Dr. Wanda Liebermann, an assistant professor of Architecture, was recently awarded funding as a part of the Gibb’s College of Architecture’s Program for Research Enhancement. Each year, this merit-based program grants funds to Gibb’s faculty members in order to increase their research and creative activities.
Dr. Liebermann received the grant to fund the completion of her book manuscript, Architecture’s Disability Problem, in contract with Routledge. The book analyzes architectural documents and built form, and utilizes public media, interviews, and direct professional experience to address the persistence of exclusionary architectural designs.
Dr. Liebermann analyzes design education, code and policy, and projects that challenge code-compliance to understand how architects produce and share knowledge about atypical human bodies. Her book fights for more creative engagement with concepts like accommodation and interdependence with a goal of reconceptualizing relationships between the built environment and the human body.
Gibbs College is pleased to present the exhibition Vollendorf in Oklahoma: The Architecture of Dean Bryant Vollendorf during the Spring 2025 semester. It will be on display in Gould Hall, on the OU-Norman Campus, from February 16, 2026 - March 13, 2026.
On November 21, 2025, the Mainsite Contemporary Art gallery was transformed into a showcase of innovation and craftsmanship for the University of Oklahoma’s furniture design build studio exhibition, “Purpose in Form.”
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.