Interdisciplinary: Ph.D. Program In The Built Environment
Details of Curriculum, Sequence of Study, and Examinations
a) Required Core Courses
All Ph.D. students in the Built Environment Program are expected to have the basic knowledge and skills covered by the program core. The core presents the intellectual and cultural context within which the built environment has been produced and interpreted and the basic means by which students will come to understand it and contribute to its development. Students are required to successfully complete a total of 21 units of core work, distributed as follows:
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9 units | |
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6 units | |
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6 units | |
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total |
21 units |
History, Theory, and Ethics Sequence:
BE 551: The Contemporary Built Environment (3) Autumn Quarter
The history of 20th-21st Century Built Environment covers major or landmark cases of complex built environment projects, emphasizing the multiple dimensions involved and their interconnections (financing and economics, regulatory systems and codes, environmental factors, materials and technology, energy systems and infrastructure, design intentions, construction processes, facility uses and client-occupant responses, subsequent adaptations).
BE 552: Theories of Knowledge and the Built Environment (3) Winter Quarter
Systematic examination of the alternative epistemological frameworks applicable to studying the built environment. An analysis and explication of the differences among the theories of knowledge which account for their separation and often antagonism and an exploration of the similarities and relationships such that they might be understood as complementary or merged in a more comprehensive, pluralistic approach. Coverage includes the history behind the current problematics, the multifaceted character of the built environment, the major epistemological issues and fundamental concepts, and the dominant epistemological paradigms. The course provides the background for the diverse range of theories and methods used by built environment researchers.
BE553: Ethics in Practice, Research, and Teaching (3) Spring Quarter
The course will cover central readings in ethics, applying them through cases to built environment practice and research protocols. Coursework and exercises will provide the opportunity for students to reflect on case studies and problems, enabling them to become more conscious and responsible for their contributions and actions, especially as members of teams and within group projects. Emphasis will be given to both pluralistic and contending social values and problems (including social and environmental justice) and to the ethics of research (for example in regard to client and data confidentiality, informed consent, fidelity, and veracity).
Colloquium-Practicum
BE 550: Colloquium-Practicum on Research-Practice and Teaching-Learning
(6 quarters at 1 credit per quarter) Autumn-Winter-Spring Quarters
The regular format is that of a weekly meeting at which faculty and students make presentations of current built environment research issues and professional projects. Intended to provide a synthetic and interdisciplinary introduction and regular update of emerging problems and directions in built environment research and practice. In addition, the course provides the occasion for program members' interaction and collegiality. During the autumn quarter, second-year students instead attend a Practicum on Teaching and Learning once a week; during the winter and spring quarters the second-year students resume participation in the general Colloquium, presenting their work in progress that focuses on either their academic research or research issues in professional practice (during which time they will be working individually with senior faculty or experienced professional "employer" mentors under a contact system to produce an agreed-upon product (for example, a grant proposal, journal article, or parallel professional outcome such as a report or information technology tool) which is then submitted for usual peer evaluation. The practicum provides for processes of critical reflection during the research and production that allows the student the chance to gain systematically deeper understanding of the research and practical process and strategies for overcoming the problems and errors that seem unavoidable in the course of a life-time career.
Research Methods and Design
Students must complete 6 units of course work. Because of the wide variety of methods appropriate to students in research methods and design in the three specializations, there is no specific set of courses that all students must take. Rather, in order to customize the preparation for each student, the methodologies may be selected from the list of offerings below, with the guidance of their advisor and provisional committee, and are intended to provide the skills for the specific approach to be undertaken in the student's dissertation research project. In choosing the 6 units, special attention should be given to considering a balance between methods that clearly will be called for and a broader consideration of approaches presenting challenges that need to be critically met or alternatives that might prove fruitful from a non-traditional perspective. The research methods and design courses from which the students can choose to satisfy the core requirements and from which they may also select courses for additional advanced work include:
List of Research Methods Courses:
- URBDP 422, Moudon, Urban Spatial Analysis (3)
- URBDP 598, Moudon, Interdisciplinary Urban and Environmental Research Seminar (3)
- URBDP 467, Westerlund, Urban Uses of Remote Sensing
- URBDP 468, Westerlund, Land Use from Satellite Data
- URBDP 510, Bae, Statistics
- URBDP 520, Bae, Dbase System Planning
- URBDP 530, Land Use and Transportation Models
- URBDP 571, Research and Analytical Methods for Urban Design (4 credits)
- URBDP 574, Residential Design Methods and Practices
- URBDP 591, Alberti, Advanced Research Design
