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Architecture

Archives: Courses

Raft Museum

Jim Nicholls Spring 2020

Course Description

There is history of rafts, and a typology of rafts. Each raft has a story. Each is spatial. Each is material. Each stands for resilience in the face of adversity. Rafts are often lifeboats. Each raft is about the human condition. They represent the life of a refugee, a WWII sailor, a Titanic survivor, an oilrig evacuee… of Huckleberry Finn. They tell stories of survival and hope.
What would a museum of rafts look like?
What would a collection of rafts say?
What stories would your museum of rafts tell?
The studio project is to answer these questions on site at Pioneer Square, Seattle.

 

Barry Onouye Endowed Studio


Tyler Sprague/Mitsuhiro Kanada

Course Description

This is the 2020 offering of the Barry Onouye Endowed Studio, highlighting the intersection of architecture and structures. With the visiting endowed Chair, Mitsuhiro Kanada, this studio will explore the culture and use of a material common to both American and Japanese contexts: cedar. Cedar has powerful significance as part of a natural landscape, as a cultural material, as a part of communal life, and carries a long tradition of craft on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. As such, cedar can become a language of a cross- cultural conversation linking different places across time, and contributing to our broader understanding of architecture, structure, culture, technique and material processes. The work in this studio will still bring these larger themes in to the design, fabrication, treatment and connection of cedar elements into large scale structures.

Architecture and Fiction

Nicole Huber Spring 2020

Course Description

The Comprehensive Plan SEATTLE 2035 is: “A 20-year vision and roadmap for Seattle’s future. Our plan guides City decisions on where to build new jobs and houses, how to improve the transportation system, and where to make capital investments such as utilities, sidewalks, and libraries. The Comprehensive Plan is the framework for most of Seattle’s big-picture decisions on how to grow while preserving and improving neighbor-hoods.” Basing its plan on the data of demographic, social, economic, and environmental change, the city’s office of urban planning extrapolates from facts to create a vision of Seattle’s urban future.

This studio asked what if designers don’t base design on given facts but on speculative fiction? What if we don’t begin by analyzing present conditions to predict future settings but start by imagining future possibilities – however fantastic – to reveal our hopes, dreams, and desires? What if we translate our imaginaries into architectural design, into a project of social, cultural and environmental change? In this studio students used a variety of science fiction and fantasy movies, suggested and self-selected, to learn from their imaginativeness, from their narrative strategies, from their visionary and visual powers — to rethink design strategies for Downtown Seattle.

Othello Community Hub

Elizabeth Golden/ Rick Mohler Spring 2020

Course Description

The Othello Community Hub is an unprecedented collaboration between the City of Seattle, the University of Washington, the Low Income Housing Institute and the Boys and Girls Club of Seattle. Just as building typologies must evolve and hybridize in response to changing urban conditions, so must our urban institutions. Combining a variety of institutions and programs in a single neighborhood center allows for the efficiencies of shared spaces and infrastructure as well as the engagement and collaboration of participating institutions and members of the community.

The Hub is conceived as a focal point for all members of the Othello community. It is both a destination and a place of transition. Some engage the HUB only briefly but regularly by catching the bus, parking one’s bike, grabbing a coffee or making use of the urban rest stop. Others engage for longer periods of time as teens playing games or making music, young adults looking to launch their education at the UW or elder adults interested in continuing their education or contributing to their community.


 

Fashion and Architecture

 
Vikram Prakash Autumn 2019

Course Description

Does form really follow function? Is abstraction the path to ‘truth’? Chthonic vs the tectonic. This experimental studio seeks to tap deep creativity to deconstruct architectural design thinking by intersecting with one of the most world opening disciplines of our times – fashion. Both fashion and architecture are modalities of design thinking, ways of cognating the intelligible and the sensory into a coherent work. In particular, they are both concerned with the work of interfacing the human body to the world. They both cater to a fundamental human need, they both seek to house the human body in a manner that is comfortable and expressive, they both require an intimate knowledge of materials and the craft of making, and they are both obsessed with the complexities of structure and appearance. They are both, in other words, body-axial ways of interfacing with the world; fashion is ‘near-body-architecture’, in that it is architecture, only close to the body, while architecture conversely can be conceptualized as ‘far-body-fashion’.

