for their…
Elizabeth Ayer was a pioneer in 20th-century architecture
Washington State’s first registered female architect left her legacy all over the Puget Sound Meg van Huygen | Curbed Seattle | Original Post Elizabeth Ayer began her architecture career in 1918, while still a student at the University of Washington, with a job at the offices of prominent local architect Edwin Ivey. This started Ayer’s illustrious practice—which included becoming…
Relocating for climate change
Managed retreat due to rising seas is a public health issue By Jackson Holtz |UW News | Read the original post Sea-level rise associated with climate change is a concern for many island and coastal communities. While the dangers may seem far off for large coastal cities like Miami or New Orleans, the advancing oceans…
Designing for Resilience
How a design studio at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments engaged students in defining strategies for a community to evolve amidst disruptions. Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities in the country– a hub of innovation with a thriving economy. Yet, this rapid growth challenges the capacity of the city to…
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…
$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…
‘Carbon accountability’: UW architecture professor Kate Simonen sees progress in work to reduce embodied carbon in construction materials
Peter Kelley UW News “We acknowledge that we hold this world in trust and recognize the immediate threat climate change and its impacts pose to current and future generations,” reads a statement signed this fall by more than 100 construction-related companies and nonprofits. Kate Simonen “We must act urgently and collaboratively to transform the built environment…
UPDATED: AIA “Guides for Equitable Practice” now publicly available
UPDATE The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has publicly released “Guides for Equitable Practice.” Download the Guides WASHINGTON – Nov. 29, 2018 – The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the University of Minnesota are helping shape architecture firm culture by releasing the first three chapters of the “Guides for Equitable Practice” to AIA members today. AIA…
Parks help cities – but only if people use them
Written by Thaisa Way, faculty director of Urban@UW and Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture in the College of Built Environments. In cities, access to parks is strongly linked with better health for both people and neighborhoods. Children suffer higher rates of obesity when they grow up in urban areas without a park in easy reach. Because low-income neighborhoods have fewer green spaces, poorer children…
National Science Foundation grant to fund research on urbanization and the ecosystem
Professor Marina Alberti, Ph.D. has been awarded a five-year, $500,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate and understand how humans and their settlements affect the planet’s ecosystem. Professor Alberti is Associate Dean for Research in the College of Built Environments and director of the Urban Ecology Research Lab (UERL). According to the grant…
Valuing older buildings: Architecture professor’s book argues for reuse rather than wrecking ball
Peter Kelley UW News In her new book, Kathryn Rogers Merlino, University of Washington associate professor of architecture, argues for the environmental benefit of reusing buildings rather than tearing them down and building anew. “I was trained as both an architect and architectural historian,” Merlino says, “and have always been drawn to older buildings and the…
Landscape Architecture Foundation Perspectives: Jeffrey Hou
Jeffrey Hou, ASLA is a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Washington. There, his work and research focus on issues of social and environmental justice including design activism, public space and democracy, and engagement of marginalized groups in design and planning. What drew you to landscape architecture? I would say education and a trip…
KUOW covers launch of Livable City Year’s partnership with Bellevue
Every year, students at the UW study a city and help that city with its biggest problems. This year, they’ll study Bellevue. Running a city like Bellevue, a person can get consumed by the problems of the day. “Our staff are so busy, because of the level of service we provide to the city residents,”…
Why do so many new apartment buildings in Seattle look the same?
Video Interview with Assistant Professor Rick Mohler by Eric Keto, KCTS9 Read the rest on Crosscut >
Celebrating the Life of Richard Haag, Founder of UW Department of Landscape Architecture
Emeritus Professor Richard Haag (1923-2018) founded and served as the first Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington and rose to prominence as one of the most celebrated landscape architects and beloved professors in the College of Built Environments. Richard made it known he did not want an obituary or…
Sound Transit rail stations could help solve our housing crisis
All of Sound Transit’s LINK light-rail stations offer opportunities to create vibrant, walkable mixed-use communities with significant amounts of new housing and reduced dependence on automobiles. By Rick Mohler and Al Levine Special to The Seattle Times We need a bold, regional approach to housing affordability. As a recent Seattle Times editorial notes, Seattle alone cannot solve our…
UW researchers improve a floating community in the Amazon
Staying Afloat By Brooke Fisher, Communications Manager for Civil & Environmental Engineering Photos by Rebecca Neumann and Leann Andrews It takes a village to save a village. A floating village, that is. Drawing on the expertise of researchers from six different UW departments, an interdisciplinary team of researchers is working to improve the health and living conditions…
A greener smile
Isabelle de Mozenette, a recent Community, Environment, and Planning (CEP) graduate, approached the UW School of Dentistry early this year with a plan to replace some of the plastic toothbrushes handed out to patients with ones that have bamboo handles. She quickly gained the approval of Dr. Ricardo Schwedhelm, Associate Dean of Clinics, and then…
Diversifying the Landscape Architecture profession through K-12 outreach
