Thought Leadership

At CAPLA, thought leadership on architecture, design, landscape architecture, heritage conservation, real estate development, urban planning, sustainability and much more drives our research, design and practice—resulting in a rich, transformative educational and community experience centered on the built environment.

Read our latest thought leadership, and learn how the CAPLA community is building a changing world:

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Esther M. Sternberg

Dr. Esther M. Sternberg Authors Acclaimed New Book, ‘Well at Work: Creating Wellbeing in Any Workspace’

Esther M. Sternberg, M.D., Inaugural Andrew Weil Chair for Research in Integrative Medicine and professor of architecture, landscape architecture and planning (by joint appointment), has published Well at Work: Creating Wellbeing in Any Workspace, a "Top Ten Lifestyle Book" by Publishers Weekly.

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Guess That Arroyo cover

Architecture Lecturer Bill Mackey’s Book ‘Guess That Arroyo’ Sheds Playful Light on the Tucson Region Watershed

“Arroyos on the desert are magic,” writes CAPLA Lecturer in Architecture Bill Mackey in the introduction to his new bilingual book Guess That Arroyo: Tucson, developed in collaboration with the Watershed Management Group's River Run Network.

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Beth Weinstein

Prestigious Graham Foundation Grant Supports Architecture Professor Beth Weinstein's Research on Architecture and Choreography

Thanks in part to a 2022 grant from Chicago-based Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Associate Professor of Architecture Beth Weinstein is synthesizing more than a decade of her research on architecture and dance into a book that “establishes a field of practice, raises many critical questions” and also aims to “inspire people interested in interdisciplinary dialogues.”

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Ghana street and residences

Ghana Digitized Its Address System: Its Failure Offers Lessons to Other African Countries Creating Smart Cities

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.

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Robert Miller

A Design Career Well Administered: Robert Miller, Professor of Architecture and Former Director, School of Architecture

Robert Miller AIA joined CAPLA in the spring of 2010 as director of the School of Architecture. In his 12 years at CAPLA, Miller has brought not only stability to the school after a long series of interim directors, but also a new era of student success, faculty creative scholarship and research, and industry partnership. He retires on January 1, 2023.

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R. Brooks Jeffery

The Transformative Career of a Lifelong Explorer: R. Brooks Jeffery ’83 B.Arch, Professor Emeritus of Architecture

Though Emeritus Professor of Architecture R. Brooks Jeffery retired from UArizona in June 2022 as associate vice president for research, at CAPLA he will be long acclaimed for his dedicated work across many roles, including associate dean and Drachman Institute director—as well for his wide-reaching service and award-winning research on heritage conservation in arid environments.

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Ghana

Ghana’s Informal Residents Show How Social Innovation Can Solve Urban Challenges

A recent paper by Seth Asare Okyere, CAPLA visiting assistant professor of urban planning, and Stephen Kofie Diko, assistant professor at the University of Memphis, argues that the solutions residents in poor, marginalized, informal and crowded urban areas come up with to make everyday urban life livable are a form of social innovation.

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Eduardo Guerrero

Crossing City Limits (and International Time Zones): CAPLA's Eduardo Guerrero on His Popular Urban Podcast

Though the pandemic was a challenge for many, for CAPLA Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Urban Design Eduardo Guerrero it presented a new opportunity—connecting ideas from urbanism experts around the world through conversations, resulting in his urban podcast, Crossing City Limits. Learn more in this fascinating interview.