Faculty Research & Creative Scholarship

The essential research of the CAPLA faculty goes well beyond the fields of design, development, planning and sustainability to the core of how we can live better lives in the built environment.

Faculty research solves problems, impacts decisions and shapes policy. Read our CAPLA faculty research stories:

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New apartment building

CAPLA Real Estate Development Professor Provides Insight on Increasing Density as a Response to the U.S. Housing Crisis

A recent story in MarketWatch asked whether apartment buildings are the “silver bullet” for America’s housing shortage as lawmakers across the country ban single-family zoning. Daniel Kuhlmann, assistant professor of real estate development and planning, helps answer the question.

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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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Suburban house

PlaceMakers and Strong Towns Turn to Arthur C. Nelson for Insight on How the Shifting 'Boomer Bulge' Impacts America’s Housing Market

Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning and Real Estate Development Arthur C. Nelson was recently featured in a two-part interview for PlaceMakers and in an article in Strong Towns, both focusing on how there may soon be too many homes for too few buyers and renters across the country.

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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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Lecture Recap and Video: Jesus M Barajas on 'Equity in Project Prioritization and Planning at State and Regional Transportation Agencies'

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.