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

Urban Design

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  • Code as urban vision: A critique of the Buffalo Green Code
    9/1/21

    This paper provides a critical reflection on the Buffalo Green Code and the city’s efforts to elevate it as a comprehensive vision for the city. The paper pays particular attention to the affordable housing and vacant land challenges of the city, which remain unaddressed in the code, despite the claims of comprehensiveness.

  • Neighborhood Walk
    12/1/20
    This project invited urban planning students to plan and carry out a walk through a neighborhood of their choice. Their walking route needed to be safely navigable as a pedestrian and between .5 and 1 mile in length (around a half hour walk).
  • Urban Renewal and School Reform in Baltimore
    8/18/20

    Urban Renewal and School Reform in Baltimore examines the role of the contemporary public school as an instrument of urban design. Bridging facets of urban design, development, and education policy, this book contributes to an expanded agenda for understanding the spatial implications of school-led redevelopment and school reform.

  • The Fifth Ugliest College Campus in America
    8/1/20
    The campus story of the University at Buffalo is an alliterative tale of excessive optimism and investment, followed by passive indifference and resignation. The result: three campuses—each a stunted fragment of a vision left unfulfilled—the whole less than the sum of its parts. This seminar explored the trials and tribulations of university growth and campus planning at UB—acknowledging the university's checkered past as a means to project a more effective campus future.
  • Wanderland
    5/20/20
    This report was prepared by freshman and sophomore students from across UB in a seminar class taught by urban planning professor Ernest Sternberg. The purpose of the class was to involve students in the experience of conducting a real project for a real client. In this case, students worked with the Town of Amherst, represented by Town Supervisor Brian Kulpa and Margaret Winship, the town’s Director of Strategic Planning, to help envision a Central Park in relationship to a recently expanded and reorganized town park system. 
  • Feasibility Assessment of an Innovation District in Buffalo
    5/20/20
    In the pursuit of creative and contemporary economic development strategies, a group of leaders in Western New York identified an innovation district (ID) as an important potential resource for our region. This term describes urban neighborhood-scale geographic places where a new economy combines high-tech businesses and institutions within a collaborative built environment that is conducive to living, working and playing. The original nomenclature was established by Julie Wagner and Bruce Katz as part of a series of Brookings Institute publications.
  • Greater University District Plan
    5/20/20

    The Greater University District (G.U.D.) Plan provides a clear and cohesive vision to enhance the intersection of the Town of Amherst, the Town of Tonawanda, and the City of Buffalo. By building on existing initiatives and plans, the G.U.D. Plan aims to strengthen assets and transform this area into a healthy, vibrant, and welcoming community.

  • Kaisertown Development Plan
    5/20/20
    The Kaisertown Neighborhood Development Plan aims to strengthen this Buffalo neighborhood's existing assets through a series of improvements. The studio findings aim to promote social participation, economic development, main commercial corridors, and urban environment as well as raise awareness of Kaisertown within the region and the context of the Buffalo.
  • Exclusivity in the street railway era
    9/17/19
    Professor of urban planning Daniel B. Hess and Evan Iacobucci examine the role of historic entry gateways to American streetcar suburbs as markers of exclusivity. 
  • Smart Mobility
    5/20/19
    The following report on the applicability of various smart mobilities for the Buffalo-Niagara region is a synthesis of the full findings produced by the spring 2019 Masters of Urban Planning Studio Practicum led by Professor Bumjoon Kang, PhD in collaboration with the Greater Buffalo-Niagara Regional Transportation Council (GBNRTC). The emerging technologies that are quickly transforming the transportation systems of cities worldwide are considered in this report in an effort to present local transportation planning professionals with a framework for implementing these technologies in the Buffalo-Niagara region. 
  • Differences in behavior, time, location, and built environment between objectively measured utilitarian and recreational walking
    3/4/19
    Bumjoon Kang, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, and collaborators work to to provide operational definitions of utilitarian and recreational walking and to objectively measure their behavioral, spatial, and temporal differences in order to inform transportation and public health policies and interventions.
  • 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.
  • Identifying street design elements associated with vehicle-to-pedestrian collision reduction at intersections in New York City.
    1/1/19
    Bumjoon Kang, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, evaluates associations between the installation of eleven street design elements, between 2007 and 2015, and subsequent changes in vehicle-to-pedestrian collisions in New York City
  • Walking School Bus Program Feasibility in a Suburban Setting
    12/19/18
    Bumjoon Kang, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, and Chunyuan Diao investigate the feasibility of suburban walking school bus programs by studying conditions at Sweet Home Central School District in Western New York.
  • Geolocated social media as a rapid indicator of park visitation and equitable park access
    11/1/18
    Assistant professor of urban planning Zoé Hamstead and collaborators analyze geographic human visitation dynamics in all New York City parks using Twitter and Flickr data.
  • Unduk-Naru Ferry Terminal
    7/17/18
    This ferry terminal concept by Jin Young Song focuses on fundamentally dynamic human qualities such as waiting, meeting, playing, and departing.
  • Using social media to understand drivers of urban park visitation in the Twin Cities, MN
    7/1/18
    Assistant professor of urban planning Zoé Hamstead and collaborators use social media data to measure patterns of urban park visitation and assess factors influencing use.
  • Spatial Uncertainties of Education Reform
    2/1/18

    Henderson-Hopkins was the result of a deliberate and participatory decision-making process, a compelling alternative to typical commissioning practices. What went wrong? The paper provides a history of the complex decision-making mechanisms that preceded the design of the school and situates it within the current debates on flexibility. 

  • Housing Estates in Europe
    1/1/18
    Daniel B. Hess and collaborators explore the formation and socio-spatial trajectories of large housing estates in Europe. 
  • Stebbins’s “Vibrant” Article Featured by National Real Estate Magazine
    1/22/16

    With 35 years of experience in urban planning and development, School of Architecture and Planning adjunct professor David Stebbins has learned a few things about how to create a vibrant urban center. His recent co-authored article, entitled “Making Downtowns What They Used to Be,” was featured in Urban Land Magazine.

  • Grand Manner alla Turca: Istanbul's Territorial Appropriations
    8/21/13

    The paper discusses the transformation of Istanbul since the 2000's as it moves towards a polycentric urban model. It delves into the pattern of functional re-centering and articulates the difficulties through urban episodes that come within this terrain.