Felipe Flores, a PhD Student in Planning, Design, and Construction under the advisement of Dr. Angela Person, was recently awarded the Architectural Research Centers Consortium’s (ARCC) 2022 King Medal for the University of Oklahoma. The King Medal, named in honor of the late Jonathan King, is awarded to one student per ARCC member institution. Recipients are selected at the discretion of member institutions based on criteria that acknowledges innovation, integrity, and scholarship in architectural and/or environmental design research.
Felipe, an Ecuadorian architect, is currently conducting research involving Indigenous communities in the Amazon. He is particularly interested in exploring how design can alternatively engage with issues related to encroachment on Indigenous territories, resource extraction, and contemporary narratives of what a possible post-development landscape in the Andean Amazon could hopefully look like.
Felipe recently presented a poster with the early stages of his research at 34th Annual National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE 2022) held in Portland, Oregon. He used the conference presentation to determine receptiveness of the audience towards the topic and gather important feedback.
Felipe also co-organized the Resilient Futures Symposium and contributed to the Muscogee Futurity exhibition, which both took place in the Spring of 2022. As part of his role as a graduate fellow with the Center for Peace and Development, Felipe co-organized the Youth Perspectives on Climate Change symposium. He also was a student editor for the most recent volume of the student journal Telesis.
The University of Oklahoma College of Architecture is proud to announce that Model Schools in the Model City, authored by Director of the Institute for Quality Communities, Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., has been named one of ten finalists for the 2026 ASALH Book Prize for Best New Book in African American History and Culture.
This semester, students in the LA 5535 Studio: Ecological Planning and Design, led by Prof. Afsana Sharmin, took on an ambitious hypothetical project to redesign key parts of the OU campus. Their mission: to tackle the critical real-world challenge of stormwater management through innovative green design.
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.