Original article Diversifying the Profession Through K-12 Outreach by Allison Ong (MLA ’18) In the first year of my MLA, I was assigned a review of Gina Ford, FASLA’s talk, “Into an Era of Landscape Humanism.” Her opening words have stayed with me ever since: “Fifty years ago,” she begins, “the voice of our profession was eerily…
Ten honored with new CBE Distinguished Faculty Award for Lifetime Achievement
We are pleased to announce the 10 individuals who have been selected to receive the newly established CBE Distinguished Faculty Award for Lifetime Achievement. The college created the CBE Distinguished Faculty Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2016 and invited nominations in 2017. This award recognizes permanent, retired faculty members who have made important contributions to…
Vikram Prakash’s ‘ArchitectureTalk’ podcast explores topics ‘at the edge of the known’
Vikram Prakash says his weekly “ArchitectureTalk” podcast got its start, as many things do, from a student’s idea. Prakash is a professor of architecture and an architect himself. He is also an author, a theorist and an architectural historian. He said he has always felt “energized” by discussions in seminars and at conferences of “impromptu topics…
Meet the two CBE students in the Husky 100
Established in 2015, the Husky 100 recognizes students from all three UW campuses who are making the most of their Husky Experience – the collection of transformative educational experiences that help UW students discover their passions in life and work, become independent thinkers and gain skills that lead to meaningful leadership opportunities and rewarding careers. Nominated by…
Real estate department named in honor of Jon and Judy Runstad
The College of Built Environments Department of Real Estate, formerly the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, has been named in honor of Jon and Judy Runstad. The Runstads established the real estate program in the college in 1999 by creating an endowed fund that led to the establishment of the Runstad Center for Real…
City of Bellevue selected as 2018-2019 UW Livable City Year partner
The University of Washington of Washington Livable City Yearprogram has selected the City of Bellevue to be the community partner for the 2018-2019 academic year. The year-long partnership connects city staff with students and faculty who will collaborate on projects to advance the Bellevue City Council Vision Priorities, specifically around livability and sustainability. “The city is excited about the…
Renée Cheng named dean of the College of Built Environments
Renée Cheng, FAIA has been named dean of the College of Built Environments. Her appointment is set to begin Jan. 1, 2019. John Schaufelberger will continue in his role as dean until December 31, 2018. “The College of Built Environments is a unique collection of disciplines that together, have unparalleled access to, and impact on, the…
2018 Pritzker Prize winner interviewed by Professor Vikram Prakash
Designed around an engaging conversation, ArchitectureTalk is a podcast hosted by Dr. Vikramāditya “Vikram” Prakāsh, Professor of Architecture. ArchitectureTalk explores issues in contemporary architecture. Professor Balkrishna Doshi, of India, has been selected as the 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate. The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded to a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination…
Spring Breaker: MLA Student heads to Peru for Population Health
MLA 2018 candidate Nicky Bloom has been named the landscape architect InterACTION Exchange Fellow and will spend her spring break in Iquitos, Peru to participate in our ongoing Population Health Initiative grant activities with the design team of Nancy Rottle, Coco Alarcon, Leann Andrews, Ben Spencer, Ken Yocom (remotely), and three Peruvian architects and engineers. Specifically, they’ll be designing a…
Cross-laminated timber could ‘forge new links between lands and people’
A new type of fire-resistant wood reduces atmospheric carbon and can be made of damaged trees. Could it revive depressed economies in Washington’s rural timber communities? STORY BY DEANNA DUFF | Columns Magazine Trees line the Madison Park neighborhood that Susan Jones calls home. A big vine-leaf maple shepherds guests to her front walk. This…
MIPM Alumna is UW’s first Seismic Resilience Program Manager
Last October, a University of Washington research team presented a study at The Geological Society of America’s annual meeting in Seattle that simulated 50 different scenarios for a magnitude-9.0 earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone—a large rift in the Earth’s crust 50 miles off the Pacific Northwest coast. There, the Pacific sea floor of the Juan de Fuca…
Arch Alumna Mariam Kamara to Mentor under Sir David Adjaye
UW alumna Mariam Kamara (M.Arch ’13) has been named one of the protégés of this year’s Rolex Arts Initiative Protégée where she will be mentored by world-renowned architect Sir David Adjaye. This year, the award paired young talent with leaders in the fields of architecture, dance, literature, and music. Mariam is a founder and principal of atelier masomi, in…
City Unsilenced: Urban Resistance and Public Space in the Age of Shrinking Democracy
Jeff Hou is a professor of landscape architecture and adjunct professor of urban design and planning in the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments. His research, teaching and practice focus on community design, design activism, cross-cultural learning and engaging marginalized communities in planning and design. Hou has written extensively on the agency of citizens and communities in…
Urban Scholar Highlight: Heather Burpee
Heather Burpee is a Research Assistant Professor in University of Washington’s Department of Architecture and a director of the Integrated Design Lab in the Center for Integrated Design, located in the Bullitt Center. We sat down with her to discuss her work and research on high-performance buildings. What are your current research interests at the University of Washington? I am a…
UW’s Doorway Project kicks off services for homeless youth
The University District includes a significant portion of King County’s homeless youth population. Seattle’s homeless crisis isn’t confined to one part of town – nor does it hinge on one solution. The University District community includes as much as one-third of King County’s homeless youth over any given year. It’s a neighborhood where a food…
Replace the viaduct, bury the tunnel?
