The Green Futures Lab conducts research projects that aim to develop the knowledge needed to create healthy, engaging, and ecological environments.
Sweetgrass Living Shorelines Project
Project Background The Sweetgrass Living Shorelines project examined the benefit of constructed floating wetlands to provide missing habitat on urbanized shorelines for outmigrating juvenile salmon in the freshwater Lake Washington Basin. This project built on the lessons learned from the Duwamish Floating Wetlands, testing new living shoreline prototypes. The GFL convened an expert Urban Shores...
Marine Floating Wetlands
Project Background To test the viability of floating wetlands in marine waters, the GFL and EarthCorps have installed customized BioMatrix eco-islands along a dock at Shilshole Bay Marina. The living shoreline units are again aimed at providing missing habitat for fish and to begin to restore wetland functions along urbanized shorelines where traditional restoration is...
Duwamish Floating Wetlands
Project Background The lower Duwamish River and transition zone (River miles 1-10) is critical to salmon population survival and return because this is where juvenile salmon forage, shelter and physiologically transition from living in freshwater to saltwater (Ostergaard, 2014). In order for out-migrating juveniles to achieve this transition they require low gradient intertidal mudflats lined...
Capitol Hill: Public Spaces + Public Life
Lauren Wong, MLA ’19 + Peter Samuels, MLA ’20 Capitol Hill is a neighborhood whose varied urban character in the built environment speaks to its multi-narrative history. Its dense residential and commercial corridors were largely formed by the showrooms and repair shops of “Auto Row,” which have been split into a diverse collection of small...
Waterfront Stormwater Solutions
The impact of land use, impervious surfaces, stormwater pollutants and climate change are critical threats to the livability of our urban areas. Considering that a majority of the population is concentrated along waterfronts, developing solutions to these issues becomes all the more pressing. The intent of the Waterfront Stormwater Solutions is to develop and inspire...
Stormwater Web Portal Feasibility
It is well documented that the leading cause of degradation to Puget Sound arises from stormwater pollution. The Puget Sound region’s current and projected urbanization, growing coverage of impervious surfaces and antiquated stormwater infrastructure increases stormwater pollution that poses significant ecological and human health risks. There have been substantial breakthroughs in landscape solutions that remediate...
Green Roof Database and Evaluation
Green Roof Survey: The 2010 Seattle Green Roof Survey provided a snapshot of green roofs for the City of Seattle creating a baseline understanding from which to build a more comprehensive inventory and tracking tool for the city’s green roof built stock, green roof benefits and challenges, and the emerging green roof industry. Information about...
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...
Biodiversity Green Wall System
Spearheaded and designed by the Green Futures Lab, the UW Biodiversity Green Wall, Edible Green Screen, and Water Harvesting System was completed in the fall of 2012, transforming two blank concrete walls into lush urban habitat. Located in the southeast corner of Gould Hall on 15th Avenue and NE 40th Street, the award-winning project has...
Manchester Stormwater Park
The Green Futures Lab has monitored the effectiveness of Kitsap County’s Manchester Stormwater Park in treating pollutants from the upstream contributing basin, collecting and analyzing samples over the course of one year. Results indicate that both the system of level perimeter wetland cells filled with proprietary soil media, and the vertical spiral rain gardens with...
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...
Urban Play Handbook
Play brings people together, stimulates creativity, alleviates stress, and cultivates delight to both the participant and the viewer. Play can also break down social barriers that often prevent diverse groups from interacting and equitably sharing public space. Therefore, providing opportunities for play in the urban public realm is an essential tactic for creating lively, just...
Shifting Gears
The benefits, utility, and joys of traveling by bicycle are countless, and the relative costs affordable. Yet it has been challenging for US cities to develop the kinds of infrastructural facilities that would make cycling available and attractive to large portions of their populations. Copenhagen, Denmark provides an inspiring example of municipal commitment to cycling...
Seattle’s Neighborhood Greenways
The City of Seattle is working to enhance transportation options in the city and Neighborhood Greenways are becoming an integral part of the process. Reducing vehicle speeds and traffic volume is necessary for Neighborhood Greenways, but by creating inviting space for non-motorized users, Neighborhood Greenways can also bring about larger scale neighborhood and environmental improvements....
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...
Adaptive Streets: Strategies for Transforming the Urban Right-of-Way
Adaptive Streets: Strategies for Transforming the Urban Right-of-Way is an illustrated handbook to inspire and guide citizens, planners and officials to re-imagine how our streets can be adapted to increase utility and delight as well as enhance human and environmental health. The book presents a collection of strategies, demonstrating how they can be implemented in...
Regional Open Space Strategy (ROSS)
The Puget Sound basin is facing significant ecological and economic pressures, which are predicted to be further exacerbated by our rapid population growth and increasing intensity of climate change impacts. These stresses affect water quality and supply, fish, farm and forest production, flood and other environmental hazard vulnerability, economic opportunities and quality of life, and...
