How can post-disaster recovery efforts maximize housing satisfaction amongst homeowners in impacted areas? Apil K C, a doctoral candidate in Taubman College’s urban and regional planning program, set out to answer this question with help from Larissa Larsen, professor of urban and regional planning, and Sabine Loos, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, in an article published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. “Rethinking housing recovery policy evaluation through assessing satisfaction” analyzes the impact of including a satisfaction metric when determining the success of disaster recovery policies. 

K C, who is from Nepal, based his research on the aftermath of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. Using interview data from 33 households, the article compares the short-term and long-term satisfaction of owners who reconstructed their homes aided by government grants, NGO-led reconstruction, or no assistance. The programs had varying impacts: government grants provided less money but greater autonomy in the reconstruction process, while NGO programs offered more money but almost no autonomy in rebuilding the home.

The article highlights the experience of one NGO-supported household with the following quote from a participant interview: “We had three meetings during the design phase. They showed us the plans, and we approved them. Some of us with larger families were unhappy with the small house size, but others said if we disagreed, we might lose the house altogether and the project would move elsewhere.”

The article concludes that residents with greater autonomy were more satisfied long-term with the recovery process, while residents with less autonomy had greater short-term satisfaction. The authors recommend that recovery policy prioritize resident autonomy and that metrics of success include household satisfaction.

“A ‘good’ house, as defined by technical checklists of objective measures like reconstruction completion or even livelihood resumption, means little if it cannot facilitate everyday social practices, economic activities, and cultural continuity,” Apil wrote. “By centering recovery around satisfaction, there is the potential to move from a model of structural rebuilding to one of transformative resilience, ensuring that policies respond not just to disasters, but to the everyday needs of those who live through them.”

Read the full article in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

A group project submitted by students from the architecture project team ARCH1 won third place and a €500 prize in Archcontest’s Schrödinger’s Room – Edition #1 competition. The international, conceptual architecture competition invited participants to design a room inspired by quantum superposition, in which the space becomes a perceptual installation that shifts meaning with each observer.

ARCH1’s project, “Deteriorating Traces,” was submitted by B.S. Arch ’26 students Lilijana Gregov, Rowan Freeman, and Julianne Cucos, and was one of only three entries recognized from the U.S. among the winners and short-listed proposals for the global competition.

Archcontest serves as a platform that links creatives from around the world with partners and stakeholders in need of high-quality project executions, such as building rehabilitation, urban redesign, or district transformation. Competitions offer participants an opportunity to develop skills, learn, and create a significant impact on society. 

Founded in 2024, ARCH1 is the first architecture project team at the University of Michigan. The team’s focus is on producing unified design proposals for researched architectural project competitions, while also enhancing students’ portfolios, team-building abilities, and practical architectural skills. 

“We try to bake in a lot of community into ARCH1, which makes internal project critiques flow a lot smoother,” said Elliot Lavigne, B.S. Arch’26, ARCH1’s principal director.

Working in teams of three, ARCH1 submitted nine different proposals for the competition, with each small group project reviewed and informed by the larger team.

“As an architect, you will always be presented with projects that you aren’t sure how to represent at first. ARCH1 offers Taubman students a connection to the real world,” said Gregov, ARCH1’s creative director. “It also offers more community between undergrads at different levels. There’s something to learn for everyone working with people in different stages of architecture.”

Read more about the third-place project below.

Deteriorating Traces 

Students: Lilijana Gregov, Rowan Freeman, Julianne Cucos

“This installation is a physical experiment in indeterminacy. Stud walls, clad in thin plywood and uniformly painted red, create spatial conditions that seem stable but are not. Visitors enter as observers and, through each movement of a wall, unwittingly alter the space. Any interaction can trigger panels to tip, joints to fail, or plywood to splinter. These events do not follow a set order; they occur as actions accumulate, eventually collapsing the system from within. Every time a wall moves, the room takes on a new, unique configuration that will never repeat. Each change permanently alters the form, creating a fresh set of unknown possibilities for the next visitor. This installation ends when only four walls remain, compressed into a space that can no longer be entered, surrounded by traces of its previous states.

The project shows how user actions lead to irreversible changes in space. As the structure shifts, sustains damage, and nears its final closed state, each choice made leaves a physical record. The surrounding pavilion supports this, containing the experiment and framing its ongoing transformation. Rather than appearing as debris in the open landscape, the installation is presented as a controlled test, an environment meant to evolve, fail, and eventually conclude.”

— Story by Christina Barber

Three Taubman College alumni have been elevated to the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) College of Fellows (FAIA) for 2026. This distinction represents the AIA’s highest membership honor, recognizing architects for their outstanding achievements and impact on both the field of architecture and society. It is held by less than three percent of AIA members.

Michael L. Perry, B.S. Arch ’80, M.Arch ’82, Daimian Hines, B.S. Arch ’99, M.Arch ’01, and Efrie Escott, M.Arch ’14, were among the 78 architects selected for 2026.

Michael L. Perry, FAIA
Progressive Companies
B.S. Arch ’80, M.Arch ’82
AIA Michigan

Daimian Hines, FAIA
Hines Architecture + Design
B.S. Arch ’99, M.Arch ’01
AIA Texas Society of Architects

Efrie Escott, FAIA
Schneider Electric 
M.Arch ’14
AIA Pennsylvania

Read the full announcement on the AIA’s website.

Taubman College faculty-led projects aimed at expanding renewable energy usage in Ann Arbor, rehabbing vacant homes in Detroit, and converting invasive mussels harvested from the Great Lakes into insulation have received Climate Futures Research Grants.

The one-time grant program aims to accelerate faculty-led climate action and/or resilience through research and creative practice. Winning projects reflect the program’s goals of producing strong interdisciplinary and community partnerships, innovative approaches, and clear potential for measurable impact. Launched at Taubman College in 2024, Climate Futures amplifies architectural, design, and planning contributions to climate action and a sustainable built environment.

Projects were selected by external jurors Surbhi Agrawal, Product Strategist and Data Scientist, Sasaki; Jeana Ripple, Principal and Co-Founder, Mir Collective, and Associate Professor & Chair of Architecture, University of Virginia School of Architecture; and Emily Korman, Resiliency Capital Planning Manager, New Jersey Transit. Following a blind review process, the jury selected three projects to receive a $15,000 award.

Community Energy Futures: Interaction Design to Study New Social Dynamics in Microgrid Energy Sharing

The transition to sustainable energy is one of the paradigmatic challenges of the 21st century, unfolding at many scales. In 2024, residents of Ann Arbor voted to create a community-owned Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU). This is a pioneering effort to operate an opt-in energy utility that provides 100% renewable energy from local solar and battery systems to participating homes and businesses. It is a first-of-its-kind attempt in the U.S. to produce and transmit energy through a community-owned utility that operates in parallel with existing utility options. Ann Arbor’s SEU is positioned as a blueprint for other cities, offering a scalable model for integrating local renewables and accelerating decarbonization. This project aims to anticipate and inform SEU policy decisions shaping new social interactions through microgrid scenarios.

Principal Investigator: Matthew Wizinsky, Associate Professor of Practice in Urban Technology

Co-investigator: Zachary Kaiser, Associate Professor of Design, Technology, and Society, Michigan State University

Additional Team Members: Jack Bernard, B.S. Urban Tech ’27; Pranav Boopalam, B.S. Urban Tech ’27; Elijah Stowell, B.S. Urban Tech ’27

Home Rehab Kit: Increasing Climate Resilience through DIY Strategies

Detroit’s aging housing stock presents both a critical climate challenge and a major opportunity for equitable climate action. Thousands of homes, many owned or formerly owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA), remain vacant or underutilized due to deferred maintenance, limited access to capital, and the technical complexity of rehabilitation. Even when brought into basic compliance with DLBA and/or Detroit ordinances, many homes fall short of modern energy performance standards, leaving residents burdened by high energy costs and contributing to unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. This project builds on ongoing research conducted in partnership with the DLBA to beta-develop and test a weatherization-focused Home Rehab Kit. This free, public, online resource will be designed to help rehabbers working on severely distressed properties improve energy efficiency through accessible, do-it-yourself (DIY) strategies.

Principal Investigator: Adam Fure, Associate Professor of Architecture

Co-investigators: Ellie Abrons, Associate Professor of Architecture; Sharon Haar, Professor of Architecture; Matthew Wizinsky, Associate Professor of Practice in Urban Technology; Scott TenBrink, Lecturer III, School of Information

Softshells: Invasive Entanglements in Passive Biomass Insulation

Environmental awareness and climate change policies have sparked a renewed interest in alternative solutions to fight the invasive quagga mussels in the Great Lakes Region. As researchers undertake non-destructive mussel removal mechanisms, the question emerges: “What can we do with the overwhelming excess of quadrillions of quagga biomaterial once they are out of water?” In response, this research helps develop locally tailored passive cooling strategies using the natural thermal properties of the biomatter of the quagga mussel as an opportunity for the fabrication of alternative by-products for the architectural residential industry.

Principal Investigator: Ana Morcillo Pallares, Associate Professor of Architecture

Co-investigators: Jonathan Rule, Associate Professor of Practice in Architecture; Harvey Bootsma, Professor and Associate Dean at the School of Freshwater Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Lars Junghans, Associate Professor of Architecture.

Additional Team Members: Krzysztof Lower, M.Arch ’27; Amber Mortzfield, M.Arch ’27

A team of Taubman College alumni from the Master of Urban Planning program has published a report from their 2023 capstone project, led by Professor Richard Norton, in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. Titled “Running the River,” the article proposes changes to Michigan law to make it easier to fund improvements and maintenance for water trails in the state.

M.U.R.P. ’23 graduates Kat Cameron, Catherine Carlberg, Marco Dominguez, Nida Khan, Luke Ranker, Olivia Stillman, Alex Wilkinson, and Elsa Soderberg completed the report as part of their final capstone studio. Taken in the final semester of the program, capstones provide students with unique, client-based experiences that mirror real-world projects. 

For their project, the group partnered with the Shiawassee River Water Trail Coalition, an organization promoting the use and preservation of the Shiawassee River water trail. “Running the River” proposes using tax increment financing (TIF) as a novel strategy to fund improvements to infrastructure along the water trail. Primarily used to redevelop blighted areas, TIF districts divert future increases in property tax revenue to subsidize improvements intended to raise local property values. According to the report, TIF has not been used to improve recreational areas.

