Gibbs College faculty Ken Marold and Bryan Bloom were recognized at the 2026 ACSA Architectural Education Awards during the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) 114th Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, held March 26–28, 2026.
The award honors the Urban Learning Greenhouse, a design-build project previously announced as a 2026 ACSA Design-Build Award recipient. The ceremony brought together recipients from across North America to celebrate excellence in architectural education, research, and practice.
The Urban Learning Greenhouse is an interdisciplinary project co-led by Marold, lecturer of Architecture, and Bloom, assistant professor of Construction Science. Located at an elementary school site in downtown Oklahoma City, the project transformed an underutilized portion of a schoolyard into a modular greenhouse and outdoor classroom supporting STEAM education, urban agriculture, and ecological literacy.
Over two academic semesters, architecture and construction science students collaborated from concept through full-scale construction, gaining hands-on experience in client engagement, digital modeling, fabrication, budgeting, scheduling, and on-site assembly.
The greenhouse now serves as a daily learning environment for elementary students, connecting food cultivation, pollinator awareness, and environmental systems directly to classroom instruction.
The Gibbs Design in Action Awards (GDAA) program, led by Dr. Wanda Liebermann, has announced its 2026–2027 funded student projects. The initiative supports design and research work that addresses social, cultural, and economic issues in the built environment through collaboration with faculty and community partners.
The OU Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) 2024 collaboration with the Historic Threatt Filling Station has been recognized in the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's newly released Byways Report: The Scenic Route to Rural Prosperity – a story-driven publication exploring how road trip culture and place-based tourism can fuel economic growth in rural communities.
The Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce that Camille Germany, Chief of Staff, has been named the 2026 recipient of the university-wide Jennifer L. Wise Good Stewardship Award.
