School of Landscape Architecture & Planning News & Headlines

In this CAPLA Lecture Series lecture, Tao Zhang discusses the edge effect and how landscape architecture should protect vulnerable landscape boundaries and help regenerate marginalized edge effects in urban ecology.

At the beginning of the Spring 2023 semester, students in the University of Arizona Bachelor of Science in Sustainable Built Environments and Minor in Sustainable Built Environments programs joined together at the UArizona Community Garden to grow fruits, vegetables and other plants while cultivating their own community. This is their story.

Fletcher McCusker speaks about the history and impact of tax increment financing districts, and how this tool was used to spur economic growth in Tucson's urban core in this CAPLA Lecture Series lecture.

SRP is funding CAPLA faculty members Bo Yang, professor of landscape architecture and urban planning, and Shujuan Li, associate professor of landscape architecture and planning, to research the planning and design of electric vehicle charging stations. Learn more in this fascinating interview.

Jesus M. Barajas shares findings from research about how departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations are addressing equity in their planning and project prioritization processes in this CAPLA Lecture Series lecture.

Leading extreme heat expert Ladd Keith, an assistant professor of planning and sustainable built environments in CAPLA, was interviewed for recent articles in The Hill and Arizona Science, an NPR radio program.

The inaugural Urban Humanities Global (Un)Conference held in Tucson March 3-5, 2023 will draw close to a hundred scholars, practitioners and community leaders to the Sonoran Desert to chart a path forward for the next generation of spatial transdisciplinary research, design and public engagement.

Gulsah Akar focuses on the factors that lead to sustainable mobility patterns among older adults in this CAPLA Lecture Series lecture.

The UArizona Theme Park Entertainment Group, comprised of CAPLA and College of Engineering students, received the highest commendation overall—with distinctions for technical skill, feasibility, innovation and communication—at the esteemed Toronto Met Thrill Design Invitational held last fall at Universal Orlando Resort.

A new study by researchers including Esther Sternberg, professor of architecture, landscape architecture and planning (joint appointment), suggests that too much—or too little—office noise has a negative effect on employee wellbeing. The sweet spot? About 50 decibels, comparable to moderate rain or birdsong.

“It’s the call of a place which combines powerful myths, tumbled landscapes, hardscrabble lives, and proud resistance to normative culture,” writes CAPLA Associate Professor of Architecture Laura Hollengreen following her summer visit to Wales, for a guest editorial published recently in Terrain.org.

Research by Seth Asare Okyere, CAPLA visiting assistant professor of urban planning, and Louis Kusi Frimpong, Matthew Abunyewah and Stephen Kofi Diko, show that digitalization initiatives in Ghana need to take local factors and engagement into account if they’re going to succeed.