Norton, professor of urban and regional planning, holds a joint appointment in the School for Environment and Sustainability. His research focuses on planning law, environmental planning, and coastal area management. 

Read the full report on the Taubman College website. Read the published article in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.

Main Image: Image of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan showing the location of the Shiawassee River Water Trail running from Holly northwest to Chesaning, with an inset showing more detail. Source: Google Map Data, 2024.

Leigh House, a doctoral candidate in Taubman College’s architecture program, received a Life-Changing Education Grant to research the impact of super-philanthropy on the built environment, as public funding for civic institutions has decreased over the years and been replaced by private donors.

As part of her project, Leigh will host a public workshop with Detroit’s Midwest-Tireman neighborhood community, U-M students, and community organizations, including Equity Alliance, Neighborhood Art School, and Sanctuary Farms, to engage in community-based research that critically examines citizens’ rights to the city and the institutions that facilitate or diminish the civil liberties of underrepresented communities.

The workshop will be developed as part of the Egalitarian Metropolis seminar and Initiative for Democracy and Civic Empowerment. Through participatory learning, hands-on research projects, and equitable engagement with community partners, students will build skills and knowledge to analyze and challenge the influence of philanthrocapitalist development and its impacts on civic development. 

LCE grants are distributed on a rolling basis to projects that have demonstrated innovative approaches to teaching, collaboration, and connection to themes of Open Inquiry, Expanding Access, Campus of the Future, and Sharing Scholarship.

University of Michigan researchers, including Taubman College’s María Arquero de Alarcón, are joining forces with peers from research universities across the state on five interdisciplinary teams working on projects designed to protect and strengthen Michigan’s water systems, communities, and economy. 

Research Universities for Michigan, or RU4M, is an alliance of Michigan’s R1 universities: U-M, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and Michigan Technological University. The program is administered by the U-M Office of the Vice President for Research and has awarded more than $400,000 in initial Livable Futures Initiative Water Collaboration Grants. Initial projects were chosen for their potential to address significant challenges, engage partners and communities, and lead to long-term benefits for the state.

Led by Arquereo de Alarco, associate professor of architecture and of urban and regional planning, “Rewilding Urban Waters: Scaling-up Nature-based Solutions through Sustainable Operations & Management Regimes” focuses on restoring natural water processes and reconnecting habitats in urban areas to improve the quality of life and resilience against climate risks in Michigan. The team, which includes Angela Burrow (MSU) and Lamine Boumaiza (WSU), aims to create a roadmap for using nature-based solutions in cities by 2050 that will help communities regenerate ecosystems and build economic and climate resilience through sustainable funding strategies.

Read more in the University Record.

An anthology of case studies, including work by Taubman College’s Andrew Herscher, was awarded the 2025 Colvin Prize by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain for the year’s outstanding work of reference in architectural history and heritage, broadly defined.

Edited by Tania Sengupta and Stuart King, Reclaiming Colonial Architecture (RIBA Publishing, 2025) unpacks the built inheritances of colonialism and rethinks how architects might understand, narrate, intervene in, or act upon those inheritances. Offering historical background, unpacking key concepts, and presenting thematically organized and multi-scalar urban and architectural case studies, the book showcases how legacies of colonialism are being addressed in real-world instances. Case studies involve works and actions by architects and heritage practitioners, as well as community initiatives and activism.

In his contribution to the book, Herscher and collaborator Ana María León documented “Decolonizing the Chicago Cultural Center,” a project carried out by their research collective, the Settler Colonial City Project, at the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial in partnership with the American Indian Center of Chicago.

The cover of Reclaiming Colonial Architecture features an image from “Decolonizing the Chicago Cultural Center”: the large transparent sign reading “You Are Looking at Unceded Land” was mounted in the Center’s monumental windows looking out at Millennium Park, one part of Chicago’s lakefront that was not included in the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. Connecting architectural history to the history of U.S. settler colonialism, the image inspires reflection on architecture’s ongoing participation in colonial extraction and violence, one of the book’s larger ambitions as a whole.

Taubman College lecturer Clarinda Barnett-Harrison was recently interviewed by CBS Detroit about her new role as CEO of the Detroit Wayne Joint Building Authority and the future of the government entity. Barnett-Harrison was recently named the first woman CEO of the building authority in its history, tasked with overseeing and managing the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in downtown Detroit.

“This is the people’s house,” Barnett-Harrison said. “It belongs to the residents and constituents of Detroit and Wayne County, so we want to match the public service that’s already happening in the space by making sure the user experience is of the utmost quality.” 

Barnett-Harrison teaches UT 201: Change-Making in Cities, which focuses on teaching students about real-world urban challenges and institutions. She has over 20 years of experience in urban planning and previously served as the senior director of Economic Prosperity and executive director of the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund at the United Way for Southeastern Michigan.

Appointed in January, Barnett-Harrison will lead a critical capital modernization project at the authority to establish a long-term operational model for the body responsible for managing the city’s municipal center. Tenants include Detroit’s executive and legislative branches, city and county clerks, and the Wayne County Third Judicial Circuit court.

“It’s an old building … so there are a lot of things that we know we need to work on,” Barnett-Harrison said in the interview. “We’re thinking already about the windows and ensuring that they are functioning and safe for all of the tenants there. And building collaboration across the city and Wayne County elected officials to ensure that anything else that needs to be done, we’re able to preserve this legacy for years to come.”

Watch the full interview on YouTube and read more about Barnett-Harrison’s appointment as CEO of the Detroit Wayne Joint Building Authority at the Michigan Chronicle.

Dash Marshall, a New York-based architecture firm co-founded by Taubman College’s Bryan Boyer, was recently featured in Azure magazine for its work on a courtyard house that serves as both a hybrid workspace and a second home, while also making a case for modern courtyard houses.

The unconventional house was designed as a weekend retreat and daily office space for Boyer,  faculty director of the Bachelor of Science in Urban Technology and associate professor of practice in architecture, and his partner, Laura Lewis. Located across town from where they live in Detroit, the site may seem atypical for a second home, but Detroit’s Core City neighborhood provided all the necessary aspects. Despite its proximity to downtown, the area is quite tranquil with generously sized housing lots. The new space allows for weekend hosting year-round in a fairly accessible location compared to the more rural options they had considered.

The 1,800-square-foot home was completed over the course of three years. Centered around a large courtyard, it features a kitchen as well as dedicated spaces for dining, living, and working. The exterior showcases a rectilinear design clad in Lunawood Thermowood pine, with precisely cut sections that form shaded porches at the building’s corners. One notable omission: Bedrooms. The home was originally intended to be a two-story structure with bedrooms on the upper floor, but, as Boyer explains, the project pivoted to a single level due to rising material costs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Azure writes, “The architect doesn’t hesitate to describe the project as ‘an indulgence.’ But a pragmatic one: The home has helped shape Dash Marshall’s innovative work on courtyard houses. In Detroit’s Little Village, for example, the studio is designing a filmmaker’s triangular residence contoured around a sliver of a courtyard. On Long Island, meanwhile, the team is working on a private home whose two volumes — which create a V-shaped courtyard — respond to both the waterfront site and the adjacent road.”

Read the full article, “Home/Office,” at Azure’s website. (Registration or a paid subscription may be required for full access.)

Photos by Jason Keen

Taubman College’s Kimberly Kinder published a new book that explores narratives of displacement from around the world. Invisible Exile: The Travel Writing of Displacement (University of Minnesota Press, 2025) analyzes 40 works written by forced and reluctant migrants and refugees, emphasizing themes of loss and alienation. 

“Situated within critical geographical concerns, Invisible Exile maps counternarratives of trauma and pain flowing from the invisible exile of those faced with the imperative of travel and migration,” writes reviewer Adam Morton, professor of political economy at the University of Sydney. “Kimberley Kinder’s theory-based discussion spatializes travel narratives ranging from issues of exploration, alienation, displacement, potential assimilation, and resources of hope to the geographical implications of ‘belonging.’”

Kinder is an associate professor of urban and regional planning and director of the graduate certificate in healthy cities. Her research focuses on cultural landscapes of activism, violence, and resilience. In Invisible Exile, she sheds light on the migrant experience, including stories of renewal and reinvention in the face of displacement. Kinder is the author of The Radical Bookstore: Counterspace for Cultural Movement (University of Minnesota Press, 2021) and DIY Detroit: Making Do in a City Without Services (University of Minnesota Press, 2016).

Taubman College’s Xiaofan Liang, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, Sarah Mills, associate professor of urban planning, and Glenn Wilcox, associate professor of architecture, are members of two project teams recognized with 2026 Graham Sustainability Institute Catalyst Grants.

Since 2017, the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute has offered Sustainability Catalyst grants to support small-scale, collaborative, interdisciplinary sustainability research. This year, seven newly awarded grants engage researchers from diverse fields, including public health, engineering, design, agriculture, data systems, and the performing arts.

Liang and Mills are co-investigators on Behind the Cloud: How Datacenters Shape Water, Energy, and Communities, and Wilcox is a co-investigator on Seeding Sustainability: Growing the Benefits of Michigan Hemp Production. More from the Graham Institute on both projects is below.

Behind the Cloud: How Datacenters Shape Water, Energy, and Communities

The rapid proliferation of data centers imposes significant and often poorly understood demands on local energy and water systems. Loudoun County, Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers, has become a focal point for these challenges, as communities and utilities navigate infrastructure strain, rising costs, and environmental impacts.

This project aims to clarify both the challenges and opportunities of data center expansion. The team will partner with the Upper Occoquan Service Authority (UOSA), the regional water utility serving Loudoun County, to examine how data center siting, design, and operations — from energy sourcing to cooling technologies and water use — affect local communities. UOSA’s expertise in water resources, infrastructure planning, and community impacts will guide the research, connect the team with stakeholders, highlight knowledge gaps, and provide feedback on findings, ensuring the research reflects local realities and produces mutually beneficial insights.

