Architecture 231: Making and Meaning was featured in a UW Today news story. The benches from this class can be seen around Gould and Architecture Hall. See the full story here.
Research Theme: Education
Scholarship on education in the built environment
Gould Gallery is featured in UW Magazine
Gould Gallery was featured in the June issue of the University of Washington Magazine. Read the full story here.
Population Health Initiative awards College of Built Environments researchers a spring quarter 2023 Tier 1 pilot grant
The Population Health Initiative announced the award of nine Tier 1 pilot grants to interdisciplinary research teams representing 10 of the University of Washington’s schools and colleges. The total award value of these grants is nearly $210,000, which includes school, department and unit matching funds. Read more in the CBE Story here. “We were extremely pleased with the range of challenges these awards will work to address,” said Ali H. Mokdad, the UW’s chief strategy officer for population health and professor of…
College of Built Environments Announces 2023 Inspire Fund Awards
In 2021, the College of Built Environments launched the CBE Inspire Fund to “inspire” CBE research activities that are often underfunded, but for which a relatively small amount of support can be transformative. The Inspire Fund aims to support research where arts and humanities disciplines are centered, and community partners are engaged in substantive ways. Inspire Fund is also meant to support ‘seed’ projects, where a small investment in early research efforts may serve as a powerful lever for future…
Building a Body of Knowledge in Construction Project Delivery, Procurement and Contracting
Migliaccio, Giovanni C., & Shrestha, Pramen P. (Eds.). (2023). Building a Body of Knowledge in Construction Project Delivery, Procurement and Contracting. World Scientific.
Abstract
This book aims to consolidate, structure and articulate collective knowledge on construction project delivery, procurement and contracting, so that it can serve as a gateway to the contiguous topics of construction project delivery. In addition to supporting the education of student researchers, as well as broadening and deepening the knowledge of practitioners, the book is also intended to serve as a foundation for future education and as a reference book. Academicians can use it to benchmark and support their research and also as a textbook for an undergraduate or graduate course on the topics of project delivery, procurement and contracting.
Keywords
Construction; Engineering; Project Delivery; Procurement; Contracting
Evaluation of Hazard Brochures Using Topic Viewing Durations: Application to Tsunami Evacuation Brochures
Lindell, Michael K; Jung, Meen Chel; Prater, Carla S; House, Donald H (2023). Evaluation of Hazard Brochures Using Topic Viewing Durations: Application to Tsunami Evacuation Brochures. Risk Analysis.
Abstract
This study describes a novel method of assessing risk communication effectiveness by reporting an evaluation of a tsunami information brochure by 90 residents of three Pacific coast communities that are vulnerable to a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and tsunami—Commencement Bay, Washington; Lincoln City, Oregon; and Eureka, California. Study participants viewed information that was presented in DynaSearch, an internet‐based computer system that allowed them to view text boxes and tsunami inundation zone maps. DynaSearch recorded the number of times each text box or map was clicked and the length of time that it was viewed. This information viewing phase was followed by questionnaire pages assessing important aspects of tsunami hazard and sources of tsunami warnings. Participants gave the longest click durations to what to do in the emergency period during earthquake shaking and in its immediate aftermath before a tsunami arrives—topics that should be displayed prominently in tsunami brochures and emphasized in talks to community groups. The smallest adjusted click durations were associated with advance preparations for a tsunami—topics that can be posted on websites whose URLs are printed in the brochures.
Keywords
DynaSearch; hazard awareness brochure; Protective Action Decision Model
Behind the Mask: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Interaction in the Design Studio
Ochsner, J. K. (2000). Behind the Mask: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Interaction in the Design Studio. Journal of Architectural Education, 53(4), 194–206.
Abstract
Design studio is routinely referred to as the center of architectural education, yet surprisingly little has been published about the nature of the interaction between instructors and students in the studio environment. This article draws upon ideas such as Donald Schön's description of design as "reflection-in-action" and D. W. Winnicott's discovery of the foundations of creativity in the "transitional phenomena" of early childhood to provide a basis for understanding the emotional power of the design studio experience and the ways in which phenomena identified by psychoanalysis can emerge in the interaction of studio instructors and students.
