The Urban Construction Laboratory (UCL) was founded in May 1989 by Richard Bender and John J. Parman as a vehicle for their research interests.

UCL Director John J. Parman, M.Arch. is a Senior Editor at ARCADE, the Seattle architecture magazine, and an editorial advisor to AR+D, the research imprint of ORO Editions. He was a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley (2018-2023), and Editorial Director and Senior Advisor at Gensler (1997-2019). He and UC Berkeley Professor Richard Bender (1930-2022) were research collaborators for 50 years.

UCL EU Director Elham K. Hassani, Ph.D. is an Associate Editor at Built Form, the international journal on building morphology and urban regeneration. She is a postdoctoral researcher at Sapienza University of Rome and has been a Visiting Scholar at Lund University, a Visiting Researcher at Malmö University, and a Visiting Professor at Tashkent University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (2020-2021 and 2024).