Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture professor and Institute for Quality Communities Director Dr. Amber N. Wiley’s book, Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital, has received two major honors from the Urban History Association. The book won the Joe William Trotter Jr. Prize for Best First Book in Urban History and received an honorable mention for the inaugural Alison Isenberg Prize for Best Book on Urban Placemaking.
Amber Wiley’s Model Schools in the Model City examines how school architecture reflects Black history, activism and community formation in Washington, D.C. Drawing on photographs, family stories, school records, maps, statistical data, architectural plans, litigation and community organization records, Wiley traces the history of Black education and school architecture from the antebellum era through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, white flight, self-segregated school formation and contemporary gentrification. The book connects architectural history with racial activism, education, urban planning, preservation and Black political struggle.
Wiley’s book examines how Black Washingtonians made education a cornerstone in the struggle for racial equality and how they built and shaped a public education system amid changing politics, city governance and persistent racial inequality. The book explores schools ranging from ornate designs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the Brutalist architecture of the 1960s and 1970s, while highlighting the educators, politicians, activists, community leaders, citizens and architects who shaped these spaces and Washington, D.C.
The Urban History Association (UHA) was founded in Cincinnati in 1988 to stimulate interest and research in the history of cities across periods and geographic areas. The organization promotes interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the urban experience and includes historians, geographers, sociologists, planners and public history professionals.
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture assistant professor Amy Leveno and Mark Leveno, co-founders of OFFICIAL Design, have received a 2026 AIA Central States Region Design Award for the firm’s Granger Annex Community Center project in Garland, Texas.
Construction Industry Speaker Series welcomed Stephen Evans from the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum to give a lecture on better conversations and relationship building.
The University of Oklahoma Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture Hall of Fame recognizes a select number of high-character individuals who have made a significant and lasting positive impact on Gibbs College, its students, staff, faculty, alumni and/or to communities across the globe. The impact may have been, or continues to be, in the form of service and mentorship, sustained professional excellence, and/or advancement and financial support. Joseph Edgar Smay is part of the 2025 Hall of Fame class.
