Framing the Habitat Experience
The built and natural environment frames the human experience; it facilitates human social interactions, enables movement of people from one point to another, and provides us with the air, water and food we need to flourish.
Habitats are a cornerstone of our well-being as a society. With growing urbanization, the built urban environment will continue to be pivotal in human lives. The increasing importance of infrastructure in the human experience means that civil and environmental engineers will work closely with social sciences, public health and anthropology to enhance the experiences of humans in their various habitats.
We will work to enhance the human experience by promoting interdisciplinary designs that are based on close collaboration with the public. Developing new ways to empathically listen to residents will be critical in order to understand how people experience their built environment and how the infrastructure can subsequently adapt to improve and complement this experience.
We will also improve the fundamental understanding of how habitats impact the human experience, including human decision-making and trust in infrastructure. Our focus must be on forming habitats with low water and carbon footprints so that these experiences are sustainable for future generations.
This human-centric focus requires an informed public, empowered to improve their built infrastructure and land, air and water resources. We will lead the way in educating and engaging the public in how infrastructure is used to the benefit of people, and we will educate the next generation of civil and environmental engineers to apply interdisciplinary principles in their infrastructure design.
What is the human habitat experience?
Associate Professor Herek Clack explains why the human habitat experience should be a critical area of focus for civil and environmental engineers.
Our Approach
Our strategic directions have a broad impact on the way we operate, influencing our approach to research, education and outreach. Explore some examples of how we are implementing the concept of the Human Habitat Experience across our department.
Research
A Smarter HVAC System
University of Michigan researchers are designing novel, nonintrusive methods to monitor and control the quality of the built environment for improved health and well-being of building occupants. Here, U-M researchers inspect a robotic platform that monitors and maps air temperatures and air quality to facilitate automatic control of building heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
Urban Sensors
Smart cities will have dense sensor networks deployed throughout our built environment. To truly enhance the habitat experience, citizens must derive benefit from the data these networks will produce. Our researchers are exploring how cities of the future can use their data to empower all city stakeholders by working with Detroit youth in deploying urban sensors.
Understanding Microbiomes
Our urban water system contains multiple complex microbial biomes that play important roles in human health and water infrastructure integrity. Researchers in CEE are studying the linkages between water and human microbiomes so that water infrastructure can be managed to maximize function and protect human and environmental health.
The Water Experience
Water quality and availability shape how people experience and value water. Through close collaborations with researchers in the disciplines of ethnography and epidemiology, U-M researchers are exploring how people experience the engineered water system and how water ultimately impacts nearly all aspects of their life.
Take a Deep Breath
Diseases transmitted by air can spread rapidly from person to person; some, like swine flu or avian flu, can even spread from animals to humans. Sterilization of ventilated air, for example using the non-thermal plasma device developed by U-M researchers seen here, can help prevent the spread of airborne pathogens.
Sensing Stress
University of Michigan researchers are exploring methods to improve human mobility within the built environment, with particular focus on vulnerable individuals such as the elderly and people with physical disabilities. Here, a U-M graduate student discusses the use of wearable sensors that can help determine where elderly populations experience stress when interacting with infrastructure to determine what interventions could alleviate that stress.
Education
Center for Socially Engaged Design
The University of Michigan’s Center for Socially Engaged Design empowers students with perspectives and skills needed to design effective technology interventions that are good for the world. The center coaches designers to take into account the fullest social, cultural, economic and environmental contexts that their design process and intervention will interact with.
How Cities Work
This interdisciplinary seminar course and public lecture series was developed with the goal of empowering students and the public with knowledge on how cities work – spanning many factors that affect people’s daily lives in our built environment. These lectures brought in leading researchers, elected officials, policy experts and industry representatives to discuss pressing issues at the intersection of urban challenges.
Outreach
Urban Collaboratory
The Urban Collaboratory seeks to explore how technology can benefit communities in the center’s seven research areas (energy, finance, health, infrastructure, mobility, social, and water). Current projects engage with city stakeholders primarily across Michigan and the Midwest, and prioritize access to fundamental human needs.
News
CEE Receives NSF Grant to Support Independent Mobility in People with Different Physical Abilities
CEE Professors Carol Menassa and Vineet Kamat are the lead PIs on a project that is looking at long-term ways to provide new solutions for people who use wheelchairs for mobility in indoor and outdoor built environments, with a goal of improving their independence and reducing health care costs.
Video: Creating Equity in Midwestern Flood Response and Recovery
Flooding is the leading cause of property damage and deaths in the U.S. It’s bigger than earthquakes and forest fires put together. Branko Kerkez, an Arthur F. Thurnau Associate Professor of civil and environmental engineering, and his students at the Digital Water Lab partnered with researchers at the University of Michigan Center for Social Solutions to measure, better understand and prevent flooding and its aftermath in some of the most vulnerable communities.
NSF Grant Will Support Research to Reduce Wildfire Threats
Wildfires pose a significant danger to people living at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) and have caused billions of dollars in damage to property. U-M CEE Associate Prof. Ann Jeffers is the lead P.I. on a project that just received a grant for almost $600,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a computational model that will allow researchers to predict structural ignitions under wildfire exposure. The project’s title is “BRITE Relaunch: A Physics-Based Simulation Model for Exploring Community Resilience to Wildfires.”
Featured Faculty
Sources
1. Vidal, J. (2014, March 25). WHO: Air pollution ‘is single biggest environmental health risk’. Retrieved April 22, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/25/airpollution-single-biggest-environmental-health-risk-who
2 & 3. 10 things to know about the impacts of urbanisation. (2018, October 01). Retrieved April 22, 2019, from https://www.odi.org/publications/11218-10-things-know-about-impactsurbanisation
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