Bicycle Urbanism Symposium, June 19-22

Reimagine bicycle-friendly cities!

The International Bicycle Urbanism Symposium will bring together practitioners, academics, policy makers and advocates with diverse backgrounds including urban design, planning, transportation, engineering, landscape architecture, and public policy.

Over two days, participants will explore the way that cities can best encourage and accommodate bicycle travel in the future. Speakers from around the globe will lead sessions on topics including: imagining the 20-30 year future of bicycle-friendly cities, integrating bicycling into urban planning and design, effects of bike use on health and environment, policies for developing bicycle infrastructure and programs, best practices in bicycle facility design and implementation, advances in bicycle and gear technology and economic contributions, and implementing bicycle policies and plans-education, registration, finance, political, and public acceptance.

The keynote address will be given by noted bicycle researcher John Pucher. In addition to the sessions at the University of Washington, participants will have the option of taking field trips (on bike-of course!) to see and explore Seattle’s bike infrastructure.

Visit Symposium site

REGISTRATION

Registration includes access to all plenary and track sessions, the opening reception on Wednesday evening, dinner on Thursday and a light breakfast and lunch on Thursday and Friday.

General Participant | $350

Student Participant | $150

Partial refunds available through 5/19/13. See registration form for details.

TENTATIVE PROGRAM OUTLINE

Details about the program will be updated on the Bicycle Urbanism Symposium website on an ongoing basis. Track sessions and field trips will be identified in early March.

Wednesday, June 19 - Opening Reception (evening)

Thursday, June 20 - AM Plenary Sessions, PM Track Sessions, Dinner

Friday, June 21 - AM Track Sessions, PM Plenary Session

Saturday, June 22 - Organized field trip(s) by bicycle

STUDIOworks End of Year Show! 

The Department of Architecture invites you to STUDIOworks, our end of the year show highlighting work from students throughout the academic year.

The reception will be held Wednesday, June 12th from 5 to 7pm.  The show will be on display from June 12th to June 14th in Gould Court.

The reception will also be the last department happy hour of the quarter. Please bring your family and friends!

Here are some images from last year’s show:

Credit: Xiaochen Zhang

Credit: Natalia Chetvernina

Credit: Ryan Jorgensen

Credit: Carolyn LeCompte
Credit: Steven Nielsen

Every summer the University of Washington, like many other architecture schools, offers a Summer Introduction to Architecture Program (ARCH 100). The  UW program is an 8-credit design course for students contemplating architecture as a field of study. Undergraduate students and college graduates with degrees in other fields have the opportunity to learn more about architecture and the experience of design education. The program is a studio based course with lectures, drawing exercises, design instruction and field trips.

Participating in the summer program was a defining moment for me. I was a working professional that contemplated an architectural education for many years and reached a point where going back to school for a Master’s degree became an option. I decided to enroll in Arch 100 to make certain that a design education was what I wanted and something worth investing the next several years of my life. Over the course of a few weeks, we were immersed in design, drawing, history and physical model making and I discovered the joys of a design studio environment where you learn from your peers as much as you learn from the studio teacher. I also discovered how demanding and equally rewarding a commitment to a design project could be and my newfound love for building physical models.

Midway through the program, I was hooked. I realized then, that I could never turn back and had to apply to the MArch program. The projects completed in the Arch 100 program provided a lot of material for my portfolio. The Arch 100 program also laid the groundwork for the work that would be asked of me in the Master’s program and I started the program prepared.

Having just completed my MArch thesis presentation, and with graduation just around the corner, I am reminded of my Arch 100 experience at the start of this venture into architecture. Attending Arch 100 was a life changing experience for me and I encourage anyone interested in pursuing a career in architecture to consider enrolling.

For more information on the ARCH 100 program please visit the program website.

Written by Queena Yi, MArch Candidate 2013
All photos courtesy of Judith Swain, Program Director

DEMYSTIFYING ANCIENT WISDOM: LIGHTING IN HAGIA SOPHIA
Written by Mehlika Inanici, Associate Professor

Sometimes it takes centuries, state-of-the art technology, and new approaches to demystify the wisdom of the past and reveal its secrets. The domed structures from Byzantine period provide examples of architectural grandeur and unique experiential qualities. Many scholars had focused on the historical context within which these edifices were built, the unprecedented structural ingenuity, and the resulting spatial qualities. These historical domed structures also create exceptional luminous environments. The most famous example from the period is of course, Hagia Sophia, the great Byzantine church built in 6th Century.

