  We introduce a setup which realises a tunable engineered environment for
experiments in circuit quantum electrodynamics. We illustrate this concept with
the specific example of a quantum bit, qubit, in a high-quality-factor cavity
which is capacitively coupled to another cavity including a resistor. The
temperature of the resistor, which acts as the dissipative environment, can be
controlled in a well defined manner in order to provide a hot or cold
environment for the qubit, as desired. Furthermore, introducing superconducting
quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) into the cavity containing the resistor,
provides control of the coupling strength between this artificial environment
and the qubit. We demonstrate that our scheme allows us to couple strongly to
the environment enabling rapid initialization of the system, and by subsequent
tuning of the magnetic flux of the SQUIDs we may greatly reduce the
resistor-qubit coupling, allowing the qubit to evolve unhindered.
