Jesus Nava was born in Sinaloa, Mexico, and grew up in San Diego, California. He was drawn to UArizona and the Bachelor of Architecture because of the beauty of the Sonoran Desert and its many outdoor recreation opportunities—as well as UArizona’s “great basketball program.”

For the third year in a row, UArizona architecture students participated in a universal design competition that put their creative and analytical skills to the test on a significantly sloped site. Thanks to AGM Container Controls and Ascension Wheelchair Lifts, the winning students received a total of $7,400 in prizes.

“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.

Julia Smith isn’t your typical design student, and for Puente—the Hispanic student organization of CAPLA that she recently led—that’s a good thing. Though Smith is a second-year Bachelor of Architecture student, she’s six years older than most of her classmates. She’s also married to a member of the U.S. military.

Ventana House, by CAPLA Professor of Practice in Architecture Michael Kothke and Kathy Hancox of HK Associates, was the top reader’s choice for architecture projects in October 2022 in Architizer.

Manuel Cervantes Céspedes, Manuel Cervantes Estudio lectures on "The Tectonics of Place" on November 18, 2022, at Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson.

School of Architecture faculty members have been honored once again by the Arizona chapter of the American Institute of Architecture: Laura Carr with the Community Design Award, Eric Weber and Trevor Watson with the Design Pedagogy Award and Jesús Edmundo Robles Jr (DUST Architects) and Michael Kothke (HK Associates) with Distinguished Architecture Citations.

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.

Mason White and Lola Sheppard of Lateral Office lecture on "Architecture's Other Agencies: Spatial Practice and New Vernaculars" on November 2, 2022.

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.

CAPLA Heritage Conservation Program Project Director Helen Erickson and graduate students Sarah McDowell and Teresa DeKoker have been instrumental in efforts to preserve Camp Naco, a borderlands Buffalo Soldier camp located near Bisbee, Arizona, resulting in awards for their story map and new funding to preserve the site.

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.