Exterior views of Hagia Sophia

You cannot find a book or scholarly article about Hagia Sophia that does not mention its lighting qualities. However, it is very surprising to find that lighting is mostly mentioned briefly and through mere observations. It is defined as poetic and mystical. The lack of any systematic quantitative lighting analysis is a major obstacle in understanding and demystifying the luminous characters of this unique structure. It pointed to a need for further research on the topic, so I decided to take up the challenge.

The primary focus of my research is to develop innovative computer-based lighting performance analysis tools, techniques, and metrics. I have spent two months of my sabbatical in Istanbul, Turkey to do lighting research on historical domed structures from Byzantine and Ottoman periods. I knew that I have to combine the available tools and techniques with new computational lighting measurement, simulation, and analysis methods to provide an in-depth analysis of the lighting quantities and distribution under dynamic daylight conditions.

Today, Hagia Sophia is a museum visited by more than 10,000+ people every day. It is the most visited touristic destination in Turkey. After going through a long bureaucratic red tape, I was given the opportunity to do lighting field research in Hagia Sophia on Mondays, which is closed to public, and from sunrise to sunset, which is beyond regular operation hours. I spent three consecutive Mondays in Hagia Sophia. In each one of the data collection days, I was happy to bypass the notorious rush-hour car and human traffic in Istanbul (a city with 15 million population) to reach my destination before sunrise. Carrying my 30 lb. lab equipment, I would get greeted by the security guards outside Hagia Sophia, and by the resident cat Gli inside the building.

Interior views of Hagia Sophia

The research required a well-established procedure to collect, generate, and analyze high resolution visual and numerical lighting information in a quick and efficient manner. I decided to collect per-pixel lighting data through High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography method. Traditional photography techniques are limited with the dynamic lighting range that they can record. In HDR photography, computational techniques are used to assemble multiple exposure photographs into one digital image that incorporates accurate lighting values.

Luminance map from the Entrance, September 17 2012, 10:15am

Data collection lasted from sunrise to sunset every 15 minutes at three locations. Two of the camera systems were located inside Hagia Sophia while a third system was positioned in a nearby terrace to capture the sky conditions. An important piece of this research was automating the capturing process to be able to collect simultaneous lighting data. New in-house software, hdrscope, was used for automated image capture. hdrscope is developed by my former student Viswanathan Kumaragurubaran, as part of his M.Sc. thesis in Architecture (Design Computing stream). It is freely available and can be downloaded from http://courses.washington.edu/hdrscope/

Luminance map of the dome, September 24, 12:30pm

Extensive data was collected during the field study, and it takes months to post process these images. One of the most important highlights of the field work was being in Hagia Sophia throughout the entire day – almost alone. Historian Procopius described the lighting in Hagia Sophia in 6th century as an interior that “is singularly full of light and sunshine; you would declare that the place is not lighted by the sun from ‘without’, but that the rays are produced ‘within’ itself, such an abundance of light is poured into this church….”. It is something quite exciting to be able to experience the physical equivalence of this sentence in 21st century, despite many restorations and alterations Hagia Sophia has gone through. The lighting in Hagia Sophia is characterized by the progression of sunlight patches and gleaming reflections. A casual visitor spends half an hour, which is not enough to experience the exquisite time based light progression in the building. Spending the whole day was the key to appreciate the unique connections of building geometry, material properties, and sun path that holds the key to the ancient wisdom.Following the sun-path diagram: The coziest spot in Hagia Sophia is full of sunshine

 One also has to hail to the wisdom of animals. Resident cat Gli was born in Hagia Sophia. When he was not greeting the visitors or supervising my data collection process, he slept. The spots he chooses to sleep coincides with the sun patches on the marble floor. His movements can be captured and used as a sun-path diagram 