The objective of this studio will be to design a conceptual body of work indexed as far-body-fashion. We are interested in the l’avenir, the unknowable but inevitable, future of architecture. We will not prognosticate; we will take baby steps on a world opening path. A cross-disciplinary seminar on design thinking, with invited guests from other disciplines on campus, will be integrated into the studio.

Thus studio will use fashion to offer an opportunity to expand the possibilities of what it is to think architecture. For two Reasons:

1. Architectural practice is changing rapidly, and traditional ways of thinking architecture in the new digital age are going to have to expand and become more versatile and

2. Both fashion and architecture mediate between the human body and the rest of the world. Yet, architecture has a disdain for fashion, while in fact fashion in recent decades has far outstripped architecture in its creativity, imagination and response to the exigencies of the day.

Seattle Exposed

 
Elizabeth Golden Autumn 2019

Course Description

Architecture and the built environment are manifestations of societal values; these structures also play a significant role in shaping social interactions within the city. In the words of writer/philosopher George Bataille, architecture “is the very soul of societies” with the “authority to command or prohibit.”

The built environment influences our lives and interactions, but whose values are actually reflected in the spaces and places we move through and inhabit each day? Who has been included or excluded from the development of neighborhoods, public buildings and spaces? Students in this studio will examine key moments in Seattle’s development and document the ways in which certain values, societal structures, and needs have shaped the city over time. More importantly, students will identify omissions and gaps within the city’s current physical structure, where alternative histories, “other” experiences and voices are absent or underrepresented. Students will develop architectural proposals that reveal and build on these invisible histories and stories in order to educate and inspire Seattle’s current and future inhabitants, as well as visitors to the city.

A list of potential sites will be provided, but students will have the option to propose their area of study and project site (in consultation with the studio instructor). Students will be challenged to think outside the box (figuratively and literally). We will explore speculative methods for making architecture, using both temporal strategies (events, art, temporary installations, digital technology, etc.) and more permanent materials.

Urban Design Studio


Mary Johnston Autumn 2019

Seattle Center for Urban Waters
A consortium of public agencies and private organizations are collaborating to develop a site along Western Avenue as a Center for Urban Waters. The site will contribute to advocacy for responsible approaches to water resources: drinking water, water for bathing, drainage and wastewater, streams, rivers, lakes and Puget Sound. The Center for Urban Waters Building will represent an institution focused on research and advocacy for water as a necessity and benefit to cities, globally. The activities of the Center will contribute to and demonstrate sustainable practices. The Building will also establish a place where the productive benefits of
responsible water policies are made apparent to the neighborhood and the entire city.

Mission: The Center for Urban Waters seeks to understand and raise awareness of the sources, pathways and impacts of chemical pollutants in urban waterways. The Center is dedicated to improving and safeguarding water quality throughout the Puget Sound region and, especially, within Seattle’s urban ecosystem. The Center aims to foreground water quality as a partner with other research institutions and advocacy organizations: urban water quality is fundamental to the social and environmental health of cities and the globe. The work of the Center for Urban Waters is familiar: analyzing water quality in water bodies and within the water distribution network. The Center also aims to display its work to the public to the greatest practical extent.

Seattle Center for Earth Science

A consortium of public agencies and private organizations are collaborating to develop a site in Belltown as a Center for Earth Science. The Center for Earth Science Building, part of a planned Urban Ecology District, will represent an institution focused on research and education concerned with earth’s surface and near surface: geology, soils, hydrology, seismology, volcanology, and glacier science. Seattle is an ideal spot for such an institution as it sits on land carved by glaciers, ringed by volcanoes, and susceptible to earthquakes and landslides. By working in collaboration with the Centers for Urban Waters, Energy and Environment, and Air Quality Research, The Center for Earth Science will emphasize how all earth’s systems are connected, and how to understand the past and future of the natural world in relation to the urban environment. For instance, topics of research might include how tides influence earthquakes, or how atmospheric carbon effects soil fertility. The activities of the Center will contribute to and demonstrate sustainable practices and study ways to mitigate climate change.

Mission: The Center for Earth Science seeks to study and demonstrate to the public how the earth’s surface and what is under the surface is not a static system, but a changing ecology that has profound influence on how we occupy it. The Center is dedicated to improving understanding of the forces that made and are making our world, especially in the Puget Sound region. The Center aims to partner with other research institutions and advocacy organizations to increase resiliency in the face of a changing world. The Center is especially committed to public outreach to a diverse audience and to the next generation.

