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In collaboration with design and engineering firm Kimley-Horn, the town of Westville, Oklahoma, recently began developing a project created by a team of students from the Institute for Quality Communities. The IQC perennially invites communities across Oklahoma to collaborate on urban planning and design projects, employing the knowledge and skills of students and faculty at Gibbs College to deliver recommendations.
In 2022, Westville approached the IQC with a proposal to revitalize a vacant downtown lot. During the spring 2023 semester, Ph.D. Assistant Rebecca Blaine, Graduate Assistants Jake Lange, Henry Wilson and Natalie Young and Graduate Consultant Rajith Kedarisetty began working on the project. The team also partnered with various local organizations, including Westville Public Schools, the OSU Extension High Obesity Program and the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.
Westville Town Square Park, Final Concept, August 2023. By Kimley-Horn.
The team hosted workshops, met with stakeholders and conducted research to ensure that their design proposals met the needs of the local community. Together, they drew up plans to transform the vacant lot into a new town plaza that features a food truck park, an outdoor stage and a skatepark. They also developed design guidelines to enhance streetscapes and overall community connectivity.
The team’s design concepts have been incorporated into the final plan for the park and will soon become a reality. The project also recently received a Merit Award from the Oklahoma chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects in the Student Collaboration category. This award recognizes superior professional accomplishment of collaborative work by Landscape Architecture students with students from allied or complementary disciplines.
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.