After I came back to Seattle, I have spent hours in front of my computer to develop a new technique for extrapolation of dynamic daylighting simulations from a limited number of HDR photographs. The captured lighting values from my field trip correspond to the particular sky conditions occurring at that time. A more meaningful evaluation of daylighting performance must take into consideration a wide range of naturally occurring sky conditions and sun positions. The dynamic character of daylight inside the Hagia Sophia (or any daylit building) is negotiated between the outdoor conditions and the openings of the structure (windows) that serve as the primary sources of illumination for the interior, along with the interreflections that serve as the secondary sources. As I am preparing to present a paper titled “Dynamic daylighting simulations from static high dynamic range imagery using extrapolation and daylight coefficient methodologies” at the end of the summer in the upcoming 2013 Building Simulation Conference, I know that my summer is going to be exciting with the preparation of a demo that features the majestic Hagia Sophia.

Luminance map from the side view, September 24, 4:15 pm

All of the photographs are taken and generated by the author

Trans|Form

(or Anything new can do, Old can do better)

By Kathryn Rogers Merlino, Assistant Professor

American conservation efforts began in earnest during the 1970s when the phrase “Reduce, Reuse & Recycle” was first introduced.  A fact often neglected is that the slogan was actually designed as a waste hierarchy of classified management options in order of their environmental impact, created at a time when environmentalists were raising concerns about the basic practices of waste management based on our previous disposal mentality.  Reduce first, Reuse second, and Recycle third.  The concept is parallel to the concept of ‘prevention is better than the cure’ in the medical field and promotes waste avoidance first, then reuse and recycling with disposal (landfill) as a last option.

As Americans, we love to recycle.  We are proud of it, and it shows.  Great strides have been made in recycling in the U.S. over the past few decades as our recycling rates have increased from 10% in 1980 to 34% in 2010.  However, we are also consuming much more, and it shows by what we toss out into either the trash or recycling bin.  In 2010, Americans produced 4.4 pounds of waste per capita per day, compared to only 2.68 pounds per day in 1960.

So even while we are recycling much of what we do consume – up to 50% currently in Seattle –there remains great opportunity in strengthening the first two tiers of the waste hierarchy; reduce and reuse. Although recycling does keep materials out of a landfill, it does not address the root problem of consumption, and it cannot be assumed that recycling is a better alternative to waste.

Lander Hall: One of the many buildings that has disappeared around west campus.  Is demolition and reconstruction preferable to redesigning the existing?

When it comes to buildings,  recycled and salvaged materials are an excellent environmental alternative, yet there is also great opportunities for whole-building recycling;  building reuse.  Buildings are often  easily considered disposable and replaceable for something new, something different, or something ‘greener.’ Today there is an estimated 300 billion square feet of existing building stock that represent an important resource in this country, one third of which will be torn down by the year 2035, if current rates are any prediction.  If trends continue, less than half of those rebuilt will most be considered ‘green,’ which often justifies the redevelopment as one of the factors. In then end, the EPA states that an estimated 30-40% of construction and demolition (c&d)  material goes into landfill.

One alternative is to reuse our existing building stock with high performance retrofits.  Sustainably adapting existing buildings is recycling at its best . Of course new, green buildings will always be an important, yet there may be greater environmental benefit to transforming what we already have.   Building reuse along with energy efficient retrofits can reduce environmental impacts through reducing energy consumption and resource extraction, and reusing the expended resources already in place.

A 2012 study by the National Trust’s Preservation Green Lab came up with this same conclusion by comparing environmental impacts of new and old construction of six building types across four climate zones.  The study found that for most building types, it takes from 10 to 80 years for a new building that is 30 percent more efficient than an average-performing existing building to overcome, through efficient operations, the negative climate change impacts related to the construction process.  The key variable centered on material choice and amounts, which suggests that design decisions are the key component for successful reuse of existing buildings that result in both energy and material savings. Choosing where and how to use materials is a critical component of design, and suggests that design is an important component in successful building reuse projects.

Around the Pacific Northwest recently,  a solid body of design work has emerged that mediates between historic preservation and sustainability in design that celebrates both old and new.  These projects fall in neither the historic nor environmental ideological camp, but in-between, carving out an architectural language of transformative design. These projects suggests that through good design, our resource of existing building stock can be transformed into renewable, resilient buildings.

