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Northwest Center for Livable Communities

The Northwest Center’s mission is to enhance the livability of communities in the Pacific Northwest through applied research and outreach in the areas of land use planning, policy, and design; healthy communities; food security; and public participation and democracy.

The Center is a research and policy center focused on issues of environmental and economic sustainability, quality of life, and responsible governance using Washington as a model. Recognizing that the term “livability” has many different definitions and interpretations, the Center’s programs are focused on how the fields of urban planning and design, landscape architecture, and architecture work within this broader context to address livability factors.

The Center operates from the belief that the university should, in cooperation with state agencies, local governments, and community leaders, seek to improve existing social and environmental conditions through research and innovative policy development. It advocates development strategies that focus on smart and efficient land use, strong communities, high-wage, low waste jobs and economic development and public participation and accountability in government.

Integrated Design Lab

The Integrated Design Lab (IDL) is operated by the Department of Architecture in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. IDL’s mission is to discover solutions that overcome the most difficult building performance barriers, and to meet the building industry’s goals of moving towards radically higher performing buildings and healthy urban environments. The IDL advances their mission through interconnected research, technical assistance, and professional educational and tour programs.

The Integrated Design Lab carries out research to advance knowledge and policies that support the healthiest and highest performing buildings and cities. It measures and analyzes modeled and actual building performance data so as to influence the building industry’s understanding of how to radically improve the design and operation performance of buildings. The performance research includes energy efficiency, daylighting, electric lighting, occupant energy use behavior, human health and productivity in buildings, and advanced building management systems.

The Integrated Design Lab connects its discoveries and the transformative knowledge of others to the building industry and public through education. These offerings include classes, workshops, focus-group meetings, leadership forums, and exhibits of breakthrough technologies intended to transform the market for the highest performing buildings by reaching out and educating current and future leaders on meeting 21st century building performance challenges with the knowledge and policies that favor renewable and regenerative buildings, neighborhoods and cities.

The IDL is a self-sustaining organization that includes interdisciplinary faculty, staff, students, professional collaborators, and partner organizations.

Green Futures Research and Design Lab

Green Futures Lab is dedicated to supporting interdisciplinary research and design that advances our understanding of, visions for, and design of a vital and ecologically sustainable public realm. The Lab’s goal is to develop green infrastructure solutions within a local and global context. 

The Green Futures Lab explores and promotes planning and design for active transportation, including cycling and pedestrian environments; conducts research and design projects that aim to improve the ability of public spaces to build community and provide recreation and revitalization; works to improve the health of our water bodies and sustain our water resources through green infrastructure innovations, ecosystem restoration, and open space protection; innovates strategies for creating quality habitat, particularly within urban environments where it is most limited; and explores low-carbon urban design solutions to mitigate climate change.

Working with the University of Washington, local communities, and international partners, the lab provides planning, design, and education for healthy, equitably accessible, and regenerative urban and ecological systems.

Circular City + Living Systems Lab

The Circular City + Living Systems Lab (CCLS) is an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students applying principles of research and design to investigate transformative strategies for future cities that are adaptive and resilient while facing climate change. 

Synthesizing expertise from architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, planning, biology, and ecology, the Lab’s innovative research spans core topics such as the integration of living systems in the built environment to produce and circulate resources within the food-water-energy nexus, and spatial design responses to COVID-19. 

Ongoing work at the CCLS includes research on urban integration of aquaponics, urban and building-integrated agriculture, circular economies in the food industry, algae production, and green roof performance.

Center for Integrated Design

The University of Washington Center for Integrated Design (CID) promotes a healthy, energy efficient built environment through research, education and outreach initiatives. 

The University of Washington Center for Integrated Design includes the Integrated Design Lab (IDL), the Discovery Commons, and the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF). The Center’s mission is to advance the highest performing built environment that better serves environmental and human health through research, technical assistance, education and outreach. The Center is anchored by the Integrated Design Lab which delivers its mission through the three core services of: discovery through research; guidance through technical assistance; and advocacy through education and outreach.

