Gibbs College Architecture professor and director of the Center for Middle Eastern Architecture and Culture, Dr. Khosrow Bozorgi, is publishing a new book, Medieval Courtyard Design Converging Urban Morphologies from Europe to the Middle East. It will be released by Routledge on December 30, 2025.
This groundbreaking edited collection examines courtyard architecture across Paris, Florence, Siena, Granada, and Yazd to reveal how the deliberate creation of emptiness—the "bounded void"—functions as architecture's primary generative principle. Moving beyond conventional object-based analysis, the book demonstrates that architecture's essence lies not in built form but in calibrated absence. In addition to four chapters written by Bozorgi, who also edited the volume, contributors include Gianluca Belli, Fabio Babbrielli, Michele Pellegrini, Juan Manuel Barrios Rozúa, and Peter Soppelsa.
Through rigorous comparative analysis, readers will discover how courtyards operate as environmental mediators, social organizers, and cosmological instruments across diverse cultures. The studies reveals striking morphological convergences that emerge through parallel evolution rather than stylistic diffusion. Drawing on spatial cognition research, urban morphology, and phenomenological analysis, the book establishes void-focused methodology as a new theoretical framework. This paradigm shift from analyzing solid to void transforms our understanding of both historical and contemporary spatial practice, uncovering universal principles that transcend geographic and temporal boundaries.
It is essential for architectural theorists questioning disciplinary orthodoxies, historians seeking alternatives to period-style categorization, and researchers investigating architecture's cognitive dimensions. The work provides both radical historiographical revision and practical insights for contemporary designers engaging with density, sustainability, and social space.
Learn more and pre-order Dr. Bozorgi’s book on www.routledge.com.
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.