Hybrid Hub at Interbay

BE Studio/Practicum – Hybrid Hub at Interbay

Rick Mohler, David Blum Autumn 2019

Course Description

The studio focused on alternative futures for Seattle’s industrial lands using the Armory Site in Interbay as a case study example. Industrial lands are an important contributor to Seattle’s economy and economic resilience. Industrial zoning classifications account for 12% of Seattle’s total land area and accommodate 16% of the city’s employment base. Many of these jobs are among the very few well-paying employment opportunities found within the city for those without a college education. Industrial activity accounts for roughly a third of Seattle’s sales and B&O tax base. They also provide economic diversity that is cited as a primary reason that the last recession had less of an impact on Seattle than on other cities. A very low vacancy rate of 2% within Seattle’s industrial zones indicates strong demand for industrial land. The majority of industrial stakeholders express an intention of staying within the city and even expanding operations. As a result, Seattle has taken a strong position to preserve its industrial lands by prohibiting non- industrial uses within them as outlined in its 1994 Comprehensive Plan. This position has been bolstered by subsequent studies and reports including: “The Future of Industrial Lands” released by the Seattle Planning Commission in July of 2007 and “Seattle’s Industrial Lands Mayor’s Recommendations” released in August of that same year. However, Seattle’s rapid growth is putting increased pressure on its industrial lands. Due to the relatively low cost of industrial land, many see it as an opportunity to accommodate the city’s growth and address the city’s housing affordability crisis. The expansion of light rail infrastructure is accelerating this conversation. There are currently two Sound Transit light rail stations – Stadium Station and SODO Station – that are within industrial zones. Leveraging our substantial investment in transit infrastructure mandates that we implement land use strategies to increase ridership by serving more intensive, higher density development with a mix of uses. In response, the Office of Planning and Development released its “Industrial Lands Policy Discussion – Summary and Recommendations” in 2015. While much of the report reinforces the position of previous studies, it introduces the potential of re-considering industrial zoning. Most notable is the “SODO Draft Concept”, a proposal to study a new hybrid building type consisting of ground floor industrial uses with commercial office space above.

Architecture in Rome

Architecture in Rome Food City

Ken Oshima Galen Minah Autumn 2019

Course Description
As a studio of 26 designers from around the world, students will be collectively designing the Global Food Expo 2020 to take place at the former Mattotoio al Testacchio slaughterhouse/Mount Testaccio. This design builds on the student’s pop up restaurant design, Food City analyses of Venice and Rome through markets and cafes linked to the urban fabric and global exhibition architecture at the Venice Biennale. Following Obrist’s suggestion, the student’s exhibition design should be “radical, experimental solutions,” a “laboratory” for interactive displays and direct partaking in global food culture. The design may be inside or outside the Mattotoio structure and engage the physical/historical context through a visionary architectural intervention/design. Designs will each feature a particular dish/regional cuisine/technique that may be inside or outside Italy and engages the context of Rome and the Mattotoio structure/site. Following the group site analysis, students will select their own individual sites and unique culinary perspective.

Scan Design/EFFEKT


Sinus Lynge and Tue Foged – EFFEKT Architects
Peter Cohan – UW Architecture
Autumn 2019

Course Description

A Folkehøjskole for the Green Transition

The primary objective for this studio is to develop design proposals for a real project that is currently in its early stages of development in the EFFEKT office. The client, Jakob Leth Fink, has asked EFFEKT to help him realize a vision for a new kind of Folk High School that will help Denmark move through the green transition to a sustainable and carbon-neutral future. The project is now in a critical phase in which there are still many unknown variables. With the exact site for the project yet to be determined and the program still being refined, this is an ideal opportunity to ask fundamental questions about such a critical  endeavor. What kinds of spaces and programs will be needed for this new school? How might they be configured to create an optimum learning environment?
In line with the spirit of EFFEKT projects such as the ReGen Villages, the Urban Village Project and Örestad Home, the studio is to be considered as a research project that has the possibility to provide valuable feedback for the client and EFFEKT in their effort to create a unique type of learning environment for the green transition. With that objective in mind, students are strongly encouraged to challenge conventions, explore radical ideas and push the envelope in their design explorations for this project.