UW graduate students offer new possibilities for Battery Street Tunnel Battery Street Tunnel in Belltown is a major transportation artery for Seattle. Many of the UW’s professors and students living in Belltown use the tunnel on a daily basis to commute. But what will happen to the tunnel under the current plans for replacing the…
Moving to Health project awarded $2.67-million from NIDDK on ‘built environment’
How can your neighborhood nudge you toward healthier behavior? Dr. Arterburn and UW/KPWHRI team go hyperlocal with $2.67-million Moving to Health award from NIDDK on ‘built environment’ Where people live may matter to their health, weight, and well-being. For instance, some neighborhoods in King County, which includes Seattle, have lots of obesity and type 2…
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”…
Home prices up, supply down in second quarter of 2017
Washington state’s housing market showed the continuing effects of high demand in the second quarter of 2017, according to the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington The statewide median sales price rose to $337,700 in the second quarter, 6.6 percent higher than the same time period last year. This represents…
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…
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…
Forging bold climate solutions
Fast-forward 100 years and picture cities and states with boundaries reshaped by the dwindling availability of a precious resource — water. After a century of climate change, ecosystems everywhere face intense development pressures. Plant and animal species have adapted and migrated to new habitats in their fierce struggle to survive. Students in our McKinley Futures…
Healing gardens bring Nature in
Surrounded by the sights, scents and sounds of nature, two veterans speak softly with each other seated side by side on a mahogany bench. Moments earlier, each was surrounded by stark white walls in a treatment room steps away inside Seattle’s VA Hospital. “When you’re dealing with PTSD, this is a beautiful place to come…
Travel scholarships change perspectives
Rome Huddled over his sketchpad, Justin listened intently as renowned artist and UW Professor Emeritus Francis Ching opened students’ eyes to new ways of zeroing in on the most remarkable architectural details worth capturing in his drawing of the Pantheon. “He wasn’t teaching us how to draw or sketch,” Justin says. “He was teaching us…
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…
Tomorrow’s innovations in our labs today
By both designing and doing, our students will build a better world. What role might robotics play in designing and building tomorrow’s structures? How did the tools used to construct buildings hundreds of years ago evolve into the tools we use today — and how can they lead us to invent new tools for future…
Wendell H. Lovett, 1922 – 2016
Contributed by Prof. Jeffrey Ochsner Architecture Professor Emeritus Wendell Harper Lovett (1922-2016), who taught at the University of Washington for almost half a century, died on September 18, 2016; he was 94. He is remembered by his many students and colleagues for his passionate commitment to architecture. Wendell was born and raised in Seattle. He…
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…
Exploring Artistically Significant Landscapes
Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture Thaisa Way has been appointed chair of the Dumbarton Oaks Fellows in Garden and Landscape Studies. Way, who has been a Senior Fellow with Dumbarton Oaks since 2011 will serve a one year term.As one of six Senior Fellows, the group serves as advisors to the Director of Dumbarton Oaks in relation to…
BE News Spring 2016
Dean’s Message Dear CBE alumni and community members, As with every spring, the College is thriving with student projects, end of the year presentations, and celebrations. One of the things we are celebrating is the generous contribution from the Jacobi family to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, which will enable us to hire…
BE News – Winter 2016
Dean’s Message Dear CBE alumni and friends, This month we welcome our esteemed alumnus, James Cheng ’70 who will deliver the annual Dean’s Distinguished Lecture. Mr. Cheng’s designs have had a significant impact on the expansion and culture of Vancouver, BC and earned him international acclaim. I hope you will be able to join us…
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
Partnering With Public Health
Students Recommend More Green Spaces for Delridge Community Each year the Department of Urban Design and Planning and the School of Public Health offer an interdisciplinary course (UrbDP 536) that focuses on a Health Impact Assessment project. Taught by Professors Andrew Dannenberg, M.D., MPH, and Fritz Wagner, Ph.D., the class examines the health impacts of…
Designing for Mars
In September, NASA announced the winning submission to the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge to be Ice House. Designed by UW Master of Architecture alumnus Masayuki Sono, ’96, a founding partner of Clouds AO in New York City. Partnering with SEArch, Masayuki explains the concept proposes the primary material for the structure be the planet’s water…
New Academic Year Reception
Celebrate the start of the New Academic Year with Dean John Schaufelberger and the College of Built Environments leadership and faculty as we welcome new members of our CBE community and recognize your generous support. Complimentary parking is available at the Padelford Garage, Levels N18-N21. At the campus gatehouse, advise parking services that you are…
