Fifth year architecture student, Benjamin Jawad, won an AIA Dallas Student Design award for his project 8209 Park Lane. The project was developed in the Design 7 course under the direction of Amy Leveno.
The competition allowed entries from current architecture students from Texas and Oklahoma, both from the undergraduate and graduate level. The competition sought entries that were, “responsive to beauty, poetry, context and previous condition, inspiration, process, environmental and social impact, economy and consumption.”
“Ben’s award submission was creative, thoughtful, well conceived, and beautifully represented,” said Leveno. “His win is a huge accomplishment.”
Jawad’s submission, 8209 Park Ln., was a community housing project based in Victory Meadow, Texas. His submission was the only entry out of Oklahoma to receive an award.
”The project was the result of months of research, iterations, and many late nights in the studio. The project type, location, and brief all presented interesting new challenges that I hadn’t dealt with before, and each decision required balancing practicality and sustainability while addressing the needs of a marginalized community,” said Jawad. “I’m honored to have the project acknowledged by professionals and industry leaders, and it means a lot to know that my ideas resonated with others beyond the studio. The experience as a whole has inspired me to keep designing and creating work that makes a positive impact on the communities it serves.”
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.
