Our Work

Explore the scholarly, curricular and creative work of our faculty and students as we mobilize our disciplines on today's most pressing societal challenges. Through studios, sponsored and independent research, faculty and students across our programs engage with real-world projects that reimagine our built environment, innovate modes of practice and transform communities both locally and globally.

Our approach to research

Intersight, our journal of student work

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  • Climate Adaptation and Resilience Across Scale
    11/16/21

    This book highlights North American cases that deal with issues such as climate projections, public health, adaptive capacity of vulnerable populations, and design interventions for floodplains, making the content applicable to many locations around the world. The contributors in this book discuss topics ranging from how built environment professionals respond to a changing climate, to how the building stock may need to adapt to climate change, to how resilience is currently being addressed in the design, construction, and operations communities.

  • Rooting Resilience: Planning for the future of urban agriculture in Buffalo, New York
    8/1/21

    Lanika Sanders, a 2021 graduate of the Master of Urban Planning program, was recognized with the MUP Best Professional Project for her research on Buffalo’s urban agriculture landscape, synthesizing existing plans and policies to highlight opportunities for enhancement of Buffalo's agricultural capacity.

  • Giga Shed Urbanism
    8/1/21

    Reid Hetzel (MArch '21) was recognized with the Design Excellence Award for his thesis, a reimagining of Buffalo's Tesla Gigafactory as civic space,

  • Botanical Garden Master Plan
    8/1/20
    The North Tonawanda Botanical Gardens is an 11-acre site located on 1825 Sweeney Street in North Tonawanda, NY, bordering the Niagara River. The site is overseen by the North Tonawanda Botanical Gardens Organization (NTBGO), a nonprofit working towards restoring the garden to a scenic destination for community education and activity. Three members of the NTBGO, David Conti, Robbyn Drake and Laura Pecoraro, gave students the opportunity to design a proposal for the renovation and re-imagination of the North Tonawanda Botanical Gardens.
  • Off the Grid
    8/1/20
    During the Summer 2020 semester, Off the Grid, led by Professor Jon Spielman, was one of three remote programs being offered. This studio investigated new ways of exploring systems requiring energy established by the man-made grid system. 
  • Resilience Hub
    5/1/20
    During the Junior Spring semester an integrated design studio is carried out and aimed toward incorporating various systems into a larger building tectonic. In the Spring of 2020, students designed a laufmachine, a self-propelled, two-wheeled vehicle; it is the 19th century predecessor to the bicycle. This portion of the semester prompted students to begin thinking about a multitude of systems within their designs through this construction process. 
  • As the climate changes, architects and engineers need to design buildings differently
    10/24/19
    As climate change intensifies, much of the nation's building stock will need upgrading to strengthen it against flooding, snowstorms and other weather hazards.
  • "Renaturing" a former slaughterhouse to respond to a changing climate
    7/18/19
    As part of a multi-year initiative in Madrid, associate professor of architecture Joyce Hwang will join an international group of designers to explore how design can create a new discourse on climate change in the context of public space.
  • Joyce Hwang's latest “habitecture” project uses dead tree to give new life to Australian landscape
    6/24/19

    Architecture professor Joyce Hwang's "Life Support" is a living art sculpture that transforms a dead, 400-year-old tree into functional habitat for bats, birds and reptiles. It was installed over the summer in an ecological offset zone in Canberra, Australia.

  • Resilience Hub
    5/1/19
    The junior studio followed the laufmaschine project (see page 128) by designing a Bicycle Institute / Resilience Hub / Community Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The site sits directly adjacent to the Superior Viaduct and the Lake Link bike trail. 
  • Build as you earn and learn
    3/4/19
    Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, and Clifford Amoako explore informal housing dynamics in Kumasi, Ghana.
  • Ground-level Agricultural Survey System (GLASS)
    3/4/19

    So Ra Baek & Martha Bohm join UB mathematics associate professor John Ringland in developing tools to characterize food cultivation practices along roadside transects as a potential complement to traditional remote sensing approaches.

  • Urban agriculture in and on buildings in North America
    3/4/19
    Assistant professor of architecture Martha Bohm studies potential benefits of Urban Agriculture (UB), specifically food production in cities for residents lacking good access to fresh, healthy foods. 
  • 19th century bicycle inspires design for climate change today
    2/27/19

    This spring, 74 students in junior studio are thinking about how climate change is impacting the world today while they examine the laufmaschine, a precursor to the bike from the early 19th century.

  • Adapting Buildings for a Changing Climate
    1/28/19
    In collaboration with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), this series of reports lead by Nicholas Rajkovich help New York’s policymakers, architects, builders, building owners and managers, and residents understand the impacts climate change has on the State’s building sector. 
  • Beyond urban–rural dichotomies
    1/28/19
    Assistant professor of urban planning Zoé Hamstead and collaborators use the Technomass indicator to depict urbanization as a continuous variable.
  • Rehoming student projects - in Buffalo's urban gardens
    1/25/19
    One architecture student’s efforts to find a community use for his class project has helped establish a class-wide venture that will place 10 student-built works in urban gardens across Buffalo.
  • Landscape-Based Extreme Heat Vulnerability Assessment
    1/1/19
    Assistant professor of urban planning Zoé Hamstead and collaborators use mapping to predict the effects of extreme heat in New York City.
  • Energy technology and lifestyle
    8/1/18
    Associate professor of architecture Martha Bohm reports the design process and measured performance of the University at Buffalo's net-zero energy prototype, the GRoW Home.
  • Coastal Dreams
    6/1/18
    Coastal Dreams is a speculative futures project, envisioning the cities along Lake Erie as subjected to extreme winter weather conditions in the face of global climate change. Sara Svisco developed a narrative, which depicts life in 2391, as the lake begins to experience alarmingly high water levels, resulting in the flooding of nearby coastal cities.
  • Winter Storm Vulnerability
    6/1/18
    Juweria Dahir
    William Siegner
    Tom Voigt
  • Polycentricity of urban watershed governance
    3/7/18
    Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, makes an initial contribution towards building a polycentricity index to account for the governing of social–ecological systems.
  • Reimagining terra cotta facades
    12/11/17

    Now in its second year, the Architectural Ceramic Assemblies Workshop convenes architects, engineers and ceramicists to develop environmentally-responsive terra cotta façade prototypes. 

  • Climate change and the tale of two cities
    12/4/17

    With funding from National Science Foundation, two architecture and urban planning faculty members are studying the impacts of heat and cold in Tempe and Buffalo.