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.
A project designed by Gibbs College of Architecture faculty member Austin Lightle has been selected for BuildFest 2026, a national art and architecture festival held at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in New York, on the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival.
Two Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture alumni are helping shape recommendations that could influence affordable housing design and construction across Oklahoma.
The University of Oklahoma Libraries recently welcomed Carl Siegel as an Architecture Librarian and Archivist and Assistant Professor. In his role, Siegel supports students, faculty and staff across the Gibbs College of Architecture while also serving as archivist for the American School of Architecture Archives.