Postive/Negative


Jennifer Dee, Kim Pham Autumn 2019

Course Description
A photographer has purchased a 25′ X 100′ lot at 5223 Ballard Avenue NW, thus realizing a lifelong dream of constructing a place to make and exhibit photographic work on one site. This building will foster the photographer’s exploration of ideas and techniques of a particular photographer whose work has been inspirational, and will present the artist’s idea of image making to the public.

Students were challenged to go beyond the traditional graphic representations of the site – plan, section and elevation – each student individually analyzed the larger site context photographically. Students evoked the style of a particular photographer in documenting the neighborhood allowing for an unconventional way to explore the context of the site and draw inspiration for the resulting architecture.

Seven Directions For Seven Generations

A Studio in NW Indigenous Architecture and Culture

Nicholls/Glenn Arch 506 Autumn 2019
Daniel Glenn – Seven Directions Architecture and Planning
Jim Nicholls – UW Architecture Department

Skokomish Community Center- Seven Directions Architecture

For generations, the UW campus area was the site of Indigenous villages. Forests were cut down, shorelines altered, food sources eliminated and cultures outlawed. A Native village, an ancestral home, became University Village, an affluent shopping mall.

The University now acknowledges that it exists on unceded territory. After years of colonization, reparation and reconciliation can begin. UW Intellectual House, a Native House of Knowledge, is a step towards that, the new Burke Museum, a Native House of Memory, will also be an asset in sharing knowledge. This studio proposes a Native House of Living for UW campus.

To support the presence of Native Cultures and Indigenous Life on Campus, a Native student housing and gathering space will provide a lost home and support center for Native students. A resident elder program will foster multigenerational exchange.

Studio time will be spent in close consultation with Native Students and Elders to determine the ideal program and campus location.

Comprehensive and integrated sustainability strategies will be showcased; mass timber will be utilized for structure. Multiple scales of social gather spaces will be nurtured and emphasized.

 

Urban Design Studio

.         
David Strauss Autumn 2019

Seattle Center for Urban Waters
A consortium of public agencies and private organizations are collaborating to develop a site along Western Avenue as a Center for Urban Waters. The site will contribute to advocacy for responsible approaches to water resources: drinking water, water for bathing, drainage and wastewater, streams, rivers, lakes and Puget Sound. The Center for Urban Waters Building will represent an institution focused on research and advocacy for water as a necessity and benefit to cities, globally. The activities of the Center will contribute to and demonstrate sustainable practices. The Building will also establish a place where the productive benefits of
responsible water policies are made apparent to the neighborhood and the entire city.

Mission: The Center for Urban Waters seeks to understand and raise awareness of the sources, pathways and impacts of chemical pollutants in urban waterways. The Center is dedicated to improving and safeguarding water quality throughout the Puget Sound region and, especially, within Seattle’s urban ecosystem. The Center aims to foreground water quality as a partner with other research institutions and advocacy organizations: urban water quality is fundamental to the social and environmental health of cities and the globe. The work of the Center for Urban Waters is familiar: analyzing water quality in water bodies and within the water distribution network. The Center also aims to display its work to the public to the greatest practical extent.

Seattle Center for Earth Science

A consortium of public agencies and private organizations are collaborating to develop a site in Belltown as a Center for Earth Science. The Center for Earth Science Building, part of a planned Urban Ecology District, will represent an institution focused on research and education concerned with earth’s surface and near surface: geology, soils, hydrology, seismology, volcanology, and glacier science. Seattle is an ideal spot for such an institution as it sits on land carved by glaciers, ringed by volcanoes, and susceptible to earthquakes and landslides. By working in collaboration with the Centers for Urban Waters, Energy and Environment, and Air Quality Research, The Center for Earth Science will emphasize how all earth’s systems are connected, and how to understand the past and future of the natural world in relation to the urban environment. For instance, topics of research might include how tides influence earthquakes, or how atmospheric carbon effects soil fertility. The activities of the Center will contribute to and demonstrate sustainable practices and study ways to mitigate climate change.

