Projects & Other Work

When Arizona Daily Star sought to put together a “visual trip down memory lane” of Tucson’s commercial real estate development over the last five decades, it turned to students in the Master of Real Estate Development program to lead the research.

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.

Assistant Architecture Professor Courtney Crosson is working with CAPLA students to design solutions for a more sustainable Tucson by 2050, thanks to sponsorship and advising by GLHN Architects & Engineers. In the Fall of 2021, students partnered with five community organizations to design sustainable urban food systems.

This fall, third-year Bachelor of Architecture students in studios led by Teresa Rosano, Dulce Arambula, Eduardo Guerrero, Siri Trumble and Beth Weinstein participated in a universal design awards program generated from a partnership between AGM/Ascension Wheelchair Lifts and CAPLA. Meet the winners.

Nickolas Witt's Mount Lemmon Outdoor Library, Merit Award winner of the inaugural AGM/Ascension Universal Design Prize in 2021, is comprised of two simple floors united around an existing site tree which filters natural light in all innovative spaces.

First-year MS Urban Planning student Glenn Ingram has won the Best Student Map award among all collegiate entrants in the 2021 Arizona Geographic Information Council Maps & Apps Contest. His map, "New York City 100-Year Floodplain," contrasts NYC's population density with the FEMA 100-year floodplain.

Though the ARCC 2021 international conference hosted by CAPLA was held during the pandemic—and therefore online instead of on campus as originally planned—the gathering of many of the world’s most provocative built environment researchers was a resounding success.

Nikolas Altamura's Harlem Music Academy & Studios, winner of the AIA/School of Architecture Design Excellence highest honor for 2021, builds from the neighborhood's rich musical history to serve low-income, at-risk youth by providing access to expression through a music school proposed for a site in East Harlem.

Since 2017, GLHN Architects & Engineers has sponsored and provided technical advising on four architecture studios designed to craft a more sustainable Tucson by the year 2050. This year, the focus turns to urban food systems.

The architecture at Tortuga Ranch, designed by Alec Kelly-Jones '22 M.Arch, expresses the goal of creating spaces that promote interaction, support a variety of traditional practices and help youth understand themselves within the context of all Yaqui people who came before them; translating time, place, celebration and tradition as one generation joins another for the benefit of all generations to come.

This infill project by Sam Owens '22 B.Arch houses the Cooperative Extension Innovation Center which helps bridge the gap between the University of Arizona and the general public. It recognizes that the world is in constant flux, and the human-built world can no longer insist on pretending to be static. Gone are the days of growth without regard for decay, says Owen.

School of Landscape Architecture and Planning Assessment Coordinator Kelly Eitzen Smith, who also serves as project coordinator for the Native Peoples Technical Assistance Office, helped create and launch the new Native American Advancement, Initiatives and Research (NAAIR) web portal.