New ideas with old buildings is the new preservation.   In our vast stock of existing buildings there is opportunity for us to see  existing buildings not as targets for demolition, but to view them with an eye toward reinvention.

The Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad Facility (SIERR) building, now home to McKinstry, reached LEED™ Gold Certification, and is listed in both the Spokane and National Registers for Historic Preservation. McKinstry collaborated with the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation throughout the project to ensure that preservation guidelines were met, but also encouraged the Trust to move their thinking forward on the preservation benefits of energy efficiency. Some features include the full restoration of 160 windows and skylights, returning the facility to its original day-lit state.

The interior of the SIERR Building, Spokane.

The Kolstrand Building in Ballard diagram shows new structural additions to the existing building. Graham Baba architects used a variety of sustainable strategies under extremely tight budget constraints. For example, despite the water view to the west, west windows are carefully sized to reduce solar heat gain. The project creatively reused salvaged and reclaimed materials throughout the project as partitions and finishes. When the basement bathrooms were cut out of the budgets, the architecture firm spent a weekend with reclaimed materials constructing it themselves.

Upper floor office in the Kolstrand Building, Seattle.

Hotel Modera in Portland by Holst Architecture included retrofitting a 1950s motel, and reclaiming a space previously occupied by cars into a popular outdoor space for the hotel and restaurant.

Hotel Modera’s ‘living wall’ in the common space outside the entry.

Rice Fergus Miller Offices, Bremerton, Washington took an abandoned 1950s Sear’s auto center warehouse and transformed it into their office spaces. Some key features of the design included rainwater harvesting, local and FSC wood sourcing, onsite solar with more to be added, natural daylighting improvements, passive ventilation and occupant monitoring through web based dashboard system.

Interior of the Rice Fergus Miller Office with restored clerestory and a Big Ass Fan to aid in ventilation when needed.

Selected Sources:

Beacon Food Forest, located just southwest of Jefferson Park on Beacon Hill, is a community garden project rooted in permaculture. This food forest, which broke ground in 2010, is using a gardening technique that simulates a woodland ecosystem but substitutes in edible plants. The Beacon Hill community teamed up with University of Washington’s Neighborhood Design/Build Studio to create a central gathering space for the forest.

site panorama – looking north to downtown

taking measurements on site

The site for the structure is located at the southeast corner of Jefferson Park at the entrance of the sloped garden, on a 2,000 SF semi-circular gravel pad. Stacking functions is not only a priority of permaculture but also a necessity on this small site. Generated at a community meeting, the program requires this space to be both the kitchen and living room for the entire garden; this zone will provide spaces for harvesting, food preparation, tool storage, classes, and performances.

mini furniture studio

At the beginning of the quarter, the Design Build studio explored a brief furniture project. The challenge was to use 1 sheet of ¼” plywood and one 2×4, with as little waste as possible. There were a wide variety of projects including a headboard, stepping stool, dining room table, chairs and benches. The studio also created load-bearing foundations using a single sheet of paper. These experiments were designed to introduce basic woodworking and structural knowledge through hands on application.

work table – ground design process

It was time to jump into the design for the Beacon Food Forest. Working in three groups of six and rotating members every studio session, the design was able to build on itself with clarity and consensus. The schematic design strives to frame the view of the downtown skyline while creating protection from the wind and rain on this exposed slope. The design responds to the programmatic needs of the community with a series of pre-fabricated wood-frame modules.

presentation drawings – entry and section looking north

presentation models

The third week the studio met with community stakeholders to present design drawings and models, and collect feedback. It is a rare opportunity in architecture school to build something permanent, and meeting with the client’s added valuable insight into the process. The design was improved to incorporate more shelving and workspace and the plan was adjusted to a more intimate scale.

community meeting

The class produced a set of construction documents to reference during the building process. Many of the students had not produced a drawing set before and it was a slow turn-over, learning to put enough information in the drawing to be able to hand it over to someone to build. One module was employed making the structures similar in form, but varying in function to include covered benches, counter space, utilitarian tool sheds, and a stage. The design compliments the existing landscape plan while remaining adaptable as the food forest develops and grows.

