Sustainable Built Environments

The Key to Healthier Employees Could be a Quieter, or Louder, Office Space
A new study by researchers including Esther Sternberg, professor of architecture, landscape architecture and planning (joint appointment), suggests that too much—or too little—office noise has a negative effect on employee wellbeing. The sweet spot? About 50 decibels, comparable to moderate rain or birdsong.

Lecture Recap and Video: Sharon Collinge on 'Working with Communities to Build Environmental and Societal Resilience'
Sharon Collinge shares her experiences working at the interface of land use and climate change in the context of building resilient ecosystems and communities in this CAPLA Lecture Series lecture.

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

Crossing City Limits (and International Time Zones): CAPLA's Eduardo Guerrero on His Popular Urban Podcast
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.

UArizona Researchers Awarded $3.5M to Fight Extreme Heat
A UArizona team led by CAPLA Assistant Professor Ladd Keith is collaborating with researchers from Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University on a $25 million project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, to study the impact of climate change on Arizona's urban areas.

Lecture Recap and Video: June Williamson on 'A Retrofitting Suburbia Agenda for Equity, Health and Resilience to Climate Change'
June Williamson lectures on the urgent challenges produced by northern American suburban form and showcases urban design strategies to mitigate and address these challenges.

With $6M Grant, Researchers Will Explore How Southwest Communities Can Best Adapt to Climate Change
University of Arizona researchers, including CAPLA's Ladd Keith, are furthering their efforts to examine how water, aridity and heat impact communities in the American Southwest thanks to a $6 million grant from NOAA's Climate Adaptation Partnerships program.

Learning as Rich Experience: Sandra Bernal Cordova, Lecturer and UArizona Hispanic Serving Institution Fellow
UArizona Hispanic Serving Institution Fellow Sandra Bernal Cordova, who joined CAPLA in 2018 as a lecturer, uses her built environment research, community service and cross-campus collaborations to inform the classes she teaches and co-teaches, which include Water Efficiency in Building, Equitable Cities and the Sustainable Built Environments Capstone.

Lecture Recap and Video: Seth Okyere on 'Walking the Unwalkable City: An Exploration of Walking Conditions, Experiences and Interventions in the Global South'
Seth Okyere lectures on "Walking the Unwalkable City," a discussion which brings forward conditions and experiences of a walking city that is not walkable and, most importantly, resident improvisations to minimize walking inequities.

Timely, Essential ‘Planning for Urban Heat Resilience’ Report Wins Planning Awards
CAPLA Assistant Professor of Planning and Sustainable Built Environments Ladd Keith and ASU Associate Professor Sara Meerow have been honored with the Western Planner 2022 Sheldon D. Gerber Merit Award for Excellence in Environmental Planning and 2022 APA Arizona Open Category (Applied Research) Award for their Planning for Urban Heat Resilience.

Designing Suburban Futures: June Williamson, Visiting Professor of Architecture
Visiting Professor of Architecture June Williamson has joined CAPLA for the Fall 2022 semester from The City College of New York. Her research focuses on northern American suburban form and its discontents, documenting how underperforming suburban property types and development patterns are being redeveloped, reinhabited or regreened.

The Washington Post Built a Fake City to Demonstrate Extreme Heat: CAPLA’s Ladd Keith Provides Expert Analysis
“Welcome to Meltsville,” reads the new sign for a fake metropolis featured this week in The Washington Post. The interactive article relies on the expert analysis of Ladd Keith, assistant professor of planning and sustainable built environments at CAPLA, who provides insight on extreme heat's effects on infrastructure.
