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…
Research Theme: Technology & Innovation
Includes both scholarly methodologies utilizing technology and innovation, as well as products or results related to the topics
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
Professional Real Estate Development – The ULI Guide to the Business, 4th Edition
Dermisi, S. (2023). Office Development. In R. Peiser & D. Hamilton (Eds.), Professional Real Estate Development: The ULI Guide to the Business. Urban Land Institute.
Abstract
The office chapter, authored by Dr. Sofia Dermisi -Lyon and Wolff Endowed Professor in Real Estate and Professor of Urban Design & Planning, identifies ways the technological and structural sustainability boundaries are pushed and how the pandemic has shifted the office occupant expectations on health and well-being, while embracing alternative ways of working through flexibility and adaptability. Office case studies highlight creative ways of linking new with historic landmark structures, overcoming various development challenges, and integrating valuable features in a post-covid era. Additionally, the evolution and repositioning of retail due to the rise of e-commerce and its impact on brick-and-mortar stores provides insights on future trends. While consumer behavior trends, which accelerated during the pandemic, created the emergence of new types of industrial facilities.
Digital Governance in Rural Chengdu, China: Its Potential for Social-ecological Resilience
Wu, Shuang, Abramson, Daniel B., & Zhong, Bo. (2022). Digital Governance in Rural Chengdu, China: Its Potential for Social-ecological Resilience. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 4.
Abstract
In this study, we echo the call from the UN to interpret Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their regional context—in this case, the linpan (wooded lot) landscape of the Chengdu Plain, in Sichuan, China, where the shocks and stresses of recent, rapid administrative-economic urbanization are testing the resilience of some of the world's most sustainably productive and long- and densely-settled agrarian environments. In recent years, fine-grained information and communications technology (ICT) governance tools in Chengdu, such as “grid management”, present opportunities to sustain and scale up the collection of data necessary to validate and refine indicators of landscape resilience, and use them to regulate development, in accordance with SDG goal 11 to enhance legislation, governance, and capacity via information gathering and sharing. ICT-based governance in combination with traditional place-based knowledge can play a critical role in ensuring the resilience of urban-rural co-development. To realize this potential, however, ICT-enabled governance needs to incorporate greater transparency and more local feedback loops and enable greater participation from older farmers and women, to inform household and community-level land-use choices and initiatives. It also needs to link regulatory functions with marketing and pricing functions so that farmers may benefit from the sustainable practices they are encouraged to adopt.
Use of Predictive Models for Labor-Productivity Loss in Settling Disputes
Ottesen, Jeffrey L., & Migliaccio, Giovanni (2023). Use of Predictive Models for Labor-Productivity Loss in Settling Disputes. Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction, 15(1).
Abstract
Given inherent difficulties in construction, optimizing labor efficiencies is paramount to project success. Research described in this article conducted demonstrates that an analysis of planned activities in a critical path methodology (CPM) schedule may be used to forecast future productivity inefficiencies. Specifically, this study relies on the concept of CPM schedule’s density, which is defined as the number of overlapping like-trade activities on any given workday. This metric is directly related to the required labor resources required to complete that work within the activities’ planned durations. Schedule density increases where more planned activities overlap with each other; for instance, occurrence of such increases is common when the schedule is accelerated. Regression models were derived using metrics drawn from CPM schedule updates’ activities and durations and compared to actual labor productivity experienced. Strong correlation findings support development of predictive models that quantify potential labor inefficiencies before they occur. However, the question remains as to the strength and applicability of predictive models in formal litigation. This paper presents findings of this research and discusses how such findings may be used to facilitate settlement in dispute resolution procedures.
Keywords
Emergent Subcontracting Models in the US Construction Industry
Migliaccio, Giovanni C., Gebken, Richard J., Fernandez, Luis R., & Osmanbhoy, Natasha (2022). Emergent Subcontracting Models in the US Construction Industry. Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction, 14(4).
Abstract
Prime contracting models for engineering and construction projects are described extensively in the literature, but models between prime contractors and subcontractors are less well known. This study examined the established and evolving subcontracting models in the US construction industry to not only document their utilization but also investigate their advantages and disadvantages when employed. The research followed a two-phase/two-step approach. During Phase 1, the authors completed a regionally based study to identify subcontracting practices in the Pacific Northwest. As part of Phase 2, the study was expanded across the United States to gain a greater understanding of each of the identified subcontracting models, including advantages, disadvantages, and variations. Both phases were organized into two steps: (1) an online survey instrument was sent to professionals with either general or specialty contracting firms, and (2) follow-up semistructured interviews were conducted with selected survey respondents to better evaluate each subcontracting model. The authors found that five subcontracting models address the most common scenarios and the characteristics of each are familiar to the nationwide participant sample. There are subtle variations to the main five models that are being employed to varying degrees across the country. The impetus for these variations appears to be founded on the need to find better contractual arrangements and that subcontracting practices are dynamic by nature. Although most of the participants were from western and central divisions of the US Census Bureau geographical classification, participants from all geographic areas participated in the study. Increasing knowledge on how project delivery systems may affect disputes and claims or conflicts and legal issues of procurement systems, this article uniquely contributes to defining a taxonomy of subcontracting models while giving insights into the current and emerging trends in subcontracting practices, including how subcontractors are integrated into a project team.
