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Urban Design students, Roshita Taylor, Soujanya Malla, and Jeremy Banes, shared their designs for Sweeney Switch in downtown Harrah, Oklahoma during the town’s St. Patrick Day celebration.
Sweeney Switch is a community design project between the City of Harrah, the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG), the Institute for Quality Communities (IQC), and the OU Urban Design Studio. Graduate students in Urban Design are working with Shawn Schaefer and Urban Design Fellow David Boeck to develop an urban design vision for downtown Harrah, Oklahoma.
On St. Patrick’s Day, the City of Harrah, the Lumber Shack (a new restaurant and entertainment venue in Sweeney Switch), and volunteers from the community garden shut down Tim Holt Drive and a portion of Harrah’s Main Street in order to create a plaza using tactical urbanism techniques that included bringing in picnic tables, food trucks, and a portable stage.
Shawn Schaefer writes, “The temporary intervention was a proof of concept for a permanent public place that our students are currently designing. We learned a lot from the simulation.”
Conceptual Designs of the Sweeney Switch area
The students are focusing on several different aspects of development in their plan, including an entrance gateway to the Sweeney Switch district, a plaza with a fountain and a creek view, a pedestrian bridge, streetscaping and parking along Church and Main Street, and flood management.
The students will incorporate feedback and observations from the St. Patrick’s day event into their final designs for Sweeney Switch.
Gibbs College faculty Ken Marold[PA1.1] 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.
Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce that Dr. Suchismita (Suchi) Bhattacharjee, Associate Dean of Academics and College Administration and Associate Professor of Interior Design, has received the campus-wide Graduate Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Graduate Students.
Gibbs College of Architecture is proud to announce that Dr. Wanda Katja Liebermann, associate professor of Architecture, has been awarded the University of Oklahoma Vice President for Research and Partnerships Award for Excellence in Research, Design, and Creative Expression in the Humanities and Fine Arts for her scholarly monograph, Architecture’s Disability Problem.
