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:

CAPLA’s Ryan E. Smith Leads Efforts on HUD Research Roadmap to Address Challenges in Offsite Housing Construction
Architecture Professor Ryan E. Smith, director of the School of Architecture, is lead author on a HUD report outlining policy, finance, labor and other parameters for growth of offsite housing construction in the United States: Offsite Construction for Housing: Research Roadmap.

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.

New Media Guide Offers Tips for Journalists Reporting on Extreme Heat Events
The Global Heat Health Information Network’s free resource for members of the press, created by CAPLA's Ladd Keith, aims to help make reporting on heat more impactful, effective and beneficial for the public.

Why Homes Often Feel Warmer Than the Thermostat Suggests — And What to Do About It
In a thought leadership piece for The Conversation, Associate Professor of Architecture, Sustainable Built Environments and Marketing Jonathan Bean discusses why homes often feel warmer than what the thermostat suggests, and what we can do about it.

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.

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.”

Wales on My Mind: Landscape, History, Dwelling
“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.