College of Built Environments at the University of Washington.
Student Profiles
Information about Current Students:
Information about our graduates
Student Honors, Awards, Fellowships:
- Chiao Yen Yang: 2011 Chester Fritz Endowment Fellow
- Ozge Sade: 2009–2010 Fellow, Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations
- Kuei-Hsien Liao: 2009–2011 Scholarship, Taiwan Ministry of Education
- Chiao Yen Yang: 2008–2010 Scholarship, Taiwan Ministry of Education
- Shu-Mei Huang: 2008–2010 Scholarship, Taiwan Ministry of Education
- Meriwether Wilson: 2008–2010 Honorary Fellow, University of Edinburgh, School of GeoSciences
- Kuang-Ting Huang: 2008–2009 China Studies Program Fellowship
- Paula Patterson: 2008–2009 American-Scandinavian Foundation dissertation research fellowship
- Jayde Lin Roberts: 2008–2009 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship
- Jayde Lin Roberts: 2008–2009 Gething Travel Award
- Kuei-Hsien Liao: 2007–2008 Chester Fritz Endowment Fellow
- Ashish Nangia: 2007–2008 Research Cluster funding from Simpson Center for the Humanities
- Eric Noll: 2007 Public Humanities for Doctoral Students Fellowship
- Ashish Nangia: 2006–2007 India Association of Western Washington South Asian Studies Scholarship
- Paula Patterson: 2006–2007 Valle Scholarship, Finland
- Jayde Lin Roberts: 2006–2007 Blakemore Freeman Fellowships for Advanced Asian Language Study
- Paula Patterson: 2005–2006 FLAS Fellowship for French
- Meriwether Wilson: 2005–2006 Henry Luce Fellowship
- Paula Patterson: Summer 2005, FLAS Fellowship for Finnish
- Jayde Lin Roberts: 2004–2005 FLAS Fellowship for Hindi
- Paula Patterson: 2004, Kate Neal Kinley Memorial
- Ken Camarata: 2003–2005 Gerberding Fellowship
- Ken Yocom: 2002–2006 National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Fellowship
M.Sc. of Architecture (1996–2002), Sahand Univ. of Technology, Iran
Registered Architect, Iran
Prior to pursuing my PhD studies at the University of Washington, I spent some years as a full-time teaching and research faculty at an Iranian university. My background in architecture interested me in the interaction between the environment and architecture, so I have primarily researched Environmental Control Systems and studied the climate-responsiveness aspects of architecture, and, in particular, vernacular architecture. In addition, I have studied the role the architectural design can play in achieving environmental sustainability. The results of my research were several papers presented at international conferences and two books translated from English into Persian.
My main research interest for doctoral study is sustainable architecture and construction, in its environmental sense. Specifically, I'm interested in developing a green building rating system as a tool capable of evaluating the performance of buildings with regard to environmental sustainability. Although several systems of this kind, including LEED, BREEAM, etc., have been developed in different countries over the last decade, there are major critiques of their ability to achieve environmental goals and questions about whether they are comprehensive enough to include all aspects of architecture and construction.
M.A., History of Architecture & Urban Development — Cornell University (2009)
B.A., Political Science and Classical Studies — Davidson College (2005)
Generally speaking, my areas of interest center on the place of the historical within the contemporary built environment. Constantly confronted by reminders of the past, as we all are, I seek to gain a better understanding of how these surviving traces are preserved, interpreted, experienced and exploited today, and how they may or may not enrich urban lives and inform urban identities. To these ends, I plan to continue the interdisciplinary work I began as a Fulbright researcher in Tunisia and subsequent Masters student on the history of architecture and urbanism in colonial/postcolonial/revolutionary North Africa. At this time I hope to focus on the particulars of "spatial scripting," public space and nation-building, as well as the related issues of archaeology, historic preservation, architectural education, "new urbanism," and tourism throughout the region.
