School of Architecture & Environment News

Sixteen UO juniors wielding tape measures and sketchbooks trudge through a grassy field with the property owner, taking in and jotting down all they survey. That 3-acre site will serve as a blank canvas for the students in assistant professor Christina Bollo’s architecture studio as they work to solve pressing housing problems facing the city. Bollo’s studio is one course of many in the UO’s Sustainable City Year Program, an idea spawned at the College of Design in 2009.

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.

Michael Zaretsky was awarded one of the 2025 outstanding department head awards from the Office of the Provost. Every year, the office recognizes two department heads and awards each with $5,000 payable at their discretion as either a stipend or to their Academic Support Account (ASA).