The work of Environmental Design students was featured in a special report by the Independent Shopkeepers Association (ISA) of Oklahoma, the State of Retail 2020.
Students in the Environmental Design Practicum, Spring 2020, worked with community partners in the Bricktown, Downtown Norman, the Plaza District, and Uptown 23rd Street to record tenant mix trends in urban commercial districts. They also worked to identify and research dozens of benchmark districts in peer cities in the United States. Their work was compiled into a special report published by the ISA to offer insights on trends and areas for growth in local districts (see below).
Students who contributed to the research and collaboration with local partners included Cy Bergner, Cole Brignac, Justin Fish, Jennifer Fuentes, Johanna Hilmes, Logan Holtmyer, Charles Joly, Isabel Kienzle, Andrew Meyers, David Miller, Shobha Pathmanathan, Emily Perkins, Trey Potts, Jackson Schultz, Edward Schwarz, Mingming Shi, AJ Talib, Cooper Wilson, and Yueyang ‘Elijah’ Wu.
The Environmental Design Practicum carries OU’s service learning designation and is led by Shane Hampton, director of the Institute for Quality Communities.
Above: Environmental Design practicum students. Note: Taken in Spring 2020, before social distancing protocols were put in place for COVID-19.
Telesis, a journal produced by students in the University of Oklahoma Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture, has earned first place in the 2026 Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals for its seventh volume, “Unfold.” This marks the fourth time the publication has earned recognition for excellence in student architectural journalism. It shares the honor with student journals from Columbia University, University of Michigan, and Cal Poly.
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture congratulates Thinh "Henry" Duong, a master's student in the Division of Interior Design, for earning first place in the 2026 Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition.
Gibbs College of Architecture Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) Director and Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design (PLAD) faculty member Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., recently published a new book, Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Art Museum.
