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Urban Design students, Roshita Taylor, Soujanya Malla, and Jeremy Banes, shared their designs for Sweeney Switch in downtown Harrah, Oklahoma during the town’s St. Patrick Day celebration.
Sweeney Switch is a community design project between the City of Harrah, the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG), the Institute for Quality Communities (IQC), and the OU Urban Design Studio. Graduate students in Urban Design are working with Shawn Schaefer and Urban Design Fellow David Boeck to develop an urban design vision for downtown Harrah, Oklahoma.
On St. Patrick’s Day, the City of Harrah, the Lumber Shack (a new restaurant and entertainment venue in Sweeney Switch), and volunteers from the community garden shut down Tim Holt Drive and a portion of Harrah’s Main Street in order to create a plaza using tactical urbanism techniques that included bringing in picnic tables, food trucks, and a portable stage.
Shawn Schaefer writes, “The temporary intervention was a proof of concept for a permanent public place that our students are currently designing. We learned a lot from the simulation.”
Conceptual Designs of the Sweeney Switch area
The students are focusing on several different aspects of development in their plan, including an entrance gateway to the Sweeney Switch district, a plaza with a fountain and a creek view, a pedestrian bridge, streetscaping and parking along Church and Main Street, and flood management.
The students will incorporate feedback and observations from the St. Patrick’s day event into their final designs for Sweeney Switch.
Petya Stefanoff, Chair of the Educational Committee with the American Planning Association, Oklahoma Chapter (APA-OK) and Gibbs College PhD candidate, has developed a new training program for local government officials. The program, focused on land use, zoning principles, and land development, recently certified its first graduates with Certified Citizen Planner status.
Gibbs Construction Science and Architecture students recently traveled to Dublin, Ireland, to compete in the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) Region 8 Student Competition. The team partnered with Czech Technical University and secured third place in the Design-Build category.
Gibbs College is pleased to present the exhibition Vollendorf in Oklahoma: The Architecture of Dean Bryant Vollendorf during the Spring 2026 semester. It will be on display in Gould Hall, on the OU-Norman Campus, from February 16, 2026 - March 13, 2026.
