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Department: Architecture

$2 Million Award from National Science Foundation Will Support Team to Develop 3D-printed Microorganisms for Sustainable Construction Materials

An interdisciplinary research team led by University of Washington Chemistry Professor Alshakim Nelson received $2 million in funding from the National Science Foundation’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program. The funding will be used to combine engineered microorganisms with 3D printing to create materials for sustainable built environments. This grant will provide funding to researchers at UW, the University of Texas at Austin, and University of California Davis over four years. In addition to Nelson, the team also…

Coastal Adaptations with the Shoalwater Bay Tribe: Centering Place and Community to Address Climate Change and Social Justice

The proposed community-based participatory action research project is a collaborative research, planning and design initiative that will enable a UW research team to work with the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe to explore sustainable and culturally relevant strategies for an upland expansion in response to climate change-driven sea level rise and other threats to their coastal ecosystems and community. The situation is urgent as the reservation is located in the most rapidly eroding stretch of Pacific coastline in the US, on near-sea-level land vulnerable also to catastrophic tsunamis. The project will advance the Tribe’s master plan and collaboratively develop a model of climate adaptive, culture-affirming and change-mitigating environmental strategies for creating new infrastructure, housing and open spaces in newly acquired higher elevation land adjacent to the reservation. Design and planning strategies will draw on culturally-based place meanings and attachments to support a sense of continuity, ease the transition, and create new possibilities for re-grounding. Sustainable strategies generated by the project will draw on both traditional ecological knowledge and scientific modeling of environmental change. The project will involve the following methods and activities:

  • The creation of a Tribal scientific and policy Advisory Board with representatives from the Tribal Council, elder, youth, state and county agencies, and indigenous architects and planners;
  • Student-led collaborative team-building and research activities that will also engage Tribal youth;
  • Systematic review of the Tribe’s and neighboring county plans;
  • Interviews, focus groups and community workshops to identify priority actions, needs and strategies;
  • Adaptation of existing research on sustainable master planning, design and carbon storing construction materials; and
  • The development of culturally meaningful and sustainable building prototypes.

Deliverables include a report of findings summarizing community assets and values, and priorities for the upland expansion vetted by Tribal leaders, documentation and evaluation of the UW-community partnership and engagement process, digitized web- based geo-narratives and story maps and technical recommendations for culturally-informed schematic designs, sustainable construction methods and low-embodied carbon storing materials. The project process and outcomes will have broad applicability for other vulnerable coastal communities and can be used to support their climate adaptation efforts as well.

Research Team
Principal Investigator: Daniel Abramson, College of Built Environments, Urban Design and Planning, University of Washington
Community Lead: Jamie Judkins, Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe

University of Washington Partners:
Rob Corser, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture
Julie Kriegh, Affiliate Lecturer, Departments of Construction Management and Architecture and Principal, Kriegh Architecture Studios | Design + Research
Jackson Blalock, Community Engagement Specialist, Washington Sea Grant
Lynne Manzo, Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture
Kristiina Vogt, Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences

Community Partners:
Daniel Glenn, AIA, NCARB, Principal, 7 Directions Architects/Planners 
John David “J.D.” Tovey III, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
Timothy Archer Lehman, Design and Planning Consultant and Lecturer

Plywood on steroids: CBE experiments with building materials for a sustainable future

Complex structures jointed like origami. Office walls and ceilings that swoop and bend over enormous open spaces. Experimental pavilions made with robotic fabrication techniques. This is a world of architecture made possible by mass-timber framing. And, it’s a world that’s becoming more environmentally and acoustically sound through the work of UW College of Built Environments, Department of Architecture Assistant Professor Tomás Méndez Echenagucia, UW Master of Science in Architecture/Design Technology student Nathan Brown, and other collaborators. Mass timber is a…

Practical Mathematics in the Drawings of Baldassarre Peruzzi and Antonio Da Sangallo the Younger

Huppert, Ann. “Practical Mathematics in the Drawings of Baldassarre Peruzzi and Antonio Da Sangallo the Younger.” Geometrical Objects, edited by Anthony Gerbino, Springer, 2014, pp. 79–106.