My research interests fall broadly into the categories of urban geography and landscape communication: the intersection of people, information, and space. I am interested in how we communicate in and with space as well as how we can "read" the built landscape as a text in order to uncover its subtle meanings and hidden agendas. More specifically, I am interested in how meanings are produced, presented, and interpreted by various users of places and how agendas are built-in by designers & planners and enforced by regulatory agencies. Furthermore, I am intrigued by how people perceive, assess, appropriate, and assert authority within the complex visual, auditory, and spatial din of built spaces. Moreover, I want to examine the shifting boundaries that define public versus private spaces, with special focus on the liminal areas in between.
As an archivist, I want to document the multiple conversations recorded in the frequently ephemeral artifacts of communication left behind in our public spaces. As an emerging scholar, I want to analyze these narratives by incorporating social science methods into studies of public spaces, placemaking, and urban contexts. My desire is to illuminate networks of communication, especially among marginalized populations, and the roles that various actors and stakeholders from transgressive to official play in the cultural maps of our built environments.
My pedagogic goals include encouraging students to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, to make sense of the subtleties in everyday places, and to critically assess their physical and social surroundings. I believe in balancing theory by testing it with first-hand observation in the field. Moreover, with the growing ubiquity of electronic technologies, I am eager to debate and explore the new ethical challenges, as well as opportunities, that they pose to research and scholarship.
In focusing on communication through non-traditional forms and novel expressions, I hope to promote a form of "urban/landscape literacy" that will give researchers, planners, and citizens the tools to better interpret our cities and to create more humane places. As cities face new challenges and growing pressures, I hope that my work will lead to places that are conducive to a congenial social climate, that are sustainable, and that facilitate a better quality of life.
M.F.A., University of California—Riverside
B.F.A., University of Minnesota—Minneapolis
My research interests explore the single-family home through multiple lenses, from the architecture of the physical object to the phenomenological experience; as well as from cultural constructions to socio-political implications. Drawing from various disciplines such as Urban Planning and Architecture Theory, Cultural Geography, Political Economy and Critical Theory, the interrogation of the single-family home emerges from the triangulation of different disciplines and methodologies. My past visual work has focused on the language constructions of the floor plan, the visual iconography of the roofline, as well as photographic explorations of the property line, the developing edge space of suburbia and the pedestrian experience of Los Angeles.
Bachelor of Science, Civil Engineering (structures emphasis), Texas A&M University (2001)
Master of Engineering, Civil Engineering (structures emphasis), Texas A&M University (2003)
LEED AP (2007)
At a broad level, I'm interested in the relationship between consumer culture and the built environment. Specifically, my research investigates the multiple forces that shape the urban landscape: economic and political strategies and policy, advertising, discourses about urbanity and the environment, design practice, etc. I am especially interested in the most recent waves of gentrification (sometimes called 'soft urbanism') that have resulted in large-scale and 'luxury' projects that are touted as sites for new modes of urban living. This path of research is obviously a departure from my technical training and requires increasing familiarity with 'theory', discourse analysis, and other qualitative research methods.
M.S. Design Computing, University of Washington (2007)
B.S. Architecture, University of Tehran (2004)
I research and work on developing digital technologies that can be used in architectural design. As nowadays digital technologies in architecture are tightly tied to the concept of Building Information Modeling (BIM), this led me to study the applications of BIM in the AEC (Architecture Engineering Construction) industry at the beginning of my doctoral studies. I realized that successful implementation of BIM requires inter-organizational collaboration, and both elements could be important in overall project success. Therefore, as my doctoral thesis I have done some research to recognize some strategies for successful BIM implementation and inter-organizational collaboration. I am planning to further study how each strategy can affect the overall project success. However, since project success could be determined by various factors, I will study few factors such as project cost-over run, timeliness, and energy consumption.