The project will culminate in a white paper and a cross-disciplinary workshop to lay the groundwork for a broader research agenda on sustainable digital infrastructure. The team will also develop an open-source computational model of the data center–energy–water system to explore interconnected impacts. The model will reveal where energy and water demands align, creating opportunities for co-benefits such as reduced water use and lower emissions, and where they diverge, exposing tradeoffs and risks. Together, the white paper, workshop, and model will equip policymakers, utilities, and communities with actionable information to guide sustainable datacenter growth.

Project team: Rabab Haider, PI (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Nancy Love, co-I (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Amanda Ullman, co-I (Institute for Energy Solutions), Xiaofan Liang, co-I (Taubman College), Sarah Mills, co-I (Center for EmPowering Communities, Taubman College), Upper Occoquan Service Authority (External Partner)

Seeding Sustainability: Growing the Benefits of Michigan Hemp Production

Michigan-grown hemp holds promise as a fast-growing, pest-resistant, carbon-sequestering crop, capable of capturing 2–3 tons of carbon per acre and locking it into long-lasting products. Yet farmers often lack the tools and infrastructure to efficiently turn their harvests into high-value materials, and research gaps remain in optimizing processing methods.

This team is partnering with Pott Farms to explore how hemp combined with mycelium — a natural fungal network — can create durable, biodegradable materials for furniture, packaging, and building components. A key step is decortication, which separates the plant’s fibers from its woody core. Pott Farms, home to one of the few portable decorticators in the U.S., will serve as a testbed to study how different processing methods affect material strength and carbon-storage potential. Graduate students will contribute by helping transform these experiments into furniture prototypes.

Pott Farms has long worked to lower barriers for Michigan hemp farmers seeking to produce hemp-based products. By collaborating closely with the farm, the team can develop practical guidance for small- and mid-scale growers to maximize crop value. Combining local farming expertise with hands-on research in materials and design, the project will demonstrate sustainable production that supports farmers, fosters environmentally responsible products, and inspires future innovations in regenerative materials.

Project team: Evgueni T. Filipov, PI (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Glenn Wilcox, co-I (Taubman College), Robbin Pott (Pott Farms), Vaibhavi Chidella (Civil and Environmental Engineering)

The University of Michigan has announced the first 10 research teams to receive seed funding through its new Impact Institutes initiative, including two with Taubman College faculty. Launched in May, the awards promote interdisciplinary collaboration and advance high-impact research, positioning newly formed institutes for long-term sustainability and external funding.

Led by director Kathy Velikov, FAIA, associate dean for research and creative practice and professor of architecture, the Institute for Advanced Construction Futures (IACF) addresses America’s urgent housing and building infrastructure needs by integrating advanced manufacturing, automation, AI, and digital technologies in a “Construction 4.0” ecosystem approach to building more sustainably, efficiently, and affordably. Taubman College co-investigators include professors Geoffrey Thün, Lan Deng, and Wes McGee, as well as associate professor Tsz Yan Ng. 

Lesli Hoey, director of doctoral studies in urban and regional planning and associate professor of urban and regional planning, will lead Taubman College’s involvement in the new Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health Policy. A hub for innovative, community-informed policy research and leadership development, the IFNHP will inform health-focused food and nutrition-related legislation, regulations, and programming through interdisciplinary expertise.

Working with co-directors from the College of Engineering and the Erb Institute, as well as several partners across campus, Velikov said the IACF will develop the next generation of low-carbon buildings to transform the architecture, engineering, construction, and facilities management sector (AEC-FM), which cannot currently meet the growing demand for new buildings, civic infrastructure, and retrofitting of existing buildings in the U.S.

“The IACF forges an exciting new trajectory for Taubman College’s computational design, construction robotics, and housing delivery research streams,” Velikov said. “It builds upon our research development through the NSF Engines NextHouse planning grant and the Low Carbon Building R+D initiative and marks one of the college’s most comprehensive interdisciplinary collaborations, including faculty leads from 12 units, centers, and institutes, along with more than 30 industry and government partners.”

The IACF plans to leverage Southeast Michigan’s advanced manufacturing capacity, interdisciplinary research expertise, legacy of real estate innovation, and need for expanded housing production to become the nation’s leading consortium for advancing impactful solutions in partnership with business, the public, and community stakeholders.

The new institutes support the five impact areas of the Look to Michigan vision: life-changing education; human health and well-being; advanced technology; energy, climate action, sustainability and environmental equity; and democracy, civic and global engagement. Each institute will receive $200,000 over the next two years. Funding is provided by the Strategic Initiative Fund, which supports collaborative initiatives that advance meaningful impact across U-M and beyond.

Read more in the University Record.

University of Michigan undergraduate students interested in exploring the built environment now have the opportunity to specialize through a minor in architecture. The 15-credit Architecture Minor was launched for the winter 2026 semester as part of Taubman College’s efforts to expand its academic offerings.

The minor is currently available to students in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the Stamps School of Art and Design, the Ross School of Business, and to urban technology majors. 

The program emphasizes three pillars: environment, culture, and economy. Students who enroll in the minor can tailor it to their interests through recommended concentrations in architectural humanities, design studies, or environmental sustainability, or by selecting courses from across these. In addition to expanding spatial literacy for non-architects, the minor also helps the college broaden access to the architecture, engineering, and construction industry.

“Over the past few years, we have scaled up undergraduate education to serve our public mission, expand access to our fields, and respond to growing student interest,” Dean John Massey said.

There are no prerequisites for the minor, and the only required course is ARCH 212 Understanding Architecture: An Introduction to Architecture for Non-Majors.

For more information or to declare, visit the Architecture Minor page.

— Joshua Nicholson

The University of Michigan has announced a new, multiyear research collaboration with ASICS to establish the ASICS x Michigan Sport Innovation Center. The pioneering research effort established through U-M Innovation Partnerships aims to advance human performance and sport science through multidisciplinary collaborations across campus, including Taubman College’s Sean Ahlquist. 

Led by Ken Kozloff, co-director of the Human Performance & Sport Science Center, the initiative engages faculty from College of Engineering, School of Kinesiology, Taubman College, Institute for Social Research, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and Michigan Medicine, who will join forces with ASICS to approach complex challenges from multiple perspectives. The Japan-based athletic wear company will commit $25 million in funding to support the project. 

The university’s culture of cross-disciplinary collaboration was key to ASICS’ decision to establish its first U.S.-based hub for athlete-focused research at U-M after evaluating many universities.

“By tackling the challenges of athletic performance from diverse vantage points, we will strengthen our impact in unique ways,” Kozloff said. “The collaboration between the university and ASICS will yield new innovations in athletic footwear and training gear, supporting athletes of all levels.”

Ahlquist, associate professor of architecture and faculty director of the Master of Science in Digital Materials Technology, brings years of expertise in materials research and interdisciplinary collaboration to the project. Working with state-of-the-art industrial knitting machines, his work explores novel material systems through research with the automotive industry, the health care sector, and behavioral science. Through ongoing partnerships with General Motors and collaborations with kinesiology, psychology, and a range of disability communities, Ahlquist’s work has, in part, explored sensory-responsive material technologies as ways to improve accessibility and communication for individuals with disabilities, caregivers, and healthcare providers.

“I am excited to further expand our knowledge and expertise in materials innovation with ASICS to develop new technologies that balance both athletic performance and well-being. This reflects ASICS’ focus on a balanced life through sound mind and sound body, and leverages our well-established collaborations with fields such as materials science and movement science,” Ahlquist said. “This is a unique collaboration for Taubman College that connects how research, design, and material exploration can play across a wide range of industries, well beyond architecture.”

“With his team of graduate students and associates, Ahlquist is defining the state of the art by knitting customized fabrics and assemblies that can enclose space and interact with our bodies and senses in new ways,” said Dean Jonathan Massey. “This collaboration shows how, when a top university supports work across disciplines and partners with industry leaders, advanced architectural research can shape not only how we build but also what we wear, how we move, and how we play sports.”

Kathy Velikov, associate dean for research and practice, said the center’s aim to foster innovations that leverage leading technology, data-driven solutions, and human-centered design aligns perfectly with Taubman College’s strengths.

“This exciting collaboration reflects our multi-year investments in faculty research development, world-class facilities, and cross-campus collaboration,” Velikov said. “Experimental material prototyping is an integral part of the work at Taubman College, and we look forward to the new research that will emerge.”

Read more about the ASICS x Michigan Sport Innovation Center at The University Record.

M1DTW, a Detroit-based architecture firm founded by Taubman College’s Christian Unverzagt, was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal for its work on a custom home built for a retired Michigan couple in the backyard of their old house.

Susan and Dr. Bill Conway, of Birmingham, spent a year looking for a house that better suited them in retirement before deciding to take advantage of the fact that the property of the home they moved into in the 1980s had been divided into two lots, each with its own street frontage, as a result of a nearby development project in the 1990s. Working with Unverzagt, associate professor of practice in architecture, B.S. ’94; their daughter, Kerry Conway, senior designer at M1DTW, M.Arch ’16; and Thomas Affeldt, a principal at M1DTW, M.Arch ’11, the Conways built their new, 3,700-square-foot home, “Backyard House,” on the lot directly behind their old house. Then they sold their old house as the project wrapped up in 2022. 

The $2.2 million home took about three years to complete and features a stone-and-gray-blue board-and-batten exterior that sets it apart from the traditional brick houses around it. Inside, wide-plank white-oak floors and intricate woodwork recall the old house in a modern way. The Journal writes, “A primary goal for their new home was to create an age-in-place structure, with minimum thresholds, that didn’t have a ‘shut-in’ feel, said Christian Unverzagt, a founder of M1DTW Architects, which designed the project. As such, there are lots of windows and skylights to let in light and views.”

Read the full article ‘Yes In My Backyard’ at the Wall Street Journal’s website. (Registration or a paid subscription may be required for full access.)

Photo by Diana Paulson

Professor Andrew Herscher‘s book, Under the Campus, the Land: Anishinaabe Futuring, Colonial Non-Memory, and the Origin of the University of Michigan (University of Michigan Press, 2025), was named one of the 10 Best Books of the year by The Dirt, the official blog of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Under the Campus, the Land centers on the University of Michigan, one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most renowned public universities in the United States. Revealing how Anishinaabe people granted land that was integral to the university’s founding, growth, and prestige, the book illuminates the Anishinaabe people’s intention to support an institution where Native and settler youth could be educated together, as well as the betrayal of this intention by generations of university administrators and struggles of generations of Native students to remind the university of its responsibility to them and their kin. 

