University of Washington College of Built Environments

The College of Built Environments is an academic college at the University of Washington in Seattle. The CBE offers programs in architecture, construction management, landscape architecture, real estate, and urban planning. From 1957 to 2009, it was known as the College of Architecture and Urban Planning . Today, the College of Built Environments is made up of five core units: Architecture/Architectural Design, Construction Management, Landscape Architecture, Real Estate, and Urban Design & Planning. It also houses two interdisciplinary Ph.D. degrees, as well as several other interdisciplinary centers and institutes. The 2009 name change reflects an integrated approach to planning, design, and construction that will be necessary to take on the 21st-century global challenges of urbanization and climate change.

The College of Built Environments traces its history to 1914, when the Department of Architecture was founded . The department grew slowly and focused strictly on architecture until the early 1940s, when a city planning curriculum was inaugurated. After the Second World War, the architecture and planning programs grew rapidly. The College of Architecture and Urban Planning was established in 1957; Arthur Herrman was the first dean. Architecture and Urban Planning were established as separate departments within the CAUP by 1961; Landscape Architecture and Building Construction were established as departments later in the 1960s. In 2017 the program in Real Estate, initially housed in the Department of Urban Design & Planning, became the Runstad Department of Real Estate. Other degrees and programs were added in the last fifty years, for example the Ph.D. in the Built Environment in 2003. In 2007 the faculty of the college began searching for a new name. The Regents of the University of Washington approved the name in fall 2008. The College of Built Environments name became official in January 2009.

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