The Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture envisions a future where communities are adaptive and empowered to thrive. Our research supports this vision by addressing real-world challenges, fostering creative solutions, and preparing students to make lasting contributions. Focus areas include entrepreneurship, health and wellbeing, placemaking, and sustainability. Through interdisciplinary work in areas such as BIM technology, accessible housing, and human-centered design, our faculty and students help shape a resilient built environment. This work is supported by a network of research centers and institutes that deepen our impact across Oklahoma and around the world.
Research in Entrepreneurship and Applied Practice advances innovation, agency, and implementation in planning, design, and construction through community-embedded and practice-oriented inquiry. Our faculty and students work at the intersection of research, professional practice, and public impact—developing new methods, tools, and delivery models that translate ideas into real-world outcomes while centering community needs and partnerships.
Research areas include:
Health and Wellbeing research explores how the built environment shapes physical, psychological, and social health across the lifespan. Gibbs faculty and students integrate design research, community engagement, and emerging insights from environmental psychology and neuroscience to create more empathetic, accessible, and human-centered environments—particularly for historically underserved populations.
Research areas include:
Placemaking and Belonging research addresses how cities, neighborhoods, and landscapes foster identity, access, and social connection. Our faculty and students partner with communities to address pressing social and spatial challenges—ranging from rural and urban contexts to historic preservation and civic revitalization—while advancing participatory approaches to shaping places that matter.
Research areas include:
Gibbs College also hosts the Gibbs Design Activism Awards, empowering students to propose and lead projects that critically engage with community, social, and economic challenges within the built environment.
Research in Resilience and Sustainability advances forward-looking solutions for buildings, infrastructure, and communities facing environmental, climatic, and material challenges. Faculty and students integrate engineering innovation, design research, and performance-driven experimentation to develop systems that are durable, adaptive, and responsive to changing conditions.
Research areas include:
View Resilience News and Sustainability News.
The American School Project strives to document and share the development and impacts of the school of design and practice that developed at the University of Oklahoma in the 1950s and ’60s.
CMEAC seeks to advance knowledge of the Middle Eastern build environment and culture for its intellectual and academic values.
The CPD builds upon a legacy of collaborative partnerships between OU faculty and students and communities affected by conflict in northern Uganda.
The Carceral Studies Consortium brings together faculty, staff and students across colleges at the University of Oklahoma to cultivate rigorous scholarship and community engagement toward social transformation in the broad area of Carceral Studies.
The BIM + VIZ Lab space is designed for teams of researchers and designers to interact in an immersive virtual reality environment to support interdisciplinary teams as they interface with technology in the analysis of spatial, data, and temporal aspects of a facility or infrastructure model.
The Institute for Quality Communities (IQC), based in Gibbs College, partners with communities across Oklahoma to tackle local challenges through design, planning, and policy. By sharing best practices and fostering dialogue, IQC helps strengthen civic spaces and support development. Its biennial Placemaking Conference brings together national experts, local leaders, and students to explore strategies for building vibrant, resilient communities.
Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce that Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture and Design and director of the Institute for Quality Communities, has received national recognition for her book Model Schools in the Model City. The book has been named a finalist for the 2026 the PROSE Awards.
Gibbs College of Architecture Regional + City Planning Professor of Practice Vanessa Morrison and Associate Professor of Architecture Deborah Richards’ Open Design Collective received top honors at the inaugural BlackSpace Urbanist Collective Studio KIN Pitch Night Competition, held last month in Brooklyn, New York City.
The Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce that Dr. Tamar Zinguer, Associate Professor of Architecture, has been selected to participate in the prestigious 2026 Summer Residency at the National Humanities Center (NHC).
The Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture is proud to celebrate a series of recent accomplishments by Dr. Jim Collard, Professor of Practice in the Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design, whose work continues to shape conversations around Indigenous economic development nationally and internationally.
Associate Professors Lee Fithian, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Pober have published a chapter in the recently released New Perspectives in Indoor Air Quality, published by Elsevier. Their contribution, titled “Chapter 16 – Architecture and the Challenges of Indoor Air Quality,” examines the relationship between architecture and indoor air quality.
