Gibbs College Architecture professor and director of the Center for Middle Eastern Architecture and Culture, Dr. Khosrow Bozorgi, is publishing a new book, Medieval Courtyard Design Converging Urban Morphologies from Europe to the Middle East. It will be released by Routledge on December 30, 2025.
This groundbreaking edited collection examines courtyard architecture across Paris, Florence, Siena, Granada, and Yazd to reveal how the deliberate creation of emptiness—the "bounded void"—functions as architecture's primary generative principle. Moving beyond conventional object-based analysis, the book demonstrates that architecture's essence lies not in built form but in calibrated absence. In addition to four chapters written by Bozorgi, who also edited the volume, contributors include Gianluca Belli, Fabio Babbrielli, Michele Pellegrini, Juan Manuel Barrios Rozúa, and Peter Soppelsa.
Through rigorous comparative analysis, readers will discover how courtyards operate as environmental mediators, social organizers, and cosmological instruments across diverse cultures. The studies reveals striking morphological convergences that emerge through parallel evolution rather than stylistic diffusion. Drawing on spatial cognition research, urban morphology, and phenomenological analysis, the book establishes void-focused methodology as a new theoretical framework. This paradigm shift from analyzing solid to void transforms our understanding of both historical and contemporary spatial practice, uncovering universal principles that transcend geographic and temporal boundaries.
It is essential for architectural theorists questioning disciplinary orthodoxies, historians seeking alternatives to period-style categorization, and researchers investigating architecture's cognitive dimensions. The work provides both radical historiographical revision and practical insights for contemporary designers engaging with density, sustainability, and social space.
Learn more and pre-order Dr. Bozorgi’s book on www.routledge.com.
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.