In recent years, many universities have begun to adopt land acknowledgements in response to their hidden or forgotten Indigenous and colonial histories. Though becoming widespread, these acknowledgements do not contend with the complexity of these histories or extend them into the present. Rewriting the history of one university, Under the Campus, the Land offers a reckoning with the Indigenous and colonial contexts from which universities emerged across the U.S., as well as an opening to the reparative work those contexts demand.

According to The Dirt, “This excellent book provides a model for how other universities and institutions can create truer histories and begin to undo past harms to Indigenous peoples.”

Taubman College’s Xiaofan Liang sat down with Bryan Boyer to talk about her ongoing projects, research interests, and courses in a recent interview published on the Urban Technology at the University of Michigan substack. The newsletter and blog are run by Boyer, faculty director of the bachelor of science in urban technology, to promote the emerging field.

In the interview, Liang discusses two of her ongoing projects focused on data centers, including a decision support tool to help people visualize and understand the implications of building a data center in their community. “It’s geared toward local planners or local governments who are considering a data center,” said Liang, professor of urban and regional planning. “There are a million different things you have to consider, right? But this tool presents it in more of a cognitive way, in an infographic or interactive media format to help people unpack the complexity of this topic.”

Liang currently teaches two courses: Urban Networks and Urban AI. In the interview, she explained that her classes encourage students to view cities and AI in new ways. “I’m trying to introduce students to a way of seeing the city as a network, with a little bit about social networks, spatial social networks, mobility networks, infrastructure, and more,” she said.

Read the full interview on the Urban Technology Substack.

Taubman College’s Xiaofan Liang analyzes the relationship between Atlanta’s international airport and local biking and pedestrian infrastructure in a paper recently published in Transportation Research Record. Liang, an assistant professor of urban and regional planning who joined the college in 2024, conducted most of the research during her graduate studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Liang was inspired to investigate the topic during an urban design studio taught by Georgia Tech’s Perry Yang, director of the school’s Eco Urban Lab. During the studio, she worked with Aerotropolis Atlanta Alliance, Inc., and was shocked to learn of the inconvenience of living near an airport. She argues that, while part of a global transportation network, airports tend to overpower local land uses in favor of regional travel, limiting mobility and the diversity of the built environment.

As part of her research, Liang analyzed the AeroATL Greenway Plan, a project inspired by efforts to improve economic development around the airport. Comparing the proposal and the impacts of the airport’s physical footprint, Liang asked, “Is it possible to build more integrated network infrastructure so that everyone and every mobility mode — especially walking and biking — can also have a place?”

In an interview with the Taubman College Newsroom, Liang said she was making a specific argument that the airport, which she called “exclusive network infrastructure, is a good case study of the conflict between a network and the place-based, physical world. 

“If you live by an airport, you can’t really compete with the airport’s dominant influence over its surrounding built environment,” Liang said. “So, this is actually what I consider a pretty creative and interesting, bottom-up planning example to contest this dynamic. My role in the research, on the one hand, is to provide quantitative arguments to frame this issue within the framework I proposed. And then the second thing is to try to support the scenario development of the AeroATL Greenway Plan, to help them think through what it means when they build this greenway, what kind of benefit they will create, and see if the computational approach, in any way, can help them move the proposal forward.”

Moving forward, Liang plans to continue researching the complex relationship between networks and the physical environment.

“I’m interested in the concept of network duality, which means you have a network infrastructure, but this infrastructure is serving a very specific population, very specific places, or specific types of flows, but then it also marginalizes others at the same time,” Liang said. “So a network infrastructure like an airport is a good example for that: you’re serving a lot of regional passengers. You’re serving a car-driven mobility flow almost at the expense of local pedestrian and biking flows. I think a lot of the urban dynamics and challenges we observe could be reinterpreted under this new lens.”

Read the full article, “Transforming Mobility Barriers to Connectivity: Examining the Impact of the AeroATL Greenway Plan in Reconnecting Communities Around Aerotropolis Atlanta,” at Liang’s website.

— Joshua Nicholson

In a recent Bridge Michigan article on how Michigan could be impacted by President Donald Trump’s endorsement of establishing a 50-year mortgage, Taubman College’s Lan Deng said the state’s housing shortage and rising home prices will take more than lower monthly payments to fix.

“The issue about housing affordability is that the housing cost is far higher than what most households can afford,” said Deng, professor of urban and regional planning. “[A 50-year mortgage] does not directly tackle the dysfunctional housing markets we are seeing.”

In the article, Deng lists rising construction costs and land values, as well as a shortage of laborers, as factors contributing to the housing shortage, and notes that national trends of a growing gap between household income and housing costs are also affecting the state.

To make housing more attainable, Deng said Michigan needs to diversify the types of housing built and that recent efforts to invest in affordable housing are a step “in the right direction.”    

“Only new units you can build will help relieve market pressure,” she said.

Deng also expressed doubt that lenders would be confident in the ability of aging first-time home buyers to repay a 50-year mortgage, asking, “Do people even want to work into their 70s – even 80s – if people are buying their property in their 30s?”

Read the full article at Bridge Michigan.

Main Image: © searagen – stock.adobe.com

DESIGN EARTH, a design research practice directed by Taubman College’s El Hadi Jazairy with Rania Ghosn, will lead an International Emerging Workshop in Barcelona next summer on the theme of “Becoming More than Human” as part of the World Congress of Architects 2026 Barcelona. 

DESIGN EARTH’s ongoing project is a series of fables that address the climate crisis by animating charismatic figures from natural history museums, bringing the creatures from their collections “back to life” through imagery, verse, and humor. The Barcelona workshop “Brava!” extends this practice by examining the environmental heritage of the Mediterranean via a 20-meter-long whale skeleton housed at The Natural Science Museum of Barcelona. “Brava,” as it’s come to be known, was discovered beached in the Costa Brava region of Spain in 1862. 

Over the course of the workshop, participants will curate a media archive on the specimen, museum, city, and region, with a focus on the cultural prehistory, present, and speculative futures of the Mediterranean coast and of marine life. Collaborative explorations through studio work, site visits, and open exchanges will take place June 19-27, followed by an exhibition of the results June 28-July 2.

The World Congress of Architects is organized by the International Union of Architects and held in different locations every three years, bringing together renowned architects, researchers, and influential figures across fields to promote the exchange and production of knowledge. It features lectures, workshops, debates, exhibitions, visits, and celebrations designed to encourage architectural dialog. With a theme of “Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition,” the 2026 event focuses on speculative, qualitative inquiries to explore material, political, ecological, and poetic interrelations.

DESIGN EARTH are recipients of the United States Artist Fellowship and the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers. Their work has been featured internationally, including at the Venice Biennale and SFMOMA, and is included in the New York Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.

More details, including information on how to apply for the workshop, are at uia2026bcn.org.

Main Photo: Still from “A Whale Song” by DESIGN EARTH

Intersections, an exhibition exploring the collaboration between Ghanaian architect Victor Adegbite and Hungarian architect Charles Polónyi in post-colonial Accra, was recently featured in The Architect’s Newspaper. Curated by Taubman College’s Łukasz Stanek and Michael Dziwornu, a geographer at the University of Ghana, in collaboration with Ph.D. student Dana Salama, the exhibit is on display at the Wende Museum in Culver City, California, through April 12, 2026.

The article gives an overview of the historic collaboration between Adegbite and Polónyi in the Ghanaian capital, its significance today, and the research behind the exhibit, noting that “Intersections speaks to this period in 20th-century history when there was dynamic exchange between socialist, non-aligned, and newly independent countries outside the Global West — a subject Stanek specializes in as an architectural historian.”

Stanek is a professor of architecture and an expert on Cold War collaborations between architects from Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East. Recently, he and Dziwornu, co-founded the Accra-based Office Southeast research collective.

The article goes on to say, “For Stanek, Intersections was as much about documenting these housing projects as well as revealing the paradoxes of the post-colonial period more broadly. ‘Polónyi was a conservative thinker. He never joined the Communist Party in Hungary,’ Stanek noted. ‘For him, emigrating to Ghana was a chance to miss the trials and tribulations of life in Hungary. It was an unusual trajectory.’”

Read the full article at The Architect’s Newspaper.

Photo by Eric Don-Arthur

Taubman College’s Bryan Boyer, faculty director of the B.S. in Urban Technology degree program, joined Cornell Tech’s Urban Tech Summit in November, where he led a panel discussion on “What’s Next for Construction Automation?” The annual gathering of “thinkers, doers, and advocates” is put on by Michael Samuelian, founding director of Cornell’s Urban Tech Hub, and Simon Sylvester-Chaudhuri, founder of CIV:LAB. The 2025 summit took place Nov. 11-12 at the Cornell Tech Campus in New York with a focus on “Adaptive Intelligence Activating Urban AI.”

Boyer’s panel featured Jenny Sabin, chair of the department of design and professor of architecture at Cornell College of Art, Architecture, and Planning, and principal and principal investigator at Jenny Sabin Studio; Alexandra Donovan, director of design and innovation at Assembly OSM; and Val Tzvetkov, director of emerging technology at Skanska. Together, they discussed agent-based design, supply chain, cross-digital literacy, and more.

More on the panel and a full recap of the summit are available at The Architect’s Newspaper.

Dean Jonathan Massey sat down with host Eunice Seng of the ArchiTalks podcast to discuss developing new degrees, the future of Taubman College, and the culture of architecture in an episode released on Oct. 31. ArchiTalks is produced by the University of Hong Kong, and the interview took place while Massey was visiting last spring. 

During the interview, Massey explained his vision of Taubman College as a project, with each professor and student encouraged to pursue their own aspirations for the built environment and future.

“My approach to educational leadership is not about a singular vision for the field,” Massey said. “[It’s] not about projecting the thing that is most dear to my heart, but really as a project of setting up faculty, students, and staff, as well as alumni and partners, to do their best work in shaping a better built environment for the future.”