The Center and the Integrated Design Lab are supported by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA), the U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE), The National Science Foundation (NSF), The UW Campus Sustainability Fund, Puget Sound Energy, AIA Seattle, The Bullitt Foundation, and innovative building owners, designers, and operators in the Pacific Northwest region and nationally. 

Operating out of its own ‘living laboratory’, the Center is a self-sustaining service located at the Bullitt Center in Seattle, WA– the greenest commercial building in the world.

Judith Heerwagen

Judith Heerwagen, HiBR Core Founding (Steering) Memberand PhD, is a psychologist whose work focuses on the behavioral, psychosocial, and health impacts of building design and operations. Prior to joining GSA she was a senior scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and also had her own consulting business for 10 years. She has written widely on occupant experience in buildings, the human factors of sustainability, and the links between human health and the natural environment . She is co-editor of Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life which won the 2008 Publishers Award for best book in architecture and urban planning.   She received the 2014 Design for Humanity Award from the American Society of Interior Designers.

Anne Vernez-Moudon

Anne Vernez Moudon is Professor Emerita of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is President of the International Seminar on Urban Morphology (ISUF), an international and interdisciplinary organization of scholars and practitioners; a Faculty Associate at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in Cambridge, MA; a Fellow of the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C.; and a National Advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program on Active Living Policy and Environmental Studies.

Dr. Moudon holds a B.Arch. (Honors) from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Doctor ès Science from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her work focuses on urban form analysis, land monitoring, neighborhood and street design, and non-motorized transportation. Her current research is supported by the U.S. and Washington State departments of Transportation, the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Her published works include Built for Change: Neighborhood Architecture in San Francisco (MIT Press 1986), Public Streets for Public Use (Columbia University Press 1991), and Monitoring Land Supply with Geographic Information Systems (with M. Hubner, John Wiley & Sons, 2000). She also published several monographs, such as Master-Planned Communities: Shaping Exurbs in the 1990 ( with B. Wiseman and K.J. Kim, distributed by the APA Bookstore, 1992) and Urban Design: Reshaping Our Cities (with W. Attoe, University of Washington, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 1995).

Dr. Moudon has been an active participant in The Mayors’ Institute on City Design since 1992. She has consulted for many communities nationally and internationally to develop urban design guidelines for new construction which respect the character of the existing landscape and built environment and which support non-motorized transportation. She has worked with planning officials, design professionals, and neighborhood groups in the Puget Sound as well as in San Francisco, CA, Toronto and Montreal, Canada, Stockholm, Sweden, among others. She taught courses and conducted seminars in urban design, planning, and housing in Japan, Korea, China, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, France, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

Ken-Yu Lin

Dr. Ken-Yu Lin is a P.D. Koon Endowed Associate Professor in the Department of Construction Management at the University of Washington (UW). She is the director for the Construction Management Occupational Safety and Health (CMOSH) program at the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Health (NCOSH), a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) funded Education and Research Center (ERC) in Region X. Dr. Lin also co-directs the SHARE (Safety and Health Advancement through Research and Education) Lab with her colleague Dr. Giovanni Migliaccio and serves on the Executive Committee for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Computing and Information Technology Division since 2014.

Dr. Lin is interested in research applications that contribute to smart safety and health in construction; construction education and training; and sustainable practices. Her technical backgrounds land in serious gaming and visualization; information and communication technology; intelligent sensing and monitoring; and ontologies and semantic approaches. Dr. Lin has been involved in research projects funded by the UW, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), National Science Foundation (NSF), Hewlett-Packard (HP) Development Company, WA Department of Transportation (WADOT), NIOSH, and the Taiwanese National Science Council (NSC). She has published journal and conferences papers in major venues and is also the co-author of Construction Project Safety, a text book published by John Wiley and Sons in 2013.

CMOSH:Click here to see Dr. Lin being featured in Seattle’s Daily Journal of Commerce for her leadership role in the CMOSH program.