construction drawing set – section

 Sandpoint Facility – design build in progress

There are lots of volunteers planting on the food forest site and not a lot of space for staging, therefore the project was built pre-fab in the CEP department’s facility at Sandpoint. The units were designed on a repeatable module, so the framing and bases came together quickly. The units were also constructed so that they could be easily disassembled for transportation to the site. The studio focused on efficiency of construction, and kept cost to a minimum by selecting few materials that could be used in many assemblies.

end of year party – all denim all the time

The studio is in the process of moving the structure to Beacon Food Forest – Please join us for the Ribbon Cutting on June 13^th from 5:30-8:30 in Jefferson Park. Cheers!

Written by Erica Brissenden and Emily Perchlik

“If you are ever stuck on inspiration just ask your materials for advice”- Louis Khan

Often we can get caught up designing with certain alienation towards the intuitive beauty of material. Our formal introduction to the wood shop is helping us discover the beautiful balance between thinking and creating. In finding, cutting, sanding, or sawing a piece of wood, many of us stumbled upon the stubborn nature of material for the first time in our lives. We have found that the design process becomes delightfully genuine when we experience this stubbornness and understand the natural constrictions of each material.

We very much enjoyed the active process of learning in the shop and, thanks to the extremely helpful and patient staff, within a couple of weeks we were able to saw, bend, drill, and even weld. Through the introduction to the joy of working in the woodshop our models will be better crafted and our designs better informed.

The 302 studio this quarter, led by Brian McLaren and Sam Kraft, has been testing our creative capacities since the very start. Our quarter long design project has been for a community and fitness center in the heart of Capitol Hill on 10th and Pine. It is the largest project that most of us have ever designed, encompassing around 25,000 square feet; maintaining a strong design concept while also dealing with significant programmatic elements has been a challenge for us all. It’s so easy to get caught up in the placement of bathrooms and elevators and handrails, and in doing so lose the clarity that was at the core of earlier conceptual schemes.

At the start of the quarter, we worked with different mediums, such as collage and video, to represent our ideas of the site. Early analyses were very open-ended, asking us to not only generate ideas about the site and program, but to also thoughtfully consider how to represent and convey those ideas. At first, I and many others were frustrated by the vagueness of the prompts. However, as the quarter has drawn on I think we’ve learned to step up to the challenge of working in ambiguous situations, and have taken advantage of the opportunities presented by it.

Site Collage diagraming the layers of the site and user’s interaction with them

Conceptual model exploring the nature of materials and incorporating ideas of mass and void with structure.

Mid Review model, exploring capabilities of welding and different tools in the shop to most effectively express spatial ideas and programmatic organization

Conceptual model exploring friction connections

Mid-review model exploring surface with metal

Written by Gabriela Hidalgo and YsaBella Licciardi

Targeting 100! | Design in Healthcare – New Website Launch!! 

We have been very busy over the last year at the Integrated Design Lab!  I’m excited to share the results of one of our most recent projects, “Targeting 100!”  Just last week we officially launched the Targeting 100! website announced by the news release below, which describes the intent, outcomes, and implications of Targeting 100!

The Targeting 100! project has been a collaboration among many.  I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the great work the IDL team that I’ve been working with including Joel Loveland (Professor and Director, IDL), Aaron Helmers (Research Associate, IDL), Justin Schwarzhoff (MArch Candidate 2014), Jackie Merlet (MArch Candidate 2013), Erin McDade (MArch Candidate 2013), Jess Blanch (MArch Graduate 2010), Jennifer Richter (MArch Graduate 2012), and Heide Martin (MLA Graduate 2009).

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Reducing Energy Use Can Improve the Fiscal Health of Hospitals Nationwide

Innovative design strategies deliver a 62 percent reduction in energy use, a healthier environment for staff and patients — and a significantly better bottom line.