M.S. Landscape Architecture, Peking University (2009)
B.A. Law & Economics, Peking University (2007)
My interest in how the physical world encompasses our daily life led to my master's study in landscape architecture, during which I focused on the importance of the social context—i.e. economic, legal, psychological, and epistemological aspects—of the built environment that constitute the driving forces of physical forms, as well as the human experience and interaction with space and place. My current research involves human spatial strategies for psychological and spiritual well-being, especially the experience of therapeutic landscapes in the context of contemporary China, where stress and the feeling of rootlessness overwhelm modern urban life. I am also researching how space and place can contribute to the existential quest and what conflicts or different interpretations are involved in how we experience places.
B.A. Architecture, Tunghai University (2000)
M.S. Building and Planning, National Taiwan University (2003)
Due to my involvement as planning practitioner in a series of participatory planning and cultural landscape preservation projects in Taiwan, I am interested in the evolution of planning profession and its consequences, particularly from a comparative perspective. In order to expand my views of how planning is practiced in different social and political contexts, I investigated into a case of urban planning in Southeastern China (Zhenjiang City in Jiangsu Province), presented in my thesis A Case Study of Heritage Conservation and Old City Renewal in China: Zhenjiang City and Xijin Ferry Historic District. Through the process, I gradually expanded my interest from planning practice to its institutionalization and got interested in seeking the common ground among the different political entities in East Asia, including China, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Following the current academic concerns with the East Asian developmental states, I will focus on the institutional change of the planning profession and explore its political embedded-ness in the process of state transformation. Thus, my dissertation would begin with empirical-based studies (using qualitative case studies to develop a comparative framework) and then go back to the case of China, questioning how the professionalization of planning is consistently held in check not only by the socialist state in the pre-reform era but also by the capitalist one in the reform era.
M.Sc. in Building and Planning, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, 2004
Exchange student in Tilburg University, Netherlands, 2003–2004
B.Sc. in Architecture, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, 1997
Before pursuing further study in the Built Environment program, I worked as designer and planner in Taiwan, participating in community design and cultural landscape preservation projects, especially on the cases in the mountainous area inhabited by the indigenous people. With these experiences, I am very much interested in sustaining the nexus between indigenous communities and nature by practicing holistic landscape preservation. How people could actively participate in the process of preservation and meanwhile maintain their subjectivity has always been one of my research interests.
In addition to looking at people's dwelling in natural environments, how people spatially deal with their everyday life in the urban context is a research field I want to explore. In terms of people's everyday practice, what kind of action would be enacted to maintain their ability to narrate their spatial relations within the city? How could they participate in the making of the urban landscape instead of being isolated within those visible and invisible boundaries? As a researcher from Taiwan, I would like to conduct these questions in the context of East Asia, with the hope to enact my research in actions in the future.
University of Washington, Master of Architecture, 1986
Duke University, BA Fine Arts, 1979
Registered Architect — State of Washington, 1992
US Green Building Council, LEED AP, 2008- 2011
Certified Sustainable Building Advisor Program, CSBA, 2007-2011
American Institute of Architects (AIA) 1992- 2011
Passive House NW, member and training 2010-2011
Design-Build Association, training, 2011
Julie Kriegh, AIA, LEED AP, CSBA, has been practicing in architecture for 28 years, both as the principal of her own firm, Kriegh Architects, and as associate, project architect, or manager for Seattle-based design firms.
Her firm, Kriegh Architects | KA, is a generalist design firm with a strong focus on affordable housing solutions that are sustainable to operate and maintain over time. They strive to design and build projects that respond to the particular circumstances of an individual place and unique project demands. Therefore their work is keenly focused on the essential needs of the client and project in the context of a particular site and community. To this end, they are committed to developing innovative and sustainable design solutions that successfully address a broad range of scales from interior building elements and materials, to multiple building types, as well as site and neighborhood context.