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Abstract

Combining technical practice with aesthetic intent, Renaissance architecture was by nature a mathematical art. Although the limitations of surviving documents hinder efforts to discern what Italian Renaissance architects knew of mathematics, where they learned it, and how they applied this knowledge, extant drawings from the period offer one means of addressing these questions. Inscribed numerals and calculations, in particular, abound in the drawings by two leading architects of early sixteenth-century Italy, Baldassarre Peruzzi and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, suggesting that both attained a high degree of numeracy. Comparing these contemporaries is also revealing since, while each incorporated mathematics as a central element in their architectural practice, their approaches diverge in ways that point to and illuminate significant differences in their background and design methods.

Keywords

Mathematical ability; fifteenth century; plumb line; scale line; wooden model

College of Built Environments’ Research Restart Fund Awards Four Grants in Second Cycle

The College of Built Environments launched a funding opportunity for those whose research has been affected by the ongoing pandemic. The Research Restart Fund, with awards up to $5,000, has awarded 4 grants in the second of its two cycles. A grant was awarded to Manish Chalana, faculty member with Urban Design and Planning to help support his efforts to carry out archival research and fieldwork in India for his new book exploring the history and memory of non-dominant groups…

On the Tradeoffs between Embodied and Operational Carbon in Building Envelope Design: The Impact of Local Climates and Energy Grids

‌Méndez Echenagucia, T., Moroseos, T., & Meek, C. (2023).  On the Tradeoffs between Embodied and Operational Carbon in Building Envelope Design: The Impact of Local Climates and Energy Grids. Energy and Buildings, 238.

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Abstract

Embodied and operational carbon tradeoffs in building envelopes are studied. • Envelope variables include wall assemblies, WWRs, glazing and shading. • Energy decarbonization models are used to determine the 30-year operational carbon. • Results show the importance of a total carbon approach to envelope design. • Over or under insulation can result in waste of 10–150 kgCO 2 e/m2. The building envelope has a substantial influence on a building's life cycle operational and embodied carbon emissions. Window-to-wall ratios, wall assemblies, shading and glazing types, have been shown to have a significant impact on total emissions. This paper provides building designers, owners, and policy makers with actionable guidance and a prioritization framework for establishing co-optimized lifecycle carbon performance of facade assembly components in a broad spectrum of climate contexts and energy carbon intensities. A large parametric study of building envelopes is conducted using building performance simulation and cradle-to-gate embodied carbon calculations in 6 US cities. The authors derive the total carbon emissions optimization for commercial office and residential space types using standard code-reference models and open-source lifecycle data. Comparisons between optimal total carbon solutions and (i) optimal operational carbon and (ii) minimum required assemblies, show the impact of under and over investing in envelope-related efficiency measures for each climate. Results show how the relationship between embodied and operational carbon is highly localized, that optimal design variables can vary significantly. In low carbon intensity energy grids, over investment in envelope embodied carbon can exceed as 10 kgCO 2 e/m2, while under investment in high carbon intensity grids can be higher than 150 kgCO 2 e/m2.

Keywords

Building performance simulation; Embodied carbon; Operational carbon; Parametric modeling

H. H. Richardson: The Design of the William Watts Sherman House

Ochsner, J. K. (1992). H. H. Richardson: The Design of the William Watts Sherman House. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 51(2), 121-145.

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Abstract

Henry Hobson Richardson's design for the William Watts Sherman house, in Newport, Rhode Island, has long been considered an anomaly among his projects. While its living hall plan has always been credited to Richardson, the exterior has often been thought to have been the work of Richardson's assistant, Stanford White, drawing on the published work of Richard Norman Shaw. Study of surviving sketches, drawings, and other records, along with an examination of the house itself, shows that this explanation of the Sherman house is inadequate. Not only did Richardson control both plan and massing, but he must also be credited with the design of critical front gable, which did not derive from Shaw's work. Analysis of Richardson's sketches also offers clues to Richardson's typical architectural design method and compositional approach, as well as to his specific blending of English, Continental, and especially American colonial vernacular influences in the Sherman design. These influences also provide a basis for understanding why the house became such an important source for the development of multiple themes in American domestic architecture in succeeding decades, especially the Shingle Style.