Seattle, WA. May 14, 2013—In the wake of the economic recession and reforms instated by the Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA), the impact to hospitals’ bottom line remains uncertain. According to a recent report by Moody’s, the federal government will cut reimbursements to hospitals by more than $150 billion over the next 10 years. While the AHA increases the number of people who have access to care and lowers the levels of uncompensated care, it still remains to be seen whether the incremental revenue generated will offset the potential compression in margins. And recent cuts due to sequestration muddy the financial waters even more.

Facility managers now must find new ways to reduce costs and maintain already tight operating margins while providing quality care to patients and vital support to their communities. Many have simply looked for ways to trim any remaining fat, but some forward-thinking hospitals and health systems are starting to understand that greater energy efficiency can advance patient-care goals and are devoting more attention and resources to conservation initiatives.

To that end, a groundbreaking new study provides an innovative and cost-effective way for newly constructed hospitals nationwide to offset continuing economic challenges by reducing energy consumption by an average of 62 percent. The study, titled Targeting 100!, identifies a process that integrates architectural, mechanical and central plant systems to deliver significant efficiencies. The biggest breakthrough comes from addressing the reheating of centrally-cooled air — the largest contributor to wasted energy in a hospital — which represents more than 40 percent of annual heating energy usage.

“More than any other single research initiative, Targeting 100! is effectively transforming U.S. healthcare to meet the low-energy and low-carbon future,” said Robin Guenther, the sustainable healthcare design leader at architecture firm Perkins+Will. “Every project team should dive deep into this pool of resources and use it to inform early design decision making.”

By combining energy-reduction design solutions — including  sun and daylight shading controls, vacant room sensors, outdoor air supply with heat recovery systems, modified air delivery systems, thermal energy storage, and improved air-tightness and high insulation values in windows and walls — a newly constructed, code-compliant hospital in the range of Targeting 100! saves between $500 and $800 thousand a year in energy costs. By simply redesigning the way that healthcare facilities use energy, they can be both environmentally and financially sound. Hospitals looking to capitalize on AHA incentives to upgrade their current facilities may also improve energy performance by using similar strategies during renovations.

The newly released research, which is discussed in detail at the University of Washington’s Integrated Design Lab’s website, extends an earlier regional study conducted in Seattle in 2007. Those results prompted the U.S. Department of Energy and the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s BetterBricks to provide the research team — a close collaboration between the IDL and several partners, including NBBJ, one of the nation’s leading healthcare architectural firms, energy and engineering consultants SOLARC, and construction and cost-management firm TBD Consultants  — with a $1.3 million grant to determine whether the same results were achievable throughout the United States. The research also included intensive peer review by engineers, general contractors, utilities, hospital CEOs and facilities managers.

“That’s one aspect of our work that makes it unique,” said Heather Burpee, a health-design and energy-efficiency research assistant professor at University of Washington’s Integrated Design Lab. “Our peer reviewers — who came from all aspects of the design, construction and operation of hospitals — provided invaluable guidance and grounded our research in reality. Our primary goal is to get this research into the hands of people who are truly able to make a change.”

The new study looked at six distinct and diverse climate zones in the United States’ most populous regions —including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Seattle — to determine if integrated design methods could cut energy consumption and operating costs for hospitals nationwide. The team conducted a complete reassessment of the architectural systems, building mechanical systems and central plant systems to find a code-compliant path that achieves the highest-quality, lowest-energy hospital design for the least additional capital cost.

The resulting integrated-design approach delivers a 62 percent average reduction in energy consumption across all climate zones—and a 9 percent year-over-year average return on investment. Depending on the climate zone, local construction and utility costs, and design scheme, hospitals can see up to a 51 percent return on investment. (see NYC building type A plant 2).

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A Healthier Bottom Line

Hospitals are notorious energy hogs. Because they operate 24/7 and must follow strict lighting, air circulation and heating codes, they eat up 2.5 times the energy as a commercial building of the same size — and emit a similar proportion of CO2 into the atmosphere. According to ENERGY STAR, a program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S’s 8,000 hospitals spend a whopping $5.5 billion on energy every year and use approximately 5 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S., including transportation, industry, and buildings. A typical hospital’s energy bill runs $1-3 million a year depending on its size and location.

