Faculty

Passive Building: CAPLA’s Jonathan Bean on How Infrastructure Funding Can Help Buildings Meet Climate Change Goals
In the Biden administration’s new infrastructure law, funding is available to states and communities that UArizona Assistant Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Built Environments Jonathan Bean says can be used to help fight climate change. Learn how and listen to the full interview.

Planning for Urban Heat Resilience: Professor Ladd Keith Partners with American Planning Association on Essential Publication
Thanks to a partnership with the American Planning Association, CAPLA's Ladd Keith and ASU's Sara Meerow have published a comprehensive guide for planners and their communities to equitably prepare for urban heat resilience and mitigation: Planning for Urban Heat Resilience.

Plan the Plan
Plan the Plan aims to apply crowd-source technology to foster greater inclusion and social justice in the City of Tucson’s neighborhood planning process. CALPLA faculty and students applied this platform to seven neighborhoods in the Grant-Alvernon area of Tucson, Arizona.

Camp Naco Story Map
The Camp Naco story map tells the story of the still-standing adobe Buffalo Soldier cavalry camp and its meaning both to the descendants of these soldiers and to African American members of the military and their families.

Identification of Limits to Development of Innovative Affordable Housing Types in the Tucson Area
Architecture lecturer Bill Mackey investigates the development regulations, costs and trends within the metropolitan Tucson region associated with “innovative” housing types on individual lots for a Drachman Institute project funded by AARP.

City of Tucson's Climate Action and Adaptation Plan
Faculty members Courtney Crosson and Ladd Keith, along with community partners, develop a Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) to help the City of Tucson establish a path to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Ryan Smith Named Director of School of Architecture at the University of Arizona
Ryan Smith, a 2002 UArizona B Arch alumnus who has served as professor and director of the School of Design and Construction at Washington State University since 2018, has been named the director of the School of Architecture at CAPLA. He will join us in Tucson on July 1, 2022.

Ketchup, the Telephone and Cherry Coke: CAPLA Scholar Explains How World's Fairs Bring Inventions to the Public
World's fairs introduced us to Heinz ketchup, the Ferris wheel, the telephone and countless other now-ubiquitous innovations. Lisa Schrenk, a CAPLA associate professor who studies world's fairs, has helped establish a new institute to study how the events impact global society. Learn more in this interview.

CAPLA Planning and Real Estate Law Professor Helps Land Tucson Midtown Townhomes on National Register of Historic Places
Linus Kafka, CAPLA professor of practice in planning and real estate law, spearheaded the successful addition of the "desert modernist" Orchard River Garden Park, a 136-unit townhome complex built on a former pecan orchard, to the National Register of Historic Places.

Extreme heat is the deadliest climate hazard in the U.S. How are urban planners tackling it?
In a paper published in December 2021 in the Journal of the American Planning Association, ASU's Sara Meerow and UArizona's Ladd Keith analyzed the results of their extreme heat survey of planners from diverse cities across the United States to establish baseline information for a growing area of planning practice and scholarship that future research can build on.

Inaugural Institute for the Study of International Expositions Symposium Looks to the Past to See the Future
On March 24 and 25, 2022, the Institute for the Study of International Expositions (ISIE) will host its first annual symposium: International Expositions: Looking to the Past, Seeing the Future. Registration for the online event co-sponsored by CAPLA is now open.

Sustainable Built Environments Professor Ladd Keith Provides Insight for CBS Story on Tucson’s Climate Action Goal
Ladd Keith, CAPLA assistant professor of planning and sustainable built environments, was quoted in a February 17, 2022 KOLD-TV story on Tucson’s goals to become carbon neutral by 2030. “We need to make sure the most vulnerable in our community are taken care of when we address climate change.”
