Through lectures series, classes, publications, and community outreach, the Green Futures Lab provides a wide variety of educational services.
Climate Mitigation and Social Well-Being in Urban Design
By Neha Chinwalla + Clelie Fielding As shapers of the built environment, landscape architects and urban designers are primarily concerned with people and places. Today, we are facing a global climate crisis that threatens the health and well-being of people and places. Simultaneously, social connections are unraveling with the rise of technology that tends to...
Materials Matter: Designing the Climate Responsible City
By Constantine Chrisafis + Brianna Weekes Building on the foundation laid by Designing the Climate Responsible City, this companion guide turns its attention to the embodied carbon locked into the materials and processes that shape streetscapes, landscapes, and other urban sites. The publication distills a clear set of principles for climate‑mitigative site design, outlines ideal...
Designing the Climate Responsible City
By Erin Irby + Sarah Lukins Designing the Climate Responsible City presents actionable guidance for landscape architects, planners and urban designers seeking to mitigate greenhouse‑gas emissions and sequester carbon through their approach to shaping the built environment. The guide introduces clear frameworks for decoupling carbon from urban systems, mapping inputs, metabolic processes, and outputs,...
Floating Wetlands Research & Education
In 2013 and again in 2017 and 2018, the Green Futures Lab conducted seminars on floating wetlands. Students surveyed floating wetlands literature and precedents, investigated their benefits for habitat, stormwater cleansing and water temperature regulation, and then developed new design concepts for several freshwater locations. Each site’s biological parameters drove the designs. Carrying the momentum...
Porous Public Space: People + Rainwater + Cities
How can design help us to regard stormwater as a resource rather than waste? How can the celebration of water bring people together in public space? How might a heightened awareness of water– positioned in its unique geophysical context–promote an urban life culture with an authentic sense of place? Interns Roxanne Lee and James Wohlers...
Global Green Lecture Series
Global Green is a lecture/panel series showcasing Sustainable Planning and Design in the Pacific Northwest and Denmark. Funded by the Scan Design Foundation. The themes to date have been: Autumn 2023 “City Nature and the Nature of Cities” Speaker: Rasmus Astrup, SLA Spring 2023 “Copenhagen’s BLOXHUB: Nordic Hub for Sustainable Urbanization” Speaker: Martine Kildeby, BLOXHUB...
Re-Imagining Seattle Streets
This was the challenge presented by Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), with a long connective arterial in the Magnolia neighborhood as our testing ground. This street was selected due to its exceptionally wide planting strips, its underlying water and habitat connections between Elliot Bay and the Ship Canal at the Ballard Locks, and its primacy as...
Public Spaces | Public Life Studios
The Public Spaces Public Life studio in the College of Built Environments combines international study experience with multi-disciplinary collaboration on local projects in order to explore planning and design solutions for Seattle’s public realm. Before the studio, students travel to Copenhagen, Denmark to visit the office of the renowned Copenhagen firm Gehl Architects and see...
Open Space Seattle 2100
This collaborative project asked leaders from civic, environmental, business and community groups to create a comprehensive open space vision to guide Seattle’s urban development over the next 100 years. The urban watershed-based process included a city-wide design charrette with 23 teams led by local professionals and UW students. The 200-page final report documented visions and...