Because energy represents just one or two percent of hospital’s operating costs, energy-efficiency advocates have long struggled to get the attention of the C-suite. But Targeting 100’s results should make even the most conservative administrators take note. Implementing its strategies requires a minimal 3 percent design and construction cost increase but leads to an average 9 percent return on investment each year.  An average hospital—functioning at a 2-3 percent operating margin—would need to generate an extra $20-30 million in revenue to have the same impact on the bottom line. Put simply, by reducing operating costs, a hospital can improve its operating margin by 25-33 percent.

Reducing operating costs means putting more cash towards other revenue-generating capital improvements like upgraded MRIs, cutting-edge medical technologies, renovations to aging facilities and increased levels of charity care, which in turn means hospitals are able to provide better service to their patients — and better support to their communities.

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A Healthier Planet

The average hospital, many of which rely on power generated by coal, oil and natural gas, dumps about 15,000 tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year. Such emissions lead to and aggravate health conditions linked to poor air quality, like asthma and cardiovascular disease — an obvious inconsistency with the mandate to “first do no harm.” Yet many major players have been slow to go green.

The average energy savings for one Targeting 100! hospital prevents 4,500 tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere each year. According to the EPA’s greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator, that’s the same as the amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere by adding 3,400 acres of forests, taking 850 passenger cars off the road, or removing 600 households from the grid every year.  When explosive growth in developing countries is factored in — it’s estimated that over the next decade, China will build as many as twice the number of hospitals currently operating in the U.S. — the implications of reducing the carbon footprint of healthcare institutions worldwide are staggering. By reducing energy use, hospitals improve the health of the global environment and their local environment, as well.

The Time Is Now

Facility managers, engineers, architects and builders have often passed up opportunities to design and build healthcare facilities more efficiently because the return on investment was not immediate or because they felt they had no choice but to follow traditional models. But the proven Targeting 100! strategies can be implemented today using existing technologies in any climate zone, meaning it has important national — and even global — implications.

“Targeting 100! has delivered to the healthcare sector a compelling and preferred response to deep cuts in federal reimbursements that will require dramatic reductions in operational costs,” said Richard Beam, the construction and sustainability system director for Providence Health & Services. “It prescribes an energy-efficiency remedy that will ensure our shrinking revenue supports quality patient care in an environmentally responsible way.  Targeting 100! is good for the patient — whether the Earth or humankind.”

In the face of widespread uncertainty about the fiscal impact of healthcare reform, these strategies reduce the pressure on hospitals to increase the volume of services to sustain already minimal revenue margins—or to cut corners or shed low-margin services. Forward-thinking, fiscally-healthy facilities can implement these strategies today to provide future opportunities for both gain and good.

To see comprehensive study results, visit the Targeting 100! website. To read an executive summary of Targeting 100! click here. 

 Written by Heather Burpee, IDL | Research Assistant Professor, Health Design & Energy Efficiency

Vikram Prakāsh’s interdisciplinary Urban Sustainability studio is asking questions, and lots of them. We are tasked with designing interventions for Tollefson Plaza, a concrete no-man’s land that awkwardly straddles the UW Tacoma campus and downtown Tacoma. Students are leaving their comfort zones and diving into “big picture” issues such as stormwater run-off, bio-remediation and social equity.

We began the quarter with a field trip to UW Tacoma where we met with Chancellor Dr. Debra Friedman to witness existing conditions first hand. After a quick conceptual charette where we presented our first impressions, we were off to Portland for a guided tour of Portland’s Pearl District. We got to see the implementation of sustainable practices at successful plazas like Jameson Square and Tanner Springs Park, as well as examples of projects that encompassed Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and adaptive reuse concepts that we discussed in the beginning of studio.

Using the plaza as a stepping stone, the studio is looking beyond its immediate vicinity and considering the larger regional context of Pierce County. As our designs evolve, we are constantly being pushed to question what our interventions might look like decades into the future. Our mid-review pin-up featured a jury consisting of experts in the fields of landscape architecture, hydrology and architecture, including UW Professors Susan Olmsted and Ken Yokum. As a result of our mix of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning backgrounds, none our proposals were modest in scale, idea nor execution. They ranged from schemes that proposed an artist workshop located within the plaza, to ones that addressed the entire UW Tacoma campus and beyond. While proposals ranged in scale we were all charged to also take on the urban landscape beyond the troubled plaza. One scheme even sought to return an old-growth forest to downtown Tacoma. Who knows, in 80 years the forest may even take over the city.