Learn more about the episode at the ArchiTalks website and listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

Several Taubman College faculty members, researchers, Ph.D. students, and Master of Science (MSDMT) students attended the 2025 Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) Conference in Miami earlier this month, where they delivered presentations, participated in workshops, and were recognized for outstanding work in the field. This year’s theme, “COMPUTING for RESILIENCE: Expanding Community Knowledge & Impact,” focused on building resilience in uncertain environments through topics such as computational strategies for climate adaptation, AI and robotics in construction, and digital design for socio-political and economic resilience.

A list of teams led by or including Taubman College presenters, along with their topics, is below.

Wes McGee, professor of architecture and FABLab director; Rachael Henry, M.Arch ’18, lecturer in architecture and FABLab manager; Alireza Fazel, Ph.D. student; and Jutang Gao, M.S.D.M.T. ’24
“Dual-Extrusion 3D Printing for Daylight-Controlled Thermoplastic Facades”

Yuxin Lin, Ph.D. student, and Mania Aghaei Meibodi, assistant professor of architecture 
“TopoBeam: Data-Informed Feed Forward Control Model for 3D Concrete Printing of Topology Optimized Building Elements”

Charlie O’Geen, lecturer in architecture, and Ryan Craney, M.Arch ’20
“Sensor-Based Adaptive Formwork for Fabric Formed (Unstabilized) Poured Earth”

Jutang Gao, M.S.D.M.T. ’24; Daniel Merupu, M.S.D.M.T. ’24; Archit Goyal, M.S.D.M.T. ’24; and Sean Ahlquist, associate professor of architecture
“Pneuma-Bloom: Air-Driven 4D Textile Composites for Biophilic Multi-Sensory Space Creation”

Yi-Chin Lee, Ph.D. student; Jutang Gao, M.S.D.M.T. ’24; Sean Ahlquist, associate professor of architecture; Katie Wei, College of Engineering student; and Max Shtein, professor of materials science and engineering, of chemical engineering, and of macromolecular science and engineering, College of Engineering
“Knitting for undoing: Material characterization of undoing mechanisms for designing multi-sensory objects”

Adam Marcus, associate professor in architecture, Tulane School of Architecture; Liz Camuti, assistant professor in landscape architecture, Tulane School of Architecture; Tsz Yan Ng, associate professor in architecture; Wes McGee, professor of architecture; and Evgueni Filipov, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.
“Hygroscopic Envelope: 3D Printed Ceramic Building Enclosures for Stormwater Detention”

Ng also presented a special lecture as the winner of the association’s 2025 Innovative Research Award of Excellence (pictured here), and Aghaei Meibodi served as a panelist in the closing discussion, “Advancing Interdisciplinary Research Through Funding,” along with Jenny Sabin, Mark Finlayson, and Masoud Akbarzadeh, and moderated by Shahin Vassigh.

A new exhibition curated by a Taubman College faculty member and a recent visiting scholar explores how architecture shaped Ghana’s ambitions in the 1960s, shortly after it gained independence. Intersections: The Architecture of Victor Adegbite and Charles Polónyi in Ghana opened earlier this month at the Wende Museum in Culver City, California, just outside Los Angeles, and features the research of Łukasz Stanek, professor of architecture and Michael Dziwornu, a 2024-2025 U-M African Presidential Scholar and lecturer at the University of Ghana (working together as the newly formed research collective Office Southeast) in collaboration with Dana Salama, Ph.D. candidate. 

Centered around the collaboration between Ghanaian architect Adegbite and Hungarian architect Polónyi, the exhibit features archival documents, analytical drawings, and contemporary photographs by Ghanaian photographer Eric Don-Arthur. It shows how the housing schemes they designed continue to structure life in Accra today. Intersections features archives preserved by the architects’ daughters in the U.S. and Hungary, highlighting the crucial role that acts of memory and care play in preserving the history of modern architecture.

After Ghana gained independence from Great Britain in 1957, its leader, Kwame Nkrumah, invited architects to the capital, Accra, to help shape its future. Polónyi arrived with Eastern European technical assistance programs supporting Ghana’s transition to socialism and worked for the Ghana National Construction Corporation, where Adegbite — a Howard University graduate — served as chief architect. Together, they mobilized architectural resources from socialist, capitalist, and non-aligned countries and designed buildings that responded to Ghana’s needs, means, and aspirations.

The exhibit features contributions from several Taubman College students, including film concepts and interviews by Sarah Cheema, Ph.D. candidate, model fabrication and research by Brianna Westbrook, M.Arch ’25, and research by Arushi Chopra, M.Arch ’26; Jonathan “Bam” Davis, M.Arch ’25; Sylvan Perlmutter, LSA Ph.D. candidate; and Brianna Westbrook, M.Arch ’25.

Intersections is on view through April 12, 2026. For more, including images from the show, visit the project page. 

Later this week, urban technology students will spend two days designing and critiquing their own city as part of the final installment in the program’s fall Cities Intensive exercise. Over the summer, the Taubman College Newsroom sat in on the spring cohort’s workshop, where students worked in teams to develop smaller municipalities that grew and merged into a single city.

Three residents walk around their new city. One of them, an avid teenage parkourist, is impressed by the ramps and accessibility of a new neighborhood dedicated to their friend, a wheelchair user in their 20s. After a few hours of exploration, they sit down to watch the third resident, a skater and Japanese immigrant who knows minimal English, move around the skate park like a duck in water. 

These three were just a few of the 10 user groups imagined by students in the Taubman College urban technology program during the spring Incomplete City workshop, held during the last week of June. An integral part of the program’s Cities Intensive sequence, the Incomplete City prepares students for studio work by having them design a city from scratch. Starting with separate villages, the students negotiate around their stakeholders’ various conflicting interests as they work toward coalescing into a single municipality.

Students used knowledge gained from class visits to Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Chicago to imagine what their ideal city should look like. At the start of the workshop, groups had to design a town for 100 residents. However, instructors Matthew Wizinsky, associate professor of practice in urban technology, and Emily Kutil, a lecturer in her second year teaching the course, instructed students to gradually increase their towns’ populations and densities at various points during the exercise. Over the course of only a few hours, students developed new housing and infrastructure for 250, 500, and eventually 2,000 residents before combining their towns into one city.

“I hope that they maintain in their minds the ways in which the Incomplete Cities exercise simulated the negotiations, tensions, and conflicts that arise in urban environments,” Kutil said. “It’s easy as a student to try and visualize your utopian world without the constraints of the existing world pushing back against them.”

Students in the spring cohort took a grounded approach to their cities, highlighting the experiences of immigrants, aging individuals, and people with disabilities. To ensure that the city ran smoothly, students split into six commissions evocative of real city governments: the transportation commission; the water and utility commission; the parks and public space commission; the commission on aging population; the commission on youth; and the commission on safety and accessibility.

Lucas Tsetskhladze, B.S. Urban Tech ’27, served on the transportation commission, which was tasked with integrating disparate bus, train, and metro systems across the villages into a single municipal system. He said the experience prepared him for future user-centered design studios.

“It shows how you should be open to other people’s priorities,” Tsetskhladze said. “After all, we’re all thinking of the city as a whole. It’s not like ‘I want this, that guy wants this.’ We should all think about what will benefit everyone. That negotiating is something we’ll have to do all throughout life.”

— Story by Joshua Nicholson

Kuukuwa Manful, Ph.D., assistant professor of architecture at Taubman College, puts forward a new way of thinking about the concept of “soft power” in world politics and international relations in a new article published in Third World Quarterly. 

In “Building Blocks of Soft Power: A Sociopolitical History of Western Schools in Ghana,” Manful argues that the “soft” power of Western education in Ghana is undergirded by historical hard power, exercised through and reinforced by the architecture of schools. In so doing, she tackles key questions, such as why Western education is thought of as part of soft power in Africa and how Africans transitioned from being forced students in European institutions, housed within forts and castles of those who traded enslaved people, to seeking Western-style education.

The article is part of a larger book project, The Architecture of Education in Ghana, which uses a multidisciplinary approach straddling politics, architecture, and history to examine the sociopolitical causes and consequences of secondary school buildings in Ghana.

Read the article at Third World Quarterly.

Main Image: Cape Coast Castle, present-day Ghana (completed in the 18th Century). The castle included classrooms overlooking dungeons where enslaved people were held captive.

The last couple of years have been eventful for Kimberly Montague, FAIA, B.S. Arch ’87, M.Arch ’89. After being named president of Detroit’s Albert Kahn Associates in 2023 and then CEO In 2024 — making her the first woman to hold either position in the firm’s 130 year history — she was elevated to the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows in early 2025.

This has also brought her full-circle, as she reunited with the firm where she started out of college. In the years in between, she worked across her home state of Michigan and around the world, researching, designing, and consulting on innovative health care and workplace spaces and strategies. “There is this connective tissue between architecture, design, and planning that I have found is
my sweet spot,” she says.

But where she finds the greatest joy lately is in giving back to her community, whether it’s volunteering, serving on nonprofit boards, mentoring young architects, or helping to raise awareness about architecture and women’s health. “It kind of makes everything real, and it reminds me we’re all connected in some way,” she says.

This fall, she established the Kimberly and W. Clifton Montague Scholarship at Taubman College as a way to support future architects and also show gratitude for the foundational education she received at the college.

A New Trajectory

Montague grew up near Ann Arbor in Plymouth, Michigan, and came to U-M to be a doctor, until she had a run-in with organic chemistry. “I quickly found out organic chemistry is the pre-med weeder class,” she says. “I remember sitting in the back of the auditorium thinking, ‘This might as well be another language, because I don’t get any of it.’”

After reviewing her transcripts, a guidance counselor suggested an introductory architecture class. It was the exact opposite experience. “No one had ever talked to me about what an architect does or what design was about. I didn’t realize it had so much to do with cultural anthropology and the other humanities,” she says. “I was hooked.”

After graduation, Montague worked for several years at Detroit’s historic Albert Kahn Associates, where her interest in medicine was put to good use working on health care projects. “It had that connection between health, wellness, design, architecture, planning, and culture
that seemed to really fit with me,” she says.