- URBDP 592, Blanco, Advanced Planning Theory
- URBDP 593, Waddell, Research Seminar, e.g. on: Empirical Research Workshop: Deconstructing Property Values
- URBDP 598E, Abramson, Interpreting the Urban Environment: Methods of Design and Socio-Spatial Inquiry
- URBDP 598, Mugerauer, Qualitative Research Methods
- LARCH 571, Manzo,Research Methods: Place Making and Place Experience
- PBAF 527-528, Quantitative Research Methods (6)
- GEOG 425, I&S Jarosz, Qualitative Methodology in Geography (5)
- GEOG 426, I&S Withers, Quantitative Methods in Geography (5)
- GEOG 471, I&S ZumBrunnen, Methods of Resource Analysis
- GEOG 487, I&S/NW Alberti, Bradley, Hill, Marzluff, Ryan, ZumBrunnen, Applied Theory and Methods in Urban Ecology
- GEOG 488/GEOG 486, I&S/NW Alberti, Bradley, Hill, Marzluff, Ryan, ZumBrunnen, Research in Urban Ecology
- CEE 584, Quantitative Research Methods, 6 credits, or comparable courses
b) Fundamental Areas of Study
Three fundamental areas of specialization in built environment knowledge and practice are offered within the CAUP Built Environment Doctoral Program: 1) sustainable systems and prototypes; 2) computational design and research in environmental design, planning, and related activities; 3) history, theory, and representation studies. Each student will select one of these areas, within which she or he will take their advanced and specialized coursework and, eventually, conduct their dissertation research project. Each student will be required to take 30 course units in the chosen area of specialization during their first several years in the program, before undertaking the qualifying examinations.
A broad selection of courses, both within the College of Architecture and Urban Planning and in other University of Washington units, is available to provide the content of the three areas of specialization. Given the already diverse, interdisciplinary character of each of the areas, as well as the anticipation that each student's intended trajectory will be unique and because of the inherently interdisciplinary character of the areas and the fact that they already involve a wide variety of disciplines and departments, the requirements for the total number of course units have not been further specified among sub-categories commonly utilized (terms such as "primary" and "secondary"; "concentration" and "supporting" are not necessary). Nor is there specified a set of required courses for all students within each fundamental area; rather, with the guidance of their advisor/chair and provisional committee, each student will create a customized curriculum that addresses their broad intellectual interests while building expertise in their chosen area.
c) Examinations
After the student has completed the coursework (normally in about five quarters), she or he will take the examinations to demonstrate mastery over the core and (one) chosen area of specialization. The qualifying examination will consist of written responses to three questions, followed by an oral examination on the material. Two of the questions will cover the core area: one on theory and historical-cultural issues, a second on research methodology and research design. The third question will cover an aspect within the chosen fundamental area that focuses upon the student's intended dissertation subject matter and approach. The written and oral examinations will be composed, conducted, and evaluated by the student's formally appointed dissertation committee. The written portion will be a take-home examination, due within seven days of being received by the student. If the written answers are determined to be acceptable, the student will undertake the oral examination. In the event that the student does not pass one or more sections of the examination, she or he will be given a second opportunity.
d) Dissertation
When the student has identified a dissertation topic, the dissertation committee will be selected. The chair of her or his committee must be a member of the Built Environment Program faculty with expertise in the area of specialization and intended dissertation research project ("a member of the Graduate Faculty with an endorsement to chair doctoral committees"). Other committee members will be chosen to complete the substantive and methodological expertise necessary for guidance and evaluation of the student's work. All dissertation committee members must be members of the Graduate Faculty. The Graduate Faculty Representative will be selected by the usual graduate school procedures. Dissertation research will be guided by the committee, with regular meetings of the chair and student and at least annual meetings of the entire committee and the student. Dissertation units will be credited under BE 800; 30 units are required.
As noted, the dissertation should be in one of the three fundamental areas of knowledge and practice of the built environment. The dissertation project for the Built Environment Program is intended to be original research that contributes new knowledge and/or approaches to practice. (Doctoral students are required to write a dissertation that significantly advances the state of knowledge in the field.) The dissertation must demonstrate an understanding of the theory and methods related to the area of knowledge in which the dissertation is based, as well as the relevance and appropriate background information. Thus, the strategies and content of the dissertation provide the culmination and integration of the student's learning and experience, an especially important contribution in this newly developing interdisciplinary field.
Upon completion of the dissertation research project and approval of the correctly formatted document by the dissertation committee, the student schedules his or her oral defense of the dissertation. The final examination consists of the student's oral defense of the dissertation before that Dissertation Committee. The student subsequently will incorporate into the dissertation appropriate changes recommended by the Committee before the final awarding of the degree. Because the student must successfully defend her or his research before the Ph.D. can be granted, she or he may repeat the defense if the initial defense is unsatisfactory.