In addition to running her practice, Julie Kriegh is pursuing research through the PhD in the Built Environment in affordable construction, net-zero energy, and Passive House computer modeling in conjunction with community land trust and nonprofit housing organizations. She is particularly interested in using this research to help create policy designed to promote funding opportunities at the state level for sustainable affordable housing in Washington.
Her architectural firm experience includes: Kriegh Architects Inc. PS, Owner, 2005–Present; O'Connor Kriegh Architects, Co-Owner, 2003–2005; Loci Architects, Owner, 2000–2003; Weinstein Copeland Architects, Associate, 1991–2000; Miller Hull Partnership, Project Manager, 1989–1991; NBBJ Group, Designer, 1986–1989; Arne Bystrom Architects, Intern, 1983.
Ph.C., Ph.D. program in the Built Environment
LEED Accredited Professional (2004)
Master of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania (2003)
Bachelor of Arts in Economics, National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, Taiwan (1996)
Many riverine cities across the globe have long histories of fighting the rivers for development. As a means to prevent the city from flooding, flood defense infrastructure (including river engineering works and the stormwater drainage networks) has become an integral part of urban river dynamics. At the expense of the health of the urban rivers, current flood infrastructure fails to even provide safety. This reveals how poorly we understand the dynamics of rivers and watersheds, and also calls for a re-examination of the fundamental assumptions behind the design of modern hydrological infrastructures and even cities.
Many environmental problems humans face today derive from our ignorance of the complex nature of the systems we are dealing with. Modern cities continue to suffer from flooding because we treat the river as a simple hydraulic system and use a simple solution to deal with flooding: getting the water out of the way as soon as possible. Flooding, however, is a subject of synergistic effects of both human and natural factors. It is important to recognize that the river in the urbanized watershed is not totally "natural," in the sense that it is a phenomenon emerging out of complex interactions between natural and human processes—it is a coupled human and natural system.
My dissertation research is toward understanding urban rivers as coupled human and natural systems and urban flooding as a complex phenomenon, exploring the feedback loop among urban flood-defense infrastructure, flood disasters, perception of floods, and river health. I am also investigating spatial strategies that could reduce flood disasters and enhance/restore the health of urban rivers. Essentially, I intend to conduct interdisciplinary research that integrates urban design, ecohydrology (environmental flows), and flood management.
I spent 16 years working in the software industry prior to resuming my educational studies, and am interested in researching and developing new software tools / technologies that help the AEC industries migrate to the use of Digital Technologies. Specifically this includes: Integrated Practice (IP), Building Information Modeling (BIM), Collaboration, Rapid Prototyping (RP) and Construction Simulation. My dissertation research will focus on shared cognition and its interaction with 3D construction representations.
B.A. Human Geography & Urban Studies, University of British Columbia (1999)
MSc.Pl. Urban Planning, University of Toronto (2001)
During my studies at the University of Toronto, I worked primarily on urban design issues and youth participatory planning processes, integrating the two in my current issues paper on Skateboard Park planning and designing. After completing my Masters in Urban Planning, I worked at the Philadelphia City Planning Commission as a policy planner in the Strategic Planning and Policy Division. At the Planning Commission, my work focused primarily on public open space, parks, and recreation. I was also involved with the School District of PhiladelphiaÕs capital budget program.
My current interests remain focused on urban youth, participatory planning, and open public spaces. Specifically, I hope to explore the cultural conflicts that arise from the use, design, control, and identity of urban spaces. I am interested in the production, preservation, and meaning of public space as it relates to urban youth. Central to my current studies are the issues of behavior, marginality, regulations, and rights relative to public spaces. In my professional experiences as an Urban Planner I encountered few instances in which youth were actively sought to participate in the development or revitalization of public spaces. Most policy-makers seem to have a limited desire to understand the reasons for conflict and the meanings of space to youth. I want to better understand the spatial dimensions of cultural conflicts of youth and public spaces.