AIA publishes “Equity in Architectural Education” co-authored by Dean Renée Cheng and Laura Osburn
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) recently published a supplement to the AIA Guides for Equitable Practice titled “Equity in Architectural Education.” Renée Cheng, dean of the College of Built Environments, served as the project lead for the research and writing team, which included Laura Osburn, research scientist in construction management. The supplement argues that organizational culture is critical to achieving goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion, and is intended to inspire discussion within individual institutions, and among thought leaders…
A Case Study of the Failure of Digital Communication to Cross Knowledge Boundaries in Virtual Construction
Neff, Gina; Fiore-Silfvast, Brittany; Dossick, Carrie Sturts. (2010). A Case Study of the Failure of Digital Communication to Cross Knowledge Boundaries in Virtual Construction. Information Communication & Society, 13(4), 556 – 573.
Abstract
When can digital artefacts serve to bridge knowledge barriers across epistemic communities? There have been many studies of the roles new information and communication technologies play within organizations. In our study, we compare digital and non-digital methods of inter-organizational collaboration. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on three construction projects and interviews with 65 architects, engineers, and builders across the USA, we find that IT tools designed to increase collaboration in this setting instead solidify and make explicit organizational and cultural differences between project participants. Our study suggests that deeply embedded disciplinary thinking is not easily overcome by digital representations of knowledge and that collaboration may be hindered through the exposure of previously implicit distinctions among the team members' skills and organizational status. The tool that we study, building information modelling, reflects and amplifies disciplinary representations of the building by architects, engineers, and builders instead of supporting increased collaboration among them. We argue that people sometimes have a difficult time overcoming the lack of interpretive flexibility in digital coordinating tools, even when those tools are built to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.
Keywords
Digital Communications; Data Transmission Systems; Communication & Technology; Digital Electronics; System Analysis; Building Information Modelling; Collaboration; Qualitative Methods; Teams; Civil Engineering Computing; Digital Communication; Groupware; Knowledge Representation; Organisational Aspects; Virtual Reality; Case Study; Virtual Construction; Knowledge Barriers; Epistemic Community; Interorganizational Collaboration; Ethnographic Fieldwork; Interpretive Flexibility; Digital Coordinating Tool; Digital Collaboration; Technology; Objects; Design; Representations; Organizations
Multi-Hazard Perceptions at Long Valley Caldera, California, USA
Peers, Justin B.; Lindell, Michael K.; Gregg, Christopher E.; Reeves, Ashleigh K.; Joyner, Andrew T.; Johnston, David M. (2021). Multi-Hazard Perceptions at Long Valley Caldera, California, USA. International Journal Of Disaster Risk Reduction, 52.
Abstract
Caldera systems such as Long Valley Caldera, California; Taupo, New Zealand; and Campi Flegrei, Italy, experience centuries to millennia without eruption, but have the potential for large eruptions. This raises questions about how local residents' behavioral responses to these low-probability high-consequence events differ from their responses to events, such as wildfires and earthquakes, that have higher probabilities. To examine this issue, a multi-hazard mail survey of 229 households explored perceptions of-and responses to-volcano, earthquake and wildfire hazards in the Long Valley Volcanic Region. Response efficacy was the only significant predictor of emergency preparedness, which suggests that hazard managers can increase household emergency preparedness by emphasizing this attribute of protective actions. In addition to response efficacy, expected personal consequences, hazard intrusiveness, and affective responses were all significantly related to information seeking. This indicates that hazard managers can also increase households' information seeking about local hazards and appropriate protective actions by communicating the certainty and severity of hazard impacts (thus increasing expected personal consequences) and that they communicate this information repeatedly (thus increasing hazard intrusiveness) to produce significant emotional involvement (thus increasing affective response).
Keywords
Households Expected Responses; Risk Information-seeking; Volcanic Risk; Earthquake; Model; Adjustment; Mitigation; Communication; Preparedness; Predictors; Volcano Hazard Perception; Earthquake Hazard Perception; Wildfire Hazard Perception; Emergency Preparedness; Information Seeking