SHARE Lab: Dr. Lin co-directs with Dr. Migliaccio the Laboratory for Safety and Health Advancement through Research and Education (SHARE) in Construction Management, which is physically hosted at the UW Construction Education and Research Center (CERC). The mission of the lab is to promote construction safety and health through evidenced-based innovative research, education, and practices. In particular, the SHARE lab specializes in creating new knowledge, learning resources, and practical solutions using technology interventions such as wearable sensors, visualization, serious gaming and tablet computers. Research work is supported by domestic stakeholders as well as national institutions and global corporations.

Giovanni Migliaccio

Associate Professor Giovanni C. Migliaccio holds a P. D. Koon Endowed Professorship in Construction Management and is the Executive Director of the Center for Education and Research in Construction (CERC) at the University of Washington, Seattle. He joined the CM department in August 2010. Previously, he was a faculty member with the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. He holds a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a master-level degree from Politecnico di Bari in Italy. Prior to moving to the U.S., he worked in Italy in the construction management of telecommunication projects under Nortel Networks, Nokia Networks, and IPSE 2000. At UW, Giovanni is active in all three pillars of academic life, including service to the university and the industry, teaching, and research.

At UW, Giovanni has served in the CM Graduate and Undergraduate Admissions and Curriculum Committees, the Construction Industry Advisory Council (CIAC), the CERC Steering Committee, the CBE PhD Steering Committee, the CBE Interdisciplinary Group for Real Estate, and the UW Faculty Council on University Facilities and Services (FCUFS). Outside UW, he is active in various industry organizations, including the Transportation Research Board (TRB), the Construction Industry Institute (CII), and the Construction Industry Training Council of Washington (CITCWA). He is also a member of the editorial board of the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, and the Project Delivery Methods and Native American Transportation Issues committees at TRB. Dr. Migliaccio has served as consultant to domestic and international organizations or universities, including the World Bank, the Secretariat of the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong, and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR).

Giovanni has an established and diverse research portfolio. His areas of specialization and research include: (1) Innovative procurement, contracting, subcontracting and delivery practices for construction projects; (2) Sustainable management of construction workforce with focus on ergonomics, human performance, and physiological demand of construction work; (3) Sustainable management of the built environment; (4) Project management; (5) Innovative construction engineering and management education. His scholarly work is based on a combination of methods, including qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. The second line of research is pursued jointly with Dr. Ken-Yu Lin through activities at the SHARE Lab.

SHARE Lab : Dr. Migliaccio co-directs with Dr. Lin the Laboratory for Safety and Health Advancement through Research and Education (SHARE) in Construction Management, which is physically hosted at the UW Center for Education and Research in Construction (CERC). The mission of the lab is to promote construction safety and health through evidenced-based innovative research, education, and practices. In particular, the SHARE lab specializes in creating new knowledge, learning resources, and practical solutions using technology interventions such as wearable sensors, visualization, serious gaming and tablet computers. Research work is supported by domestic stakeholders as well as national institutions and global corporations.

Hyun Woo “Chris” Lee

Hyun Woo “Chris” Lee is a PD Koon Endowed Associate Professor in the Department of Construction Management (CM). Prior to joining the CM Department in January 2016, he spent 3.5 years as an Assistant Professor at Oregon State University, and 7 years in the U.S. and Korean construction industries as field engineer, project engineer, and estimator. He received his B.S. in Architectural Engineering from Seoul National University in 1999, and his M.S. and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and 2012, respectively.

Prof. Lee’s research interests center on developing models to identify, quantify, and mitigate various risk factors inherent in the development of energy-efficient commercial buildings and sustainable infrastructures. His research is currently focused on 3 types of risk factors: (1) financial risks associated with sustainability and energy-efficiency investments, (2) worker safety risks associated with sustainable design features, and (3) design-related risks due to project complexity.

Since 2012, Prof. Lee has led or been involved in 20 research projects (a combined value of over $1.5M), funded by various organizations including Washington State, Google, the US Department of Energy (DOE), the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Currently, he has 5 on-going projects with a combined value of over $400,000. 

As of October 2020, Prof. Lee has published 33 peer-reviewed journal papers in top-quality journals such as Applied Energy, Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, Automation in Construction, and Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. In addition, he has co-authored 24 peer-reviewed conference papers and 14 technical reports.