This winter quarter the College of Built Environments launched its new CBE Inspire Fund. Designed to support CBE research activities for which a relatively small amount of support can be transformative, in mid-February the college awarded the first 6 grants. Projects supported by the CBE Inspire Fund hail from 4 departments within the college and tackling topics such as food systems, mapping cultural spaces, and energy justice. The CBE Inspire Fund is the first research funding opportunity offered by the…
News
SHARE Lab produces ergonomics best practice booklet and training videos
The SHARE Lab (Safety and Health Advancement through Research and Education) has produced two ergonomics best practice booklets and two training videos on the use of 4-wheel carts in the roofing trade. Housed in the Department of Construction Management, the mission of the SHARE Lab is to promote construction safety and health through evidence-based innovative research, education, and practices. For more information, please contact Contact Dr. Ken-Yu Lin, Associate Professor, if you’d like access to the guide book or the…
Carbon Leadership Forum among Finalists Selected for $10 Million 2030 Climate Challenge
On February 9, Lever for Change announced that the College of Built Environment’s Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) and four other finalist teams will advance to the next stage of the 2030 Climate Challenge, a $10 million award launched last year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 2030. The Challenge, sponsored by an anonymous donor, will fund proven, data-driven solutions tackling greenhouse gas emissions in the buildings, industry, and/or transportation sectors in communities across the country. Sixty-eight proposals…
The Environmental Psychology of COVID-19 with Professor Lynne Manzo
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…
Building Knowledge: The Architect and the Builder with Professor Ann Huppert
Throughout history, we’ve seen shifts in how people communicate regarding design. The question of how communication happens between architect and builder is as fundamental today as it was hundreds of years ago. While the dynamics of these communication processes are nuanced, our understanding of them has been colored by a narrative of the past. One CBE faculty member is challenging the standard narrative about how buildings get made, from design to construction through design communication and knowledge exchange. Today, we…
CBE Office of Research Updates
On September 5, Dean Renée Cheng shared exciting updates about the College of Built Environments’ Office of Research. Read below for more from Dean Cheng: The College of Built Environments’ newly revamped Office of Research aims to elevate CBE research expertise in community engagement, climate action, housing, humanities, and technology and to increase capacity for meeting urgent needs for this research to be accessible and have impact. While there is much work to be done, I believe the steps outlined…
Renée Cheng: Change Agency, Value Change
Collisions are violent. The greater the mass or velocity of objects, the greater the energy released. The crises of the pandemic, economic crash, and social justice outcries are massive and still accelerating. In the wake of their collision, they will reveal new questions for our profession—and newfound energy to address them. Previously, architects pondering whether a new building was worthy of adding to our canon would ask “What does it look like?” and maybe “How well does it function?”…
CBE Spotlight: Rachel Berney
Rachel Berney is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning, Adjunct Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture, an Urban@UW Fellow, and author of Learning from Bogotá: Pedagogical Urbanism and the Reshaping of Public Space. Her primary interests include community sustainable design, public space, and international development in the Americas, as well as urban design and planning history and theory with an emphasis on social and cultural factors. Urban@UW sat down with her in 2019 to discuss her work and research…
Urban@UW helps BE labs collaborate
The Urban@UW initiative brings together labs that study urban issues from across the University of Washington. Urban@UW works with scholars, policymakers, and community stakeholders in order to strengthen the connection between research and solutions to urban issues through cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaborative research. Key functions of Urban@UW include amplifying public awareness of ongoing projects, connecting researchers with outside constituencies, providing staff and administrative support services, and providing pilot funding and fundraising assistance. Multiple BE labs are involved, including the Northwest…
New UW Data Collaborative connects BE researchers with restricted data
The University of Washington Data Collaborative (UWDC) is now offering services to researchers across campus, including BE researchers Gregg Colburn at the Runstad Department of Real Estate and the Urban Form Lab. Housed at the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology, UWDC provides infrastructure to access restricted data in a secure and sophisticated computing environment. Data sets available to researchers cover health records, polling data, business and consumer data, and real estate data. Researchers interested in accessing these data…