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Design Build Update: Quint Family Sensory Garden

The Quint Family Sensory Garden was UW Landscape Architecture’s most recent design-build project, led by professor Daniel Winterbottom. The Kline Galland Home provides skilled nursing and rehabilitation services. Over the course of two quarters, UWLA students worked to design and realize the sensory garden. The garden was opened in June 2024, and  provides space to rest, explore through various senses, and even stimulate memory and reduce stress. For a more in-depth look at the Sensory Garden, and an insight into the support…

Green Futures Lab Students Win Climate Solutions Prize

Did you know that UW Green Futures Lab Scan Design Interns won one of the two Climate Solutions prizes, as part of CBE’s Climate Solutions symposium this past spring?!  There were over 40 entries and Constantine Chrisafis’ (MLA/MUP ’25) posters describing our Designing the Climate Responsible City project and publication won the prize in the Communications category. The content and graphics included Erin Irby’s and Sarah Lukin’s (both MLA ’23) research and design from 2022-23, and added Constantine’s and Briana Weeke’s (MUP ’24) investigation and communications from this…

UW Earthlab Announces 2024-25 Innovation Grants Projects: JC3 and Collaborators Chosen for Feasibility Report in South Park for Biodigester

EarthLab has announced that five community-centered teams have been selected for the 2024-25 Innovation Grants program. The UW // LA department’s own Catherine De Almeida (Associate Professor) will be the Principal Investigator on one of the chosen teams, along with Graduate Student Assistant Sarah Chu (MLA ’25). Each team will receive $80,000 to research and develop new and actionable knowledge on community-driven projects at the intersection of climate change and social justice. To date, EarthLab has awarded nearly two million dollars in Innovation Grant funding to 29 transdisciplinary teams across five cohorts.

Just Circular Communities

Just Circular Communities (JCC) is an interdisciplinary collaborative that seeks to envision and implement localized, regenerative, and community-driven circular systems for a Just Transition – by, with, and for Frontline communities. At the University of Washington, College of Built Environments, students have engaged with JCC topics through Participatory Action Research and Service-Learning design studios. Led by Associate Professor Catherine De Almeida, landscape architecture, architecture, and urban planning students have participated in community-engaged design activities to explore the development of the…

UWLA Students Awarded Top Pacific Horticulture Design Futurist Prize

by Chris Copeland (MLA 2025) In the summer of 2023, Pacific Horticulture held a design competition to support new planting ideas for Pioneer Park in San Francisco, CA. Working with an historic site like Coit Tower, which can attract up to one hundred and fifty thousand visitors per year, our team wanted to use this opportunity to draw attention to the historic ecosystems of California. These communities of plants and animals are iconic and beloved. However, in a changing and increasingly…

Jeff Hou’s Research Recognized by Office of Global Affairs

In 2019, Jeff Hou received a Global Innovation Fund Research Award to explore how youth are engaging in social action and creative space-making in East Asia. Hou used the funding to host a three-day online workshop with special guests from the U.S. and East Asia to explore and share knowledge on current social movements across East Asia that reflect a desire for alternatives to the current socio-economic and socio-cultural structures, from social startups and new communal spaces to alternative economic…