When a client shared some new work they were doing on patient-centered care and the role spaces play in how care is delivered, Montague was intrigued. The client was part of an international not-for-profit organization, which would soon be looking for someone who could speak the language of architecture to lead its design consultation efforts. It was a perfect fit for Montague, who spent six years as Planetree’s director of design consultation, traveling the U.S. as well as Brazil, Japan, and the Netherlands, and working with the Veterans Administration, listening to stories from patients, nurses, and doctors about the importance of spaces in their work. “That was a turning point in my career for understanding the impact of design on whatever it is our clients do, whether they’re an insurance provider or a hospital or a manufacturer. That’s where I really saw the impact of the environment come to life,” she says. “It changed the trajectory of my career.”

Making History, Building the Future

Building on that experience, Montague next joined West Michigan furniture maker Herman Miller’s research and insights group, where she explored how spatial arrangements impact health care and workplace environments on a micro level. After stints with another firm and furniture maker, she made her way back to Albert Kahn, which was looking to ramp up its efforts in health care design, first becoming president and then also CEO a year later. 

At Kahn, she’s been focused on harnessing new technology, from drones to AI, to deliver cutting-edge solutions for clients. She’s also deeply committed to mentoring and developing talent, especially the “missing middle” between those just getting started and those long-established in their careers. “One of my top priorities is not only attracting and retaining great talent but also offering them training and professional development,” she says. “Preparing that next generation has always been front and center for me.”

As the firm celebrates its 130th anniversary, Montague says its legacy is evident when looking out the window of nearly any building in downtown Detroit, from the automotive industry to civic structures to hospitals and office buildings. She can’t say much about what’s on the horizon, but she’s excited to carry on its tradition of innovation. “We have some incredible projects that will start to tie that ingenuity together with legacy and history in creative ways,” she says. “It’s a great time to be in Detroit and a great time to be part of the fabric of this city.”

Impacting the Industry, and More

Montague is also leading when it comes to giving back. In addition to her new scholarship at Taubman College, she has given guest lectures in Professor Linda Groat’s seminar class about working adjacent to the industry and, now that she’s back in it, as a woman in architecture. She’s also taken time to mentor students and to review portfolios and interview potential fellows for an endowed fellowship program at Albert Kahn Associates.

“The opportunity to learn from and work alongside so many great people at the college gave me the foundation to excel as an architect,” Montague says. “I was fortunate to receive several scholarships that helped me get through school, and that support made a lasting impact. As part of my commitment to advancing architectural education, I want to share my experiences and give back. Supporting future generations — especially those who may be navigating similar challenges — is one of the most meaningful ways I can show my gratitude.”

Montague recently got involved with the American Heart Association and is chair of its 2025 and 2026 Detroit Go Red for Women campaigns. Elsewhere in the city, she has worked with the Detroit Regional Chamber, Life Remodeled, and Women in Healthcare. She also currently serves on the Michigan Architectural Foundation Board of Trustees, raising awareness and funds to support architecture and students across the state. 

In February, the AIA named her to its prestigious College of Fellows, a designation received by less than 3% of architects. Being recognized in a room full of peers — many of whom she has admired for years — was a humbling experience for Montague. “As an industry, we are doing some pretty amazing things in a variety of ways, so it was an incredible honor,” she says. “It makes you realize the impact that architecture has on human life. It’s where we work, play, live, heal, learn and everything in between. So yeah, it was phenomenal.”

— Eric Gallippo

Amanda Barbour’s life took an unexpected turn soon after graduating from Taubman College, when she was diagnosed with cancer at age 22. Today, as founder and CEO of the Children’s Healing Center, she credits her education with helping her develop the skills, determination, and design thinking needed to launch first-of-their-kind gathering spaces for immunocompromised children and young adults.

After spending the summer following graduation working for former dean Mónica Ponce de León, Barbour, B.S. Arch ’09, moved home to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to work for AMDG Architects. Frequently sick, she underwent extensive testing that revealed stage four Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer typically found in young adults and seniors.“By the time they found it, it had spread throughout my body,” Barbour says.

As a younger adult, she was assigned to a pediatric care team at the children’s hospital in Grand Rapids, and treated with the expectation she would live a long life. There, she met many kids and young adults who, like herself, felt isolated by the experience. “We all understand it now post-COVID, but in 2010, not a lot of people knew what it felt like to be told you couldn’t go into public places or the movies or the mall or to hang out and do normal young adult things,” she says.

She remembers lying in her hospital bed thinking, “How can I use this to shape and inform and help people and places? Wouldn’t it be really cool if we could create a safe and clean space where the kids, young adults, and families I was meeting could interact and play and be normal and form friendships?”

She continued to work throughout treatment as a way to maintain some normalcy and her identity as an architect, but in the background, a different dream was forming — one that applied her knowledge and skills in a new way.

“A lot of the reason that I came up with the Children’s Healing Center and brought it to fruition is because of the education I received at Taubman College,” Barbour says. “I learned to always be looking for how I could improve environments and spaces. I deeply believe that buildings and environments and how they’re designed have the power to impact and influence people’s lives.”

Proof of Concept

After a year of treatment and another year of healing, Barbour started a nonprofit organization in 2011 to explore the idea and eventually opened her first center in Grand Rapids in 2015. Many of her first backers were recent architecture clients. 

“I often share that I learned at Taubman College the ability to tell a story and pitch my design idea and concept,” she says. “In the studio, you come up with your project and then you present it to critics and they help improve the idea. That’s basically what I did for five years to get the center open — pitched the center to funders and community supporters and leaders and program experts and asked for their ideas. It was like a larger-scale studio project.”

Designed as hospital-grade facilities with HEPA air filtration, water filtration, and no fabric surfaces, the centers also use intensive screening processes and a staff cleaning protocol that allows kids with complex medical conditions and weakened immune systems to participate in a variety of social and mental health focused programming, including after school activities, recreational therapy, fitness, art, and music. The center also partners with local organizations to bring in programs kids wouldn’t be able to participate in otherwise. But it’s the space itself that really makes the difference for kids and their parents.

“Their families and friends don’t understand what they’re going through, but when they come to the center, they can be in a space where they can exhale,” Barbour says. “They’re not worried that their kids are going to get sick or hurt, and they can connect really meaningfully with people who understand.”

Once the first center opened, Barbour realized it could help more than cancer patients, and expansion was soon underway. Then a physician at U-M’s Mott Children’s Hospital contacted her about opening a second center in the Ann Arbor area. With funding from the state and some key donors, the center opened an Ypsilanti location in June 2024 and is currently working with partner organizations to spread the word.

Ask an Alum

To help manage her growing organization, Barbour enlisted Taubman College classmate and longtime friend Sarah Velliky, B.S. Arch ’09, M.Arch ’11, who made the leap from project architect at OX Studio to manager of design & construction at the center in 2022. Velliky already was familiar with Barbour’s mission, having volunteered in Grand Rapids before serving on the board of the Southeast Michigan location. With expansion and construction completed in Grand Rapids and Ypsilanti, she oversees mechanical systems and volunteers at both locations and will lead any future construction projects. Sometimes she misses design work, but the center has plenty of rewards.

“Seeing these kids and hearing their parents tell us, ‘This kid was having a bad day, and then we told them we were going to go to the Children’s Healing Center and their faces lit up and they just got so excited.’ That makes it worth it,” she says.

Barbour has always been something of a trailblazer: Before she was officially an architecture student at Taubman College, she and another classmate convinced the dean to let them join a studio class as sophomores.

“I liked being in the second-floor studio space,” she says. “The energy of the studios and students designing and learning and creating has always been really memorable and inspiring for me.”

After a decade of serving children and families, she’s still using that energy today.

“Taubman College empowers students to come up with unique ideas, and then gives us the tools and resources to create something essentially from nothing, which is really what the Children’s Healing Center is,” Barbour says. “A Taubman education gives you that confidence.

If you have an idea, test it out. Keep testing, iterating, designing, reworking, learning from others, improving, and then executing. It’s the one thing I learned that helped the centers open and be in the growth phase we are today.”

— Eric Gallippo

Even as an undergraduate, Andrés Cortés, B.S. Arch ’97, had a “little bit of an entrepreneurial streak.” Cortés was working his way through college as manager of an Ann Arbor coffee shop when the owners approached him with his first side gig: designing a new addition next to the former home of Ulrich’s Bookstore. “Shockingly, they built it as I had designed it,” he says.

Later, during his graduate studies at Columbia University, Cortés continued to pursue freelance work en route to earning his master’s, becoming a licensed architect, and co-founding his own New York-based firm, Agencie, with his wife in 2007. 

“We are an architecture and engineering practice that believes construction is the consummate architectural act,” Cortés says. “We try to optimize all of the work around constructability and construction methodology and materials, so that a work of architecture can also be thought of as a work of engineering.”

Today, that ethos and entrepreneurial drive, along with a spark for architecture he picked up at Taubman College, have served him well. The award-winning New York firm’s portfolio includes hundreds of projects across residential, retail, entertainment, and sports sectors, as well as a successful spinoff business, supplying proprietary specialty scaffolding across the United States and Canada. 

‘Psyched About Buildings’

Growing up in Colombia and South Florida as the son of real estate developers, Cortés was well acquainted with construction sites from a young age, but he didn’t develop a passion for buildings until later. At the University of Michigan, his first interests were art history and English before making the leap to architecture. “Once you become an architecture student, you’re head over heels in love,” he says. “You’re just so psyched about buildings.”

He fondly remembers studying construction technology with Annette Lecuyer, architecture history with Lydia Soo, and drawing with Melissa Harris. He was also challenged by Jason Young, who brought a background in engineering that “filled another part of your brain.

New York State of Mind

Before launching Agencie, Cortés worked briefly for a couple of other New York firms, including B Five Studio, a smaller office renowned for its talented designers and work with high profile clients, including musician Billy Joel. There, Cortés got the opportunity to work with two principals on the interior of comedian and actor Jerry Seinfeld’s home. 

“The Seinfeld experience was informative in how far into design work you can get, and it was a nice little feather in my hat at the time,” he says.

As principal architect at Agencie, Cortés wears many hats today, from design to client relations to financial oversight to human resources. Some days he takes out the trash. He’s still highly involved in the creative process, but sometimes that looks more like strategically building talented teams and pushing them to do their best work than putting pencil to paper.