Mission: The Center for Earth Science seeks to study and demonstrate to the public how the earth’s surface and what is under the surface is not a static system, but a changing ecology that has profound influence on how we occupy it. The Center is dedicated to improving understanding of the forces that made and are making our world, especially in the Puget Sound region. The Center aims to partner with other research institutions and advocacy organizations to increase resiliency in the face of a changing world. The Center is especially committed to public outreach to a diverse audience and to the next generation.

Barry Onouye Endowed Studio

 

Text by Associate Professor Tyler Sprague

The spring quarter has brought the unprecedented challenge of teaching studio completely online.  The Barry Onouye Endowed Studio annually highlights the intersection of architecture and structural engineering by constructing a pavilion-scale structure. This year, visiting chair Mitsuhiro Kanada and I were challenged to ensure each student could work effectively, and keep the hands-on, material/structural focus – despite limited contact and resources.

For our first exercise, each student was requested to make a phone/ camera-holding stand to allow for sharing sketches, active hand drawing, models and other physical objects. The design should suspend a camera above a flat desk surface.  By linking this camera into a Zoom account, students will be able to share their physical work during desk crits.

Becka Tova used drift-wood to create a camera holder that is both functional and beautiful.

This camera stand took a variety of forms, made of the material readily-available to the students (cardboard, wood, recycling, books, driftwood, string, etc.)  With weight to the camera and the need to move freely underneath, the objective was inherently structural.  Students had to choose – often intuitively – a structural strategy that matched their materials and specific space.

Avery Dehner used available objects like a desk lamp.

This exercise encouraged students to establish their ‘studio desk’ in their personal spaces for the quarter.  It also helped them consider how they will be working during the quarter, and then design an apparatus to assist them in this altered work environment.  

Concept sketches from left to right: Isabella Boyd, Hyeeun Oh, Anna Murphy

 

Camera holders from left to right: Isabella Boyd, Hyeeun Oh, Anna Murphy

 

Seattle Exposed

Studio Description: 

The built environment influences our lives and interactions, but whose values are actually reflected in the spaces and places we move through and inhabit each day? Who has been included or excluded from the development of neighborhoods, public buildings and spaces? 

Students in this studio examined key moments in Seattle’s development and document the ways in which certain values, societal structures, and needs have shaped the city over time. More importantly, students identified omissions and gaps within the city’s current physical structure, where alternative histories, “other” experiences and voices are absent or underrepresented. Students developed architectural proposals that reveal and built on these invisible histories and stories in order to educate and inspire Seattle’s current and future inhabitants, as well as visitors to the city. 

 

Images 1-4  Adrian Arief

Images 5-8   Tova Beck

Images 9-12  Clayton Cahaya

Images 13-16 Camille Fain

Project description by student:

“The International District Wellness Workshop provides a safe place for the community to come learn about and take care of their bodies. The facility houses a learning resource center for wellness education as well as activity spaces for physical connections with one’s health. The existing garden extends onto the roof of the building which wraps around to the central courtyard below.”

Reimagined Industrial Lands

During the Autumn 2019 quarter, an interdisciplinary group of Built Environments students participated in a studio boldly envisioning transit oriented development and the future use of Seattle’s industrial lands. Co-taught by Associate Professor Rick Mohler (Architecture) and Affiliate Instructor David Blum (Urban Design and Planning), the studio considered the creation of a new neighborhood  in the Interbay area, northwest of downtown and connected via future light rail stations. Students worked in groups to imagine and develop visions for this new neighborhood, with proposals ranging from the restoration of tidal plains to the creation of hybrid land-use mixing residential and industrial building types. This studio challenged students to work together to imagine innovative and feasible concepts for Seattle’s future neighborhoods.

Click here to see a full post about this innovative studio.

The images featured here are the work of two interdisciplinary teams of students:

Images 1-5  Project: Eco Bay

Students: Eddie Kim, Sarah Lukins, Siiri Mikola, Miggi Wu

Eco Bay project description from students:

“This project defines maximum public benefit as an integrated mix of flexible industrial space, a vibrant pedestrian realm, a range of housing types and a robust response to sea level rise that provides unique outdoor spaces within Seattle.”

