Exploring Change: CAPLA Students Publish Ninth Installment of [ABouT] Journal

CAPLA students have published the ninth edition of [ABouT] Journal, "[ABouT] CHANGE," exploring themes of transformation in the Southwest through student projects, interdisciplinary work, and insights from leading practitioners.

The 2025 version marks the inaugural attempt at aligning the publication with the curricular offerings of the Adaptive Futures Research & Innovation Track.

CAPLA students brought their vision to life with the help of visiting Assisting Professors Brendan Sullivan Shea and Noémie Despland-Lichert.

When it came time to select a theme, students gathered for a think tank to brainstorm critical themes within architecture: housing, land use, modern design, climate change, etc. 

“We wanted to keep the theme broad enough to incorporate a variety of submissions as well, so we decided upon change within the southwest,” said Zavier Bizon, a fifth-year B.Arch student whose role focused on logistics and coordination of the publication. “This theme is an umbrella term that approaches the rapid development within our world and how architecture is keeping up.”

When asked what the theme of change meant to Shea, he shared this:

“A half-written note, a pen with no ink

A lion tamer's heart hanging over the brink

Radio noise going down in the mud

Making it all the way from the mountain to the sea”

—Calexico, “Mirador”

Fourteen student projects were included in the publication, spanning different years of study within the program. 

The first section, “Across Design,” is a sequence of student projects collected from seminars and studios alongside design/build projects from faculty. 

The middle section, “Beyond Digression,” features interdisciplinary and experimental work curated from a wide variety of contributors working within design and its affiliated disciplines in the borderlands and beyond. 

The final section, “Through Discourse,” includes original interviews and personal reflections from a cast of celebrated practitioners and academics that have intersected the college and impacted its culture. 

Khadija Didan, a fifth-year architecture student, was one of six CAPLA students on the editorial board. She contributed to eight projects, including her  own work and the curation of other students’ projects. 

“One of the highlights of my involvement was reconnecting with Léopold Lambert, a previous guest lecturer at CAPLA and the editor-in-chief of The Funambulist magazine based in France,” she said. 

For the students involved, this project was an invaluable learning experience, especially when it came to teamwork. 

“I learned quite a lot about the logistics involved in publication. There are a lot of moving parts that require coordination and more people involved than one would initially expect,” said Bizon. “I also learned about the importance of funding for project backing and getting the right people involved early on.”

“Project coordination was the most valuable skill I gained while working on this project,” said Editorial Board Member Sal Arellano. “Coordination is one of the most important skills to have as an architect and the experience I gained in that skill is invaluable.”

Bizon’s work on this journal greatly enriched his learning experience at CAPLA.

“I learned quite a lot about the logistics involved in publication. There are a lot of moving parts that require coordination and more people involved than one would initially expect,” he said. “I also learned about the importance of funding for project backing and getting the right people involved early on.”

For Shea, this was his first time working on the publication. He served informally as a consultant to the editorial team of the journal in the 2024 spring semester and stepped into the role of faculty advisor that fall. 

He said that working with the student editorial team on this endeavor reinforced a lesson he was all too familiar with; students are the best part of teaching. 

“When it comes to learning from the wonders and wisdom of the desert and rethinking the built and natural environment based on these discoveries, the CAPLA student body is one of a kind,” said Shea. “I remain confident that the uniquely imaginative set of skills we cultivate in architecture school—from learning how to design a building to learning how to construct a journal—can help students imagine nothing short of the possibility to reshape the world.”

Shea had nothing but praise for the student team that worked hard to bring this “[ABouT] Change” to life. 

“The student editorial team has done an outstanding job balancing the display of a wide array of projects in a way that feels conceptually fresh and visually exciting while also establishing a coherent conceptual framework to introduce a thoughtful structure of interrelated sub-themes,” he said.

“[ABouT] Change,” was edited by the student team of Nwaf Aladwani, Oliver Alexander, Fatmah Almahfouz, Mohammad Alsaeidi, Nickolas Amparan, Ernesto Apodaca Lopez, Sal Arellano, Zavier Bizon, Flynn Cook, Ludwika Curiel, Khadija Didan, Cristobal Flores Murrieta, Connor Gerspacher, Joshua Gonzalez, Billy Hower, Emily Kulka, Christian MacKay, Naia Mesalic, Emme Mooday, Alexio Mora, Louis Narcisi, Damien Narum-Brelay, Cameron Noble, Jed Perea, Stan Phillips, Annick Puchette, Alfredo Quezada, Travis Reihner, Drew Rodriguez, Joshua Stephan, Sasha Terpilovskaya, and Christine Ufondu and advised by faculty from the Adaptive Futures Research & Innovation Track (‘24) Noémie Despland-Lichtert and (‘25) Brendan Sullivan Shea.

Contributors include Nwaf Aladwani, Abdullah Alobaid, Sal Arellano, Mohammad Alsaedi, Dayton Bay, Nathan Becenti, Claire Blanchette, Will Bruder, Luke Cole, Noémie Despland-Lichtert, Khadija Didan, Eduardo Guerrero, Lauren Harper, Luis Ibarra, Eddie Jones, Emily Kulka,  Leopold Lambert, David Maples, Jacob Moore, Elian Moreno, Myles Peña, Jed Perea, Teresa Rosano, Yuseph Sakr, Drew Rodriguez, Mike Silver and Christopher Tucker.