Projects & Other Work

CAPLA faculty, students and alumni create projects and other work that are wide-ranging and far-reaching—always with an eye towards a more sustainable built environment.

View summaries and image galleries of this dynamic work:

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Map of China

CAPLA Student-Faculty Team Uses GIS to Create Digital Atlas and Award-Winning Poster of Historical Buddhist Sites in Hangzhou, China

This spring, MS Urban Planning student Glenn Ingram, recent MLA graduate Mattea Wallace and Associate Professor Philip Stoker, working with UArizona East Asian Studies Professor Jiang Wu, created the “Regional Religious Systems in Hangzhou China” story map using GIS. This fall, Ingram's poster from the project won an award.

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The Temporal Passage, by Jacob Downard

The Temporal Passage: Jacob Downard '22 B.Arch

The architecture of The Temporal Passage responds to the site's volcanic conditions by being conceptually rooted in scale, time and the moving materials of our living earth in an attempt to convey the magnitude of these natural forces. It further explores the spatial and conceptual juxtapositions between the human-operated straight line and the ensured chaos of nature.

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Sonoran Soundscapes

CAPLA Graduate Students Bring Sights and Sounds of the Sonoran Desert to Austin for SXSW

“For thousands of years, the beauty of the Sonoran Desert has invoked wonder among its human inhabitants,” says Hunter Lohse when introducing the Sonoran Soundscape project that he and fellow MLA students Alizabeth Potucek and Christian Galindo created with Assistant Music Professor Yuanyuan (Kay) Le for the UArizona Wonder House at South by Southwest in March.

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Broadway Boulevard at Swan Road intersection, looking east

Award-Winning Report by CAPLA Urban Planning Students Envisions Equitable, Accessible Public Transportation for Underdeveloped Corridors in Tucson

Last spring, Master of Science in Urban Planning students in Associate Professor Kristina Curran's capstone course published the report Thriving Transit Corridors: Driving Transit-Oriented Development Along Tucson’s Broadway Corridor, which has been awarded the 2022 Student Project Award by the Arizona chapter of the American Planning Association.

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CAPLA faculty at Cool Pavement Project

The Washington Post Interviews CAPLA Professor on Creating ‘Cool Corridors’ to Counter Extreme Heat

Assistant Professor of Planning and Sustainable Built Environments Ladd Keith was interviewed by The Washington Post about the City of Tucson's Cool Pavement Program as well as the inequitable impacts of extreme heat on communities, the concepts behind "cool corridors" and more.

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Map created by Irene Pineda of Pomona, California

Award-Winning Student Map Aims to Help Southern California City Plant a Sustainable Future

Recent Master of Landscape Architecture student Irene Pineda has won first place in the graduate/professional student category of the UArizona 2022 Data Visualization Challenge for her map Plant Trees in Pomona for a Sustainable Future. Her map identifies where trees should be planted to provide more shading in the rapidly industrializing Southern California city.

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The Avenue Solar Decathlon Design Challenge entry

UArizona Architecture Students Win 2022 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Design Challenge Grand Prize

Professor Jonathan Bean and the Solar Decathlon Design Challenge Multifamily Building team of fourth-year B.Arch students Andrew Norris, Jonah Cummins-Mikkalson, Alex Kolodziej and Nhan Vo not only took first place in their division, but also was selected as the 2022 Design Challenge Grand Winner for Commercial Divisions—a first for CAPLA and UArizona.