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…
Experimental Investigations and Empirical Modeling of Rubber Wear on Concrete Pavement
Emami, Anahita; Sah, Hos Narayan; Aguayo, Federico; Khaleghian, Seyedmeysam. (2022). Experimental Investigations and Empirical Modeling of Rubber Wear on Concrete Pavement. Journal of Engineering Tribology.
Abstract
Material loss due to wear plays a key role in the service life of rubber components in various tribological applications, such as tires, shoe soles, wiper blades, to name a few. It also adversely affects energy consumption, economy, and CO2 emissions around the globe. Therefore, understanding and modeling the wear behavior of rubbers are important in the design of economic and environment-friendly rubber compounds. In this study, we investigated the effect of normal load and sliding velocity on the wear rate of rubber compounds widely used in the tire treads and evaluated the wear models previously proposed for rubbers to determine the best model to predict the rubber wear rate. The sliding wear rates of different types of Styrene-Butadiene Rubber (SBR) and Isoprene Rubber (IR) compounds on a broom finish concrete slab were measured for different sliding velocities and normal loads. The experimental results were used to evaluate and discuss different wear models proposed in the literature. A new empirical model was proposed to predict the wear rate by considering mechanical properties associated with rubber wear. The experimental results revealed that the wear rate of rubber compounds non-linearly depends on the normal load or friction force, while the effect of sliding velocity on the wear rate is not significant in the 20–100 mm/s range. Moreover, traces of both mechanical (abrasion) and chemical (smearing) wear were observed on all rubber compounds.
Keywords
Tire tread compounds, rubber wear, rubber-concrete interaction, smearing wear and abrasion, wear model
Coefficient of Thermal Expansion of Concrete Produced with Recycled Concrete Aggregates
Okechi, Ikechukwu K.; Aguayo, Federico; Torres, Anthony. (2022). Coefficient of Thermal Expansion of Concrete Produced with Recycled Concrete Aggregates. Journal of Civil Engineering and Construction, 11(2), 65-74.
Abstract
This study presents a comparison between the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of concrete produced with natural aggregate and that of concrete produced with recycled concrete aggregate. In order to achieve this, natural aggregate concrete (NAC) specimens were produced, tested, then crushed and sieved in the laboratory to obtain recycled concrete aggregates, which was then used in the production of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) specimens. The RAC samples were then tested and compared to the NAC samples. The CTE testing was carried out using a AFTC2 CTE measurement system produced by Pine Instrument Company. In addition to CTE testing, the water absorption, specific gravity, and unit weight of the aggregates was determined. A vacuum impregnation procedure was used for the water absorption test. The recycled aggregate properties showed a significantly higher absorption capacity than that of the natural aggregates, while the unit weight and specific gravity of the recycled aggregate were lower than that of the natural aggregates. The average CTE results showed that both the NAC and the RAC samples expanded similarly. The results show that the CTE of RAC depends on the natural aggregate used in the NAC, which was recycled to produce the RAC. Also, there was no significant difference between the average CTE values of the RAC and that of NAC that could discredit the use of recycled aggregate in concrete.
Keywords
Coefficient of thermal expansion; Recycled concrete aggregate; Natural concrete aggregate.
Immersive VR Versus BIM for AEC Team Collaboration in Remote 3D Coordination Processes
Asl, Bita Astaneh; Dossick, Carrie Sturts. (2022). Immersive VR Versus BIM for AEC Team Collaboration in Remote 3D Coordination Processes. Buildings, 12(10).
Abstract
Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) are both tools for collaboration and communication, yet questions still exist as to how and in what ways these tools support technical communication and team decision-making. This paper presents the results of an experimental research study that examined multidisciplinary Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) team collaboration efficiency in remote asynchronous and synchronous communication methods for 3D coordination processes by comparing BIM and immersive VR both with markup tools. Team collaboration efficiency was measured by Shared Understanding, a psychological method based on Mental Models. The findings revealed that the immersive experience in VR and its markup tool capabilities, which enabled users to draw in a 360-degree environment, supported team communication more than the BIM markup tool features, which allowed only one user to draw on a shared 2D screenshot of the model. However, efficient team collaboration in VR required the members to properly guide each other in the 360-degree environment; otherwise, some members were not able to follow the conversations.
Keywords
Mental Models; Virtual-reality; Performance; Virtual Reality (vr); Building Information Modeling (bim); 3d Coordination; Clash Resolution; Remote Collaboration; Multidisciplinary Aec Team