Images  6-10 Project: Convergence

Students: Tristan Hogenstijn, Alicia Kellogg, Tera Ponce, Daniel Vu 

Convergence project description from students:

“Part of a multidisciplinary BE studio led by Rick Mohler. Team members: Tristan Hogenstijn (Urban Planning exchange student from the Netherlands), Alicia Kellogg (MLArch), Tera Ponce (BArch), and Daniel Vu (MArch). The team represents 7 languages spoken, a wide variety of skills and expertise, but also uniform vision to create an Interbay neighborhood that has its own identity, self-sufficiency, urban density, industrial job opportunities, and attraction to visitors.”

Seattle Science Fiction

The Comprehensive Plan SEATTLE 2035 is: “A 20-year vision and roadmap for Seattle’s future. Our plan guides City decisions on where to build new jobs and houses, how to improve the transportation system, and where to make capital investments such as utilities, sidewalks, and libraries. The Comprehensive Plan is the framework for most of Seattle’s big-picture decisions on how to grow while preserving and improving neighbor-hoods.” Basing its plan on the data of demographic, social, economic, and environmental change, the city’s office of urban planning extrapolates from facts to create a vision of Seattle’s urban future.

This studio asked what if designers don’t base design on given facts but on speculative fiction? What if we don’t begin by analyzing present conditions to predict future settings but start by imagining future possibilities – however fantastic – to reveal our hopes, dreams, and desires? What if we translate our imaginaries into architectural design, into a project of social, cultural and environmental change? In this studio students used a variety of science fiction and fantasy movies, suggested and self-selected, to learn from their imaginativeness, from their narrative strategies, from their visionary and visual powers — to rethink design strategies for Downtown Seattle.

UW Shell House

This studio focused on the creative adaptive reuse of one of the UW campus’s most iconic- yet unknownbuildings – the ASUW Shell House. Highlighted in the award winning book (and soon to be feature film), The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics, the ASUW Shell House was first built in 1918 by the U.S. Navy during World War I on a site that was an important location for indigenous tribes, especially for local waterway connections across Lake Washington. This was a time when the UW campus was activated as a military zone and the building was to be used as a seaplane hangar, yet it was never used and was transformed into the home for UW crew from 1918-1974. It also was the location of the shell-building shop of world-class designers and builder George Yeoman Pocock, who was recruited to build racing shells for the team in 1912 before the war. For the next half century, nearly every collegiate and sport rowing program in America used wooden shells and oars built by Pocock that were constructed out of his shop in the UW Shell House.

ASUW Shell House renovation is currently in the beginning phase of fundraising and schematic design, therefore students have been working on imagining the site for uses by all communities; public use, student spaces, historic exhibits and landscape connections to the water and campus. As the first Seattle Landmark on the UW Campus, we will also explore these implications, yet will investigate all creative pathways to design a vibrant, connected, functional, building that will connect its rich history to the future of the UW Campus.

Positive:Negative

In this studio students were tasked with creating a studio for a photographer in the Ballard neighborhood. The goal of the building is to foster the photographer’s exploration of ideas and techniques of a particular photographer whose work has been inspirational, and will present the artist’s idea of image making to the public.

Students were challenged to go beyond the traditional graphic representations of the site – plan, section and elevation – each student individually analyzed the larger site context photographically. Students evoked the style of a particular photographer in documenting the neighborhood allowing for an unconventional way to explore the context of the site and draw inspiration for the resulting architecture.

Photography Collective

In this studio students investigated architectural issues related to human dwelling such as spatial composition, accommodation of building program and occupant demands, site constraints, structural systems and architectural representation. A series of phased design projects encouraged further development of knowledge and skills needed for architectural design. Students were tasked with designing a Photography Collective in the dense urban setting of the Fremont neighborhood. Students studied photography and choose one image from a prominent photographer as inspiration for their design.

Academic Innovation Building

In this studio, student design teams produced proposals for a new interdisciplinary building on the UW Tacoma campus. The program of the Academic Innovation Building asked for a rich mix of classrooms, faculty office space, labs, and collaborative study spaces. The site is one block uphill from the iconic Prairie Line Trail, and adjacent to the hill-climb that forms the campus spine. The building provides much needed space for both Business and Mechanical Engineering, as well as some general use classrooms. Most importantly, the building is envisioned with the most ambitious sustainability standard in all of UW. Students were asked to envision creative designs for new construction on a growing campus that mixes 19th century and 21st century vibes.