The University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning is one of the few institutions in the country that houses a complete range of design, construction and planning disciplines within the same academic unit. Architecture, construction management, interior design, landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, historic preservation and sustainability and the built environment teach students real-world problem solving skills and encourage active participation in communities in order to be responsible citizens.
Intelligent solutions to the problems of planning, designing and building sustainable communities emerge, as John Dewey asserts, “as a result of reflective action and experience” gained through community-based projects. These community building activities extend to our state, other states in the U.S. and even countries around the globe.
Recent Community Design, Planning and Construction projects
The Old Mount Carmel Baptist Church has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, gaining formal recognition of the property’s historic significance as a cultural and architectural resource to the State of Florida. Learn More.
University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning Ph.D. student Amie Edwards seized the opportunity to shed light on African architecture, namely the Asante culture. While doing fieldwork for her master’s research in Ghana, Edwards was inspired to contribute to the marginalized literature that exists regarding African architecture. Learn More.
Thanks to the University of Florida Shimberg Center for Housing Studies in the M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management and with support from JPMorgan Chase, Floridians have a new statewide web-based mapping app that identifies housing exposed to flood hazards due to storm events and sea level rise. Learn More.
Fifty miles separates the University of Florida campus from the Ocklawaha River, considered one of the most endangered rivers in America. For 50 years, UF faculty and students have been helping to free it by applying science and design with advocates for the river. Currently leading the charge for UF is Landscape Architecture Research Associate Professor Tom Hoctor, who this past fall took the “Free the Ocklawaha” project to new heights by assigning his students nine conceptual projects and asking them to reimagine what restoration and recreation opportunities were possible with a restored river. Learn More.
Students from the University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning and the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering teamed up to participate in the annual Witters Competition. This year, 12 teams were challenged to think about “innovative, sustainable and community-centric solutions” for the site redevelopment of the decommissioned Fire Station #1 located in downtown Gainesville. Learn More.
Wei Zhai and his team received a $10,000 year-long Microsoft AI for Earth grant, offering him access to imperative computational resources such as Azure Machine Learning, Virtual Machine and App Service and Storage. Zhai, his adviser Dr. Zhong-Ren Peng, professor and director of the International Center for Adaptation Planning and Design (iAdapt), and Ph.D. students Hongming Li and Mengdi Zhu from UF’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, plan to create real-time models of human mobility in extreme weather events (EWEs) across America’s large cities. Learn More.
The University of Florida’s Donald R. Dizney Stadium’s locker room facility on UF’s campus is the first building in Florida to be LEED certified by students and just the 11th globally. Led by DCP Sustainability and the Built Environment Program Director and UF Green Building Learning Collaborative Director Bahar Armaghani, LEED Lab students successfully certified the lacrosse locker room facility under the LEED v4.1 certification. Learn More.
The Florida Resilient Cities Program, a collaborative group made up of members from DCP’s Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER), Shimberg Center for Housing Studies and the Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, the program’s mission is to help communities across Florida develop the capacity to be more prepared for and more resilient to increased risk from weather disasters. Learn More.