Given that this studio sprang out of a discussion with the UWT chancellor Debra Friedman, it is a “live” project and one that she is closely tracking. Each proposal is designed within the proposed UW Tacoma master plan and also addresses other ongoing projects such as the Prairie Line Trail, the revitalization of downtown Tacoma and its Brewery District, and the proposal for the extension to the Tacoma Art Museum designed by Olson Kundig. Each studio milestone is accompanied by an abbreviated review that takes place in Tacoma giving students an opportunity to receive critical feedback from local architects, planners and professors. Fueled by the promise of a home cooked Indian meal by Vikram himself, we are all planning to work hard in the last three weeks!

Jonathan, Tako and Tak contemplate Lawrence Halprin’s “mega-blocks” near the Portland State Campus.

The jury listens intently as Alireza makes it rain with his Tacoma “digistorm” pavilion.

 We also left our technological comfort zone to create a foam site model of our site using the CNC router.

Written by Takeru Stewart and Naomi Javanifard

On the evening of Friday, May 10th, banners were unfurled in Gould Court and Festa Romana, the annual Rome Program fund-raiser, was underway. Over 140 alumni and supporters showed up to sample the fine catering and bid on the immensely generous donations from friends of the program.

For over 42 years the University of Washington has sent a select group of architecture students to Rome for the chance study their craft in one of the most architecturally relevant cities in the world. This educational opportunity is a cherished memory for many UW alumni who also partook of the program when they were students.

This party is an important part of the Rome program. Over the past couple years, the program has seen its cost go up, like so many other programs here in the university. Festa Romana is an invitation to those that have come before us to give their assistance to the next generation of architecture and landscape students. One hundred percent of the profit goes directly to the students, helping them fund this international excursion.

Each year the Festa chooses a theme that is appropriate to the Italian flavor of the gathering. This year the film La Dolce Vita, directed by Frederico Fellini, was chosen as the organizing vision for the party. The choice for this movie was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the way that modern, glitzy Rome can transform people’s lives. For Fellini, it was a scathing satire of the debauchery to be found in Rome (though anyone familiar with Fellini will instantly cry foul at such a superficial reading of the classic movie), but to us, it is another way to pay tribute to the wealth of cultural riches that continually comes from Italy. It is another example of the relevance of artistic expression for which Italy is famous, and a sly nod to the idea that we will not come back the same person.

To help make this party exciting while also showing our appreciation to the people who will donate to the program, the students who were accepted into the Rome program put hours into the preparation and execution of the party. The days leading to the fundraiser had graduate and undergraduate students working together, designing decorations, printing programs, organizing the auction, deliver delicacies and managing the merchandise; not to mention manning the dessert and drink bar to ensure the party-goers were fully sated. As the designer of the graphics which decorated the banners, my job was particularly easy. The beautiful vistas of the Italian cities and the cinematic quality of La Dolce Vita gave me all the grace and visual interest needed to create a compelling setting. The setting of the auction itself was before a backdrop of the Trevi Fountain, a reference to La Dolce Vita’s famous scene involving the fountain and a particularly uninhibited actress.

But how did we do? The result was a complete success. While final numbers are not available at the moment, veterans of the fundraiser were quick to observe that this year people gave generously and often. Also, simply as a get-together, the party was fun and often a bit raucous. John Stamets took on the role of the paparazzi, a term which arose from a character from Fellini’s film. This naturally fit perfectly with his interests. He worked the red carpet, taking posed and candid shots of the guests. There was much hooting and hollering during the auction, with auctioneer Trina Deines playing off the energy of the room and the audience cheering on those who pushed the envelope on the bidding. Party-goers stayed late into the evening, catching up with old friends and instructors. Students milled about and connected with alumni and their instructors. A couple even broke out into an inspired bit of swing dancing. The night left everyone feeling exhilarated and the students excited for their upcoming experience in Rome.

Written by Shane Leaman
All photos by John Stamets