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The Open Design Collective, a nonprofit design and planning firm founded by Vanessa Morrison and Deborah Richards, was recently featured in Architect magazine. Vanessa Morrison, the Associate Director of the University of Oklahoma’s Institute of Quality Communities, is a social-impact planner who lives and works in northeastern Oklahoma City. Deborah Richards, AIA, is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Gibbs College and a licensed architect in New York, Oklahoma and Massachusetts. Morrison and Richards founded the Open Design Collective to create an Oklahoma City-based design firm that centers community input and engagement as the main driver of the design process.
The article in Architect magazine reports on the Open Design Collective’s first major project, the South of 8th Street Masterplan. The Oklahoma City Redevelopment Authority commissioned the Open Design Collective to create a masterplan for property in northeastern Oklahoma City owned by the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority (OCURA). The historically Black area was severely impacted by past urban renewal and highway development efforts. The Open Design Collective engaged the community to develop a masterplan for future development in the area, which will be published sometime in the coming months.
To learn more about how the Open Design Collective engaged the community to develop the masterplan, read the Architect article.
Robert L. Wesley, a pioneering architect and beloved mentor, has died at age 88. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Wesley joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) in 1964 and became the firm's first Black partner in 1984. Throughout his career, he contributed to significant architectural projects while maintaining a strong commitment to civic engagement and professional mentorship.
The Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture is proud to celebrate a series of recent accomplishments by Dr. Jim Collard, Professor of Practice in the Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design, whose work continues to shape conversations around Indigenous economic development nationally and internationally.
University of Oklahoma Gibbs College of Architecture Dean Hans E. [PA1.1]Butzer returned to one of his most significant works on December 15, joining survivors and past and present board members for the groundbreaking of a $15.8 million expansion of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.