Notable projects by the 20-person team include updating Times Square’s Hotel Langwell, renovating the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal to become the new headquarters of Uncommon Goods, and contributing sheltering canopies for the new terminal at JFK International Airport.

Soon after launching, the firm developed its hallmark project, hitting on a novel approach to scaffolding that solved for functionality and aesthetics. 

“There’s scaffolding all over the city to protect pedestrians, as these buildings are aging and the city is densifying, and also as the city is becoming more vertical,” Cortés explains. “So how do we protect the public right of way without obstructing the experience of the city?”

After winning the urbanSHED international design competition in 2009 with their Urban Umbrella scaffolding, Cortés and his wife created a separate business to supply it to cities around the U.S. and Canada before selling it in 2019. “It speaks to the heart of our approach, because it’s both a work of architecture and a work of engineering, and it’s a public facing project,” he says.

‘We’re Doers’

Although he’s 500 miles from Ann Arbor, Cortés’ core group of friends in New York are friends he made at Michigan, and it’s not uncommon to cross paths with other alumni, or even work on a project together. He and his family get back to Ann Arbor fairly regularly, too.

Cortés’ pragmatic approach to design has sometimes kept him from appreciating his own creativity, but he’s coming around to it. “It took me years into my career where I was like, ‘Wait a minute; I’m a creative design professional, and this is how I make a living,’” he says. 

Ultimately, though, it’s still mostly about seeing that creativity come to life in the real world as a finished product. 

“We’re doers,” he says. “At the end of the day, I think most architects like to see things get done.”

To that end, even a building he doesn’t like looking at can be a point of pride. For example, that first commission, at 1101 S. University Ave., which has since been home to an Espresso Royale and now M36 Coffee Roasters. Although he doesn’t care much for the design today, it’s nice to see his mark on campus when he visits. “It’s the ugliest building I’ve ever done, but I’m very proud that it’s still there,” he says.

— Eric Gallippo

Taubman College hosted two visiting scholars through the U-M African Presidential Scholars (UMAPS) program for 2024-2025. Clint Abrahams, architect and senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town, and Michael Gameli Dziwornu, geography researcher and lecturer at the University of Ghana, spent the year studying and sharing knowledge with faculty and students, including at events hosted by the college’s Africa Alliance.

In the spring, the scholars shared their work with the community. Dziwornu gave a talk on his extensive research into the social, spatial, and environmental history of an abandoned sugar factory in post-colonial Ghana. The factory and surrounding farm have changed international ownership several times and offer a complex case study to inform more equitable and sustainable developments in the future. 

Abrahams hosted an intimate storytelling event in the college’s TVLab, where faculty and students discussed architecture and narrative in marginalized communities, including his home of South Africa. Titled “Ghellie Blik Stories” (shown above) the event was named for the Afrikaans word for a found metal object used to hold a fire for gathering. Gathered around a virtual fire and surrounded by drawings, videos, and texts, guests were invited to informally “talk about the work as if we were friends.” “The language we use around this particular object is important,” Abrahams says. “Back home, to get to the deeper meanings, you can’t talk in a language that is not accessible.”

The scholars also took part in the “Land, Deed, and Debt” (shown below) workshop exploring university campuses in West Africa. The day-long event featured several Taubman College faculty and was held in the commons. “The publicness of it was incredibly moving in the sense that, when we talk about African scholars and what they do, it’s not done in isolation,” Abrahams says.

At the conclusion of their stay, the scholars traveled south to participate in the Society of Architectural Historians conference in Atlanta and visit Auburn University’s Rural Studio, as well as several historic sites from the U.S. civil rights movement, with Professor Łukasz Stanek.

The off-campus design-build studio focuses on social responsibility and sustainability in a historically low-income rural region of Alabama. Their visit was supported by a Taubman College microgrant. “My research looks at rural regeneration, so the experience was quite incredible — to see firsthand how a cultural studio has been able to revitalize a rural community,” Dziwornu says.

As they prepared to return home, Abrahams and Dziwornu both expressed gratitude for the experience and their hosts’ commitment to collaboration and sharing knowledge, as well as the opportunity to work with each other. “The cohort is incredibly important,” Abrahams says. “Since we come from the same place, meaning Africa, it feels like you can ask questions and speak openly as one would do as brothers and sisters.”

— Eric Gallippo

Master of Architecture students Ravi Kumar and Cayla Ellis spent the summer in Kigali, Rwanda, with MASS Design Group as part of the college’s Longo International Architecture Internship program. Kumar, M.Arch ’26, worked on the firm’s Mothers and Children focus area, researching design solutions to reduce maternal and infant mortality and comparing different interventions in the region. Ellis, M.Arch ’26, worked on the Learning and Entrepreneurship focus area, comparing case studies to determine if higher education translated to leadership and entrepreneurship in the workplace. 

The program was established, in part, through a gift that created an endowed fund at Taubman College and was later strengthened with a significant bequest to establish the Longo International Architecture Internship Fund in 2018.

During their internship, Kumar and Ellis benefited from practicing design abroad, visiting a variety of locations, and adapting to cultural differences. “To be able to utilize some of the coursework and skills we’ve gained in a completely new environment was really eye opening,” Kumar says. “There’s a much different scene around design and the built environment, particularly in East Africa. It was really enriching to experience that firsthand.”

Outside of work, Ellis visited the Ellen DeGeneres Campus for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the Mubuga Primary School, and Nyungwe National Park. At the end of their trip, the interns visited Butaro District, home to Butaro District Hospital. The health care and university center provides essential resources for rural Rwandans. “It was really clear that this had become a place for patients to seek reliable care in a locality where that wasn’t an opportunity previously,” Kumar says. “To see the direct impact of design decisions — like certain structuring of the building, external circulation, or outdoor waiting areas — actively in use was enlightening.”

Although Kumar and Ellis worked on different projects, they both worked closely with community members in Kigali. In her spare time, Ellis also played co-ed soccer, a highlight of the trip that also helped introduce her to new people. “Teaching youth how to play further expanded my network and gave me the opportunity to interact with a diverse group of people,” Ellis says.

“I made friends for a lifetime in the league, as they truly cared for me throughout my stay, which was a blessing.”

Based on their experiences in Rwanda, Kumar and Ellis both hope to continue engaging and working with community members and stakeholders closely during the design process after graduation. “Knowing that’s where the true impact lies will continue to impact the way I approach design pursuits, as well as the way I engage with localities I’m working with — the direct users of projects and stakeholders who are meaningful to the project, and who might also not have a voice in a typical design process,” Kumar says.

“This experience made me truly consider the needs of the people prior to designing the output and the importance of research throughout all aspects of the design process,” Ellis says.

— Joshua Nicholson, B.S. Urban Tech ’26

Image: from left: Ravi Kumar, M.Arch ’26. Cayla Ellis, M.Arch ’26.

After 35 years co-leading one of San Diego’s top architecture firms, Gordon Carrier, B.S. Arch ’79, M.Arch ’81, still credits his success to tools he first picked up studying architecture at the University of Michigan, a school that felt out of reach to him as a high school student. Gordon grew up in a small town outside Flint, Michigan. He worked hard in school but still felt behind at graduation. “I always saw Michigan as a place I would aspire to, but likely never actually be able to go,” he says.

Things changed when he started building theater sets at Hope College, sparking his love for design and construction. He transferred to U-M to study architecture. There, he met his longtime mentor and “professional father” Gunnar Birkerts. The two stayed close and collaborated often after graduation. “He taught me what design is really about,” Gordon says. “I carry it with me to this day, and it was because of Michigan.”

That sense of gratitude has inspired Gordon and his wife, Robin, an interior designer running her own successful firm, to give to Taubman College and U-M over the years, including gifts to Michigan Solar House and the Rocky Mountain/Western States Scholarship Fund.

In 2022, they founded the Gordon R. Carrier and Robin Wilson Carrier Scholarship Fund at Taubman College. This year, they strengthened that fund with a planned gift of $1 million, opening opportunities for students for years to come. “It’s such a worthy cause to give back and invest in the future of design and provide for students in their education, because they’re our future,” Robin says.

Birkerts, who passed away in 2017, was an international architect who worked with Eero Saarinen. Taubman College’s commitment to recruiting top professors is another motivation for the Carriers’ giving. “Somebody needs to meet their own Gunnar,” Gordon says.
“We’re hopeful this gift can help them afford that.”

The Carriers also appreciate recent efforts by the college to connect with alumni, led by Dean Jonathan Massey. Gordon has served on the Dean’s Advisory Board since 2019, and the couple have hosted gatherings in San Diego to build community amongst alumni there.

Gordon’s firm, Carrier Johnson + Culture, has also hired Taubman College interns and graduates. He’s impressed by the interdisciplinary opportunities uniquely available to architecture students at U-M today, as well as the critical thinking skills they leave with.“It’s about teaching people how to think,” he says. “Some do it well, some don’t. Michigan does it well.”

— Eric Gallippo

A collaborative research project years in the making between Taubman College and a Michigan Tribal Nation to document the history of a Federal Indian Industrial Boarding School got underway this summer, thanks to the support of alumnus Kyle L. Schertzing, B.S. Arch ’05.

Led by Robert Adams, associate professor of architecture, and Dawn Gilpin, lecturer IV, and supported by Margaret Hillengas, post-graduate research assistant and director of the EIPC Scan-Lab, the multiyear, interdisciplinary effort with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan will collect and share the history of the Mount Pleasant Indian Boarding School through LiDAR surveys, exhibition prototyping, and digitally immersive storytelling. But it almost didn’t happen, after a National Endowment for the Humanities grant was rescinded under the current federal administration. “This important project built a meaningful partnership between Taubman College and Tribal Sovereign Nations. It was a loss to have the NEH funding pulled,” says Kathy Velikov, associate dean for research. “Kyle’s support allows this work to move forward with an expanded scope and purpose, and opens doors for research partnerships to make a real impact on the lives of Tribal citizens in our state through knowledge building and the recovery of cultural histories.”