M.S. History of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University (2005)
B.Arch. Istanbul Technical University (2002)
My general field of interest is the history and theory of modern architecture. In the Built Environment PhD program, I have been exploring new ways to understand modern architecture through interdisciplinary perspectives. Critical of the conventional historiographies of modern architecture that produced discourses based on the Western male architect as the heroic creator, I am developing ways to understand the built environment in relation to the complex processes of creation with multiple participants. Cultural criticism, feminism, and cosmopolitanism constitute the theoretical basis of my studies. In addition, I am interested in the links between the critique of modernity in the postwar period and the transnational conceptions of the contemporary construction scene.
My doctoral dissertation is an interdisciplinary project engaging in museum studies, cultural studies, and the history of the built environments. It focuses on the provincial museums in Turkey. I analyze these peripheral modern structures in relation to the identity discourse and the politics of remembrance. Instead of looking for the confirmation of dominant historical narratives on monumental central museums, I seek to explore the 'hidden' memories that were left out of modern historiographies by analyzing provincial museums.
Prior to joining the Ph.D. in the Built Environment, Amber Trout was a project manager at the University of California, Davis for the Small and Medium Commercial Building (SMCB) Indoor Air Quality field study. The SMCB field study aimed to understand the characteristics of the SMCB population in the many climate regions throughout the State of California; data on ventilation and indoor environmental quality in SMCB provided a snap shot on the current State of California's indoor environmental quality. Amber received her master's in Environmental and Occupational Health from Drexel University School of Public Health. She worked with the Delaware Valley Green Building Council to reach out to the School District of Philadelphia to compare indoor environmental quality data to highlight the performance of their current 'green' school as future support for the placement of more 'green' schools in low-income neighborhoods to enhance the learning environment and community for their students and the students' families. While attending Drexel she was awarded the Association of Schools of Public Health Grant to host a panel discussion for Public Health Week—"Your Health, Your Home, Your Neighborhood"—to explore the connection between climate change and the human health effects. Through the incorporation of presentation from academia, local high school students, and the community, matters on climate change and sustainable were able to go beyond school walls.
Her current research interests involve how neighborhoods can affect the individual's psychosocial behavior and the use of smart growth to address built environment/social justice issues through community connectivity.
M.S. Architecture (history and theory), University of Pennsylvania
B.A. Political Theory, Michigan State University
I am developing a dissertation at the intersection of three topics in architectural history: modern architecture in Japan, residential design at the scale of the house, and the 1960s-to-early-70s period that falls awkwardly between modernism and postmodernism. My current research focuses on a group of Japanese architects from that time. Their work, mostly urban houses and these mostly humble in scale, marked a distinct shift in Japanese domestic architecture, as their writings marked a shift in theory. From these shifts emerged a set of practices and a theoretical discourse that I would argue continues unbroken to the present.
Specific questions I am exploring include: how the scale of the house relates to scale of the city, how residential design participates in everyday life and contributes to conceptions of family and self, and how innovative design can connect to nature even in dense cities dominated by hardscape. More theoretical areas of research include the discourse of modern architecture in Japan, the relation between global and local architectural discourses, and the problematical nature of the "avant-garde" in an architectural context. These issues come together in a particular historical moment, when modernism was critiqued and alternatives proposed in a way quite distinct from the more comprehensive revision that took shape toward the end of the 1970s.
A rereading of this subject matter is directly relevant to the present. Living efficiently, with a minimum ecological footprint, means living in dense cities and in small spaces. My research deals with some of the basic design problems: how a house can be compact and efficient and yet be a space that nurtures both individual and family life, and how it can, with humble and inexpensive means, achieve some measure of beauty.
Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg is an Assistant Professor at the University of Idaho and Director of the Integrated Design Lab in Boise (UI-IDL). He is also a PhD Candidate in the Program in the Built Environment at the University of Washington. He received his Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2000), and Master of Architecture from the University of Washington (2002). For the University of Idaho, he teaches classes in daylighting, simulation techniques for integrated design, and design to graduate students and design professionals in Idaho and across North America. Van Den Wymelenberg opened the UI-IDL in 2004 for the University of Idaho in Boise and has successfully secured/completed grants for the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, United States Environment Protection Agency, Idaho Power Company, Renselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center, the Battelle Energy Alliance, and the New Buildings Institute and several others totaling over $3,500,000. As part of the Pacific Northwest Integrated Design Lab Network, Van Den Wymelenberg has consulted on over 450 new construction and major renovation projects with architects and engineers regarding daylight and energy in buildings since 2000. He has authored over 20 peer-reviewed papers related to energy efficiency, daylighting and human comfort and has presented at over 50 conferences including the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, LightFair International, Passive Low Energy Architecture, Office Ergonomics Research Council, American Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and at the regional chapters of the American Institute of Architects, American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Illuminating Engineering Society, and the United States Green Building Council. In support of his dissertation research at UW, Van Den Wymelenberg won the 2008 Richard Kelly Grant from the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) and in 2007 the Robert Thunen Memorial Scholarship from the IESNA, the Edison Price Fellowship from the Nuckolls Fund for Educational Lighting, and the Lighting Design Alliance Scholarship from the International Association of Lighting Designers. Van Den Wymelenberg was a member of the BetterBricks Daylighting Lab in Seattle that was honored with the Governor's Award for Pollution Prevention and Sustainable Practices by the State of Washington. He serves on several committees including IENSA's Daylight Metrics (Vice Chair) and is the Chair of the Governor's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Task Force in Idaho, and represents the University of Idaho in the Center for Advanced Energy Studies' Energy Efficiency Research Institute. More about Kevin's research can be found at http://www.idlboise.com/papers.
My current Ph.D. research is investigating the history of transportation in the U.S. national parks. My research will explore from a historical and ecological perspective how to protect and preserve the park's natural resources, while accommodating the public's ability to visit the parks without causing irreparable harm. I believe a new strategy is required to address the critical transportation issues in these parks. I would like to formulate, develop, and evaluate a strategic model that explores alternatives to traditional modes of transport within national parks. There are three basic components of my research: conflict resolution, environmental ethics, and the ecological effects of roads (road ecology).
The main impetus for my decision to apply to the PhD program in the Built Environment, at the University of Washington is the opportunity to work in a program that offers me a unique opportunity to investigate the complicated problem of human-environment relationships. This will allow me to realize my belief that environments can be manipulated and planned to enhance the quality of people's lives. I believe that significant impacts on the development of sustainable responses to environmental challenges can best be achieved through education and research.
I currently work as a consultant for the National Park Service (NPS) in the Cultural Landscape Division at the Seattle Cascade Support Office and the Alaska Regional Office in Anchorage, Alaska. My work there focuses on the documentation of existing conditions, analysis and evaluation of the natural systems and features within park boundaries, and the formulation of a treatment plan that ensures the preservation and protection of the park's natural and cultural heritage. I am presently in the process of developing a treatment plan for Crater Lake National Park's Rim Drive in Oregon and the Dyea Townsite and Chilkoot Trail in Klondike Goldrush National Park, Skagway, Alaska.
I have served for the past three years as Professor David Streatfield's teaching assistant covering the full range of urban and landscape design history courses offered at University of Washington. These courses include both Ancient and Modern Landscape History, and the History of Urban Design.
I received my Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture and Bachelor of Arts in Asian Design at the University of Washington. The chair of my dissertation committee is Professor David Streatfield; co-chairs are Associate Professor Kristina Hill, Dean Bob Mugerauer, Professor Gail Dubrow, and Professor Hilda Blanco.
M.S. National Taiwan University, Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, 2002
B.A. National Chengchi University, Department of Land Economics and Administration, 1998
My research interests are: cultural preservation and development in ethnic communities; community development, urban planning, environmental laws and policy, especially in Asian cities; community development studies; environmental protection and international network studies.