School of Architecture & Environment News

Last term, a partnership with Bora Architecture & Interiors put students at the center of one of civic architecture’s most complex design challenges. This special partnership between the Library Design Studio with Bora Architecture and Interiors, a prominent Portland-based firm working to reimagine community-centered civic design, challenged graduate and upper-level bachelor students to design community libraries from the inside out, working alongside industry professionals on questions that go far beyond aesthetics.

The Planning Magazine profiles how "The Sustainable Urban Design Handbook", published by Routledge in 2024, is being used to help demystify sustainability in the built environment. Co-authored by Nico Larco, AIA, professor of architecture and urban design at the School of Architecture & Environment at the University of Oregon and principal of the consulting firm ELEMENT Urban Design, and Kaarin Knudson, AIA, a licensed architect, urban designer, instructor and non-tenured staff at the College of Design at the University of Oregon, and the mayor of Eugene, Oregon, the handbook organizes 50-plus elements into five core sustainability topics and four project scales.

The Institute for Health and the Built Environment at the University of Oregon is on the cutting edge of making sure healthy microbes are in our buildings. Co-Director Mark Fretz speaks with Oregon Grapevine host, Barbara Dellenback, about the connection between buildings and nature. What is beyond framing and windows? He emphasizes the importance of fresh air and light to our health.

The testing facility is part of the Port of Portland’s larger plans to convert Terminal 2 into a Mass Timber and Housing Innovation Campus. Once complete, the campus will encompass 39 acres and include a new factory for building modular housing and other mass timber structures, research and new product development and workforce training.

Pro Tem Instructor, Joan Honeyman, ASLA, was selected by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) this year as an ASLA Fellow for their exceptional contributions to the landscape architecture profession and society at large. Congratulations, Joan!

Professor of Architecture and Environmental Studies Erin Moore and Matt Wittman discuss the overlaps between their very different practices, with a focus on their shared attention to the physical line between buildings and ground, or between soil and atmosphere.

KGW8 explores the history of Elk Rock Garden, the location of this year's Pacific Northwest Preservation Field School.

Fox 12 Oregon came to the Pacific Northwest Preservation Field School to watch and listen as students worked on the historic Elk Rock Garden in Portland.