Latest News

faculty and students with a model in studio in Hayes Hall.

The central hub for news on the activities and accomplishments of our faculty, students and alumni.

  • A critic comes home
    9/6/17

    Inspired as a student by school’s legacy in post-Modern architectural criticism, UB alum joins faculty to extend discourse on race and architecture

  • Buffalo 101
    9/4/17

    Incoming students jumped right into the classroom on a daylong orientation tour of Buffalo's world-class architecture and urban design. A key component of orientation, the tour introduces UB's future architects and planners to the city as a source of inspiration and site of investigation.

  • The Practice of Play
    8/31/17
    An article in Canadian Architect highlights a colorful display created by Julia Jamrozik, assistant professor of architecture, and her design partner Coryn Kempster called “Vertical Line Garden,” which is featured as part of this year’s International Garden Festival, a series of installations on display at historic Redford Gardens in Quebec.
  • Remembering America’s lost buildings
    8/31/17
    An article in The Conversation about America’s lost structures includes a piece by Kerry Traynor, clinical associate professor of urban and regional planning, who laments the loss of Buffalo’s Humboldt Parkway, which was torn up in the 1950s to make way for the Kensington Expressway. “The new highway displaced families, divided neighborhoods by race and income and caused property values to plummet,” Traynor said. The article also was published on the Los Angeles Times, via the Associated Press. 
  • How the Large-Scale Privatization of New Orleans' Schools Upholds Inequality
    8/29/17
    An article on Truthout, a nonprofit progressive news organization, about how the large-scale privatization of New Orleans’ schools perpetuates inequality interviews Robert Silverman, professor of urban and regional planning, who said for-profit spin-offs of nonprofit housing initiatives are becoming more common, but profit incentives also raise concerns about “mission drift.” "The other side of it is, when the nonprofit starts dabbling in these for-profit ventures, it opens up arguments that can be made for why the people working for the nonprofit themselves should be given living wages," he said.
  • KieranTimberlake supports UB future architects with undergraduate scholarship
    8/21/17

    Two UB undergraduate architecture students are the recipients of a new scholarship program formed by KieranTimberlake to increase access to architectural education.

  • New faculty expand sociocultural research
    8/21/17

    Two faculty additions will advance the school's rich traditions in teaching and research that situate design and planning in their social, political and historical contexts.  

  • Lessons continue for UB’s GRoW Home
    8/17/17
    An article in Buffalo Business First reports that UB researchers are installing the award-winning GRoW Home on South Campus. The home, which came in second place at the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon in 2015, is poised to become an incubator for ideas about modern design. “I see this as a prototype of how an energy-efficient home can work in Buffalo’s climate,” said Kenneth MacKay, a clinical associate professor of architecture, who is working on the project.
  • Trump’s Hollow Claim about ‘Inner Cities’
    8/13/17
    An article on Fact Check about President Donald Trump’s claims that his administration is spending a lot of money to address the problems in inner cities interviews Robert Silverman, professor of urban and regional planning in the UB School of Architecture and Planning. “There is no discussion taking place in the White House that I am aware of about new initiatives, programs or investments in inner cities,” he said. “The federal agencies that have some of the greatest impacts on urban areas are [Housing and Urban Development], the Department of Education, [Health and Human Services], Transportation and the [Environmental Protection Agency]. The Trump Administration has proposed to cut the budgets of all of those agencies by at least 12 percent in FY2018.” The article appeared in USA Today, as well as NBC affiliates around the country, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth, and other media outlets the Louisville Courier-Journal, Asbury Park Press, Arizona Republic, The Tennessean, and Detroit Free-Press.
  • Cities need more than air conditioning to get through heat waves
    8/10/17

    Architecture professor Nick Rajkovich shares urban planning and design adaptations as cities face more frequent and extreme high-heat events.

  • Experts warn heat waves are the new normal
    8/9/17
    A story on CBC Radio about the heat wave gripping much of southern and central Europe, which residents have christened “Lucifer,” interviews Zoe Hamstead, assistant professor of urban and regional planning in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, who studies extreme heat waves and how cities can adapt to high temperatures without contributing to global warming. Solution include "greening, planting trees and vegetation, or 'blueing,' [which is] creating water features exposing streams to the daylight so that evaporation processes can happen, and using materials like porous pavement that allow water to infiltrate," she said.
  • Cities need more than air conditioning to get through heat waves
    8/7/17
    An article in The Conversation by Nicholas Rajkovich, assistant professor of architecture in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, looks at the growing number of heat waves that are affecting cities around the country and what officials should be doing to prepare for extreme heat events. “No city wants to repeat what happened in Chicago in 1995, when approximately 700 people died during a week-long heat wave. But with a collaborative approach to heat wave planning, perhaps cities can lower the risk of harm from hot weather,” he writes. The article appeared in news outlets that include the Chicago Tribune, Business Standard, Houston Chronicle, Tucson Daily Star, WTOP-AM in Washington, D.C., the Observer, Malta Independent, Econotimes, Business Insider, Salon, Phys.org and San Francisco Chronicle.