Born and raised in Chelsea, Michigan, Schertzing is a San Diego-based architect, member of the Taubman College Alumni Council, and a citizen of The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. When the project lost its funding, he made a gift to keep it going and expand it to include the impact of all five of the state’s Indian boarding schools on Tribal communities. The findings will be owned by all 12 Michigan tribes. “For me, it’s also about being a voice with Robert and Dawn and raising awareness of the actual history,” says Schertzing, who also serves on the project’s board. “To know that there was a culture within architecture that agreed to create these buildings for such horrific things is disgraceful.”

Between 1,000 and 3,000 children are estimated to have died attending Federal Indian boarding schools for forced assimilation across the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Mount Pleasant, where children from across the region were transported. “The impact of Kyle’s gift is two-fold,” Adams says. “It supports the Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan in telling their story about the history of the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School, and it launches a new research project that examines the impact of epistemicide and cultural erasure on all 12 Indigenous Tribes in Michigan.”

— Eric Gallippo

Kevin Bush, M.U.P. ’10, has spent his career at the forefront of disaster recovery and climate resilience strategy, leading emergency preparedness and recovery efforts for the city of Washington, D.C., and federal housing and development programs under the Biden administration. But if it weren’t for a few encouraging friends and a well-curated summer reading list, he might never have pursued the education that set him on that path.

In 2008, Bush, was living in Southeast Michigan, working in a role he didn’t love in a job market sunk by the recession. “Several people told me, ‘You like understanding how systems work and how thriving places come to be. Have you thought about urban planning?’” he recalls.

After sampling a few books listed on the Taubman College website, he met with the admissions team and was soon registered for the next term. Today, as a principal at The Cadmus Group, Bush puts his years of public experience to work in the private sector, managing large, multidisciplinary teams to help federal, state, and local governments navigate complex climate, resilience, equity, and infrastructure challenges. 

Recently, he established the endowed Kevin Bush Urban Planning Scholarship Fund as a way to help the next generation of planners navigate financial challenges that might keep them from pursuing their own dreams of a Taubman College education.

Experiential Extracurriculars

While Bush enjoyed nearly all of his classes — particularly those on planning law with Dick Norton and planning theory with June Manning Thomas — as well as working with advisor Joe Grengs, he credits mentoring experiences outside of the classroom with shaping his career, including an internship with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority and a Chicago Mayoral Fellowship.

A summer AmeriCorps program in Detroit and a vacant property survey run by Eric Dueweke turned his attention to low-income community development. Another formative project with Professor Larissa Larsen exposed him to climate adaptive sustainable building measures.

“I’ve gone back and forth between community development and climate and where they interact is kind of my sweet spot, but those really came out of extracurricular programs I had exposure to through Taubman,” he says. “A lot of my early side projects, internships, fellowships, etc., were incredibly eye opening to me and really set me on the path that I’m on now.”

Field Generalist

Right out of college, that path included working for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a Presidential Management Fellow, where he worked on President Obama’s Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative and with the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality’s climate adaptation team. Hurricane Sandy hit New York a year into his fellowship, and climate change became a top priority for the administration, moving Bush’s team front and center. Joining the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, Bush found himself on the ground floor of a new approach to disaster recovery, as he helped launch and then expand major initiatives to not only rebuild in their aftermath but to do so with sustainability and climate resilience in mind. 

When Washington, D.C., was selected in 2016 as one of 100 Resilient Cities, a worldwide initiative to help cities address 21st-century challenges led by the Rockefeller Foundation, Bush became its first chief resilience officer. A few years later, he became chief of resilience and emergency preparedness for the district’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. The COVID-19 pandemic hit two months later, and there was Bush again, thinking on his feet to help navigate federal funds to not only cover emergency expenses but also plan for D.C.’s future after losses to sales tax and tourism revenues.

Under the Biden Administration, Bush returned to HUD as deputy assistant secretary for grant programs, where he oversaw a nationwide portfolio of affordable housing and community development programs, including the largest source of disaster recovery and climate resilience funding for low-income communities and the launch of a high priority $5 billion housing recovery program. “What I have found most valuable from my time at Taubman is that, as a planner, you’re basically a cities and government generalist,” Bush says. “You learn about a lot of the different systems that go into making communities better. You’re not an engineer or an architect or a fiscal analyst, but you know a little bit about each of those things, and that experience has really helped me launch very large, very new, very complicated programs over and over again.”

Planning with Purpose

Today, Bush and his family live outside of Philadelphia, where in addition to his remote work for Cadmus, he also serves on the planning commission of a 40,000-person exurban township. He’s a proud Wolverine who keeps a block M throw pillow in his office and fondly recalls crossing paths with alumni “in the strangest places,” from meeting with Julie Schneider, M.U.P. ’12, director of Detroit’s housing & revitalization department, about HUD grants, to Jonathan Tarr, M.U.P. ’11, helping him move into his first place in Washington. 

Over the years, he has also made time to advise and advocate for Taubman College students. Bush is a regular speaker at career events focused on public service and, last fall, joined a panel on climate resilient communities as part of the college’s Climate Futures Symposium. When it comes to founding his own scholarship, Bush says the world will always need planners, but oftentimes talent and vision can be constrained by financial barriers. 

“The future of resilient, sustainable, and just communities really depends on who gets to shape them,” Bush says. “My hope with creating this fund is to help unlock some of the potential from students who bring their lived experience, creativity, and deep sense of purpose to the field of urban planning.”

— Eric Gallippo

Taubman College’s first-of-its kind Urban Technology program keeps evolving to meet the needs of today’s students and cities.

When looking for colleges five years ago, T.F. Chen, B.S. Urban Tech ’25, was excited by a brand new degree he’d learned about at the University of Michigan, one that focused on planning and designing for technologically advanced cities. He was also accepted to a traditional architecture and planning program in his home country of Canada, but it didn’t feel like the right fit for him. His heart was set on Urban Technology.

“As someone who is very enthusiastic about cities and who wants to be more involved in designing and planning for cities and the capabilities of handling these new urban systems that are emerging, I decided to bet on this program and come to Michigan,” Chen says.

Today, that bet has paid off; Chen started working in his dream field for a transportation consulting firm in San Francisco earlier this year. Like others from his inaugural graduating cohort, he learned to work through the ambiguity of studying an emerging discipline and appreciates the strong bonds developed along the way. 

“It’s almost like we were all creating this curriculum together, even as students, helping the faculty shape it for future cohorts through feedback about the classes, the trips we took, the career opportunities we were exposed to,” Chen says.

And the college has responded, with new offerings, new requirements, and some new approaches to graduating the world’s first urban technologists.

“Building this unique degree with faculty, alumni, industry experts, and expert staff was a highlight of my career,” says Jonathan Massey, dean at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. “Even better has been seeing students respond with intelligence, creativity, and passion. They have co-created this degree by shaping its curriculum and culture profoundly.” 

Bigger than the Classroom

For the first time this fall, incoming Urban Technology students started their Taubman College journey in late August, as opposed to January. Bryan Boyer, faculty director of the Bachelor of Science in Urban Technology degree, says the change added some excitement for the new cohort — and it’s not just because of the better weather.

“There’s always a certain level of energy when the fall semester starts,” Boyer says. “It’s exciting to begin the year with vitality, not just in our program, which has always been there, but really across campus. So now we’re fully participating in that fall groundswell of activity that occurs all across the Ann Arbor campus, which is awesome.”

Helping to generate more excitement, the program released a new video in August produced by Lunar North. It combines bright, colorful animation with student and faculty insights on what Urban Technology is and why it should be studied. That energy can also be attributed to more students in the building, with the incoming cohort of 60 tripling the size of the inaugural group, and a total of 170 students across cohorts. And with the experience of four previous cohorts to draw on, Boyer says students are entering as the “most informed” to date.

The curriculum was also adapted to better support students academically. Previously an elective course, Urban Informatics, taught by Xiaofan Liang, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, is now a required course. For students more interested in entrepreneurship and innovation, new courses in Foresight and Prototyping add nuance to the way students learn about design.

“These additions to the curriculum come from seeing how students have navigated the program and two clusters of students that emerged for us,” Boyer says. “There’s a group of students who are more interested in analytics — using sensors, data, and computational power to understand how cities operate and urban outcomes. The other group is more excited about creating stuff. That could be somebody who wants to become a UX designer, an entrepreneur, or someone who wants to create new government policies and programs.”

To teach these expanded offerings, the program hired four faculty members in 2025, including two recent doctoral graduates from M.I.T.: Wonyoung So, Ph.D., specializes in data visualization and equitable technology; and Sheng-Hung Lee, Ph.D., brings a focus on planning for longevity in urban environments. Joining as professors of practice, Ron Bronson and Violet Whitney have both taught courses previously. Bronson will teach service design in the winter, and Whitney will teach an elective on “spatial computing” that will eventually seed into the new prototyping class. Continuing with the program are Emily Kutil, M.Arch ’13, lecturer in architecture, who has been co-leading the program’s Cities Intensive, and Lisa Sauvé, M.Arch ’11, M.S. ’14, assistant professor of practice in architecture and co-founder of Synecdoche design studio, who brings a background in design and entrepreneurship. 

“It’s really important for us to have a balance of tenure track and practice track people who can bring deep structured thinking in addition to more emergent professional insights,” Boyer says. 

Two things that won’t change are a commitment to engaged learning through exercises like the Cities Intensive, which brings students to three urban areas — recently, Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Chicago — to observe and explore before co-drafting their own model metropolis, as well as an emphasis on studio-based learning.

“Our studio-based pedagogy really gives us a different environment in which to educate the students compared to other tech-focused programs,” Boyer says. “It’s a more intensive setting. They have more contact with professors. We’re able to get into some nuanced problems and develop interesting ideas about how we might respond to those out in the real world.”

Another thing that has been consistent is the bond among students. “My hope when we started this, is that the students would get an education that’s bigger than the classroom,” Boyer says. “And what I saw with the first cohort, and I see in the subsequent cohorts as well, is that there’s a strong bond. We’re big enough that you don’t get tired of working with the same people all the time, yet small enough that you get to know everyone, and we can be a little community within the village of Taubman College, within the metropolis of the University of Michigan.”

Urban Technology Alumni Experiences 

Aakash Narayan, B.S. Urban Tech ’24

As a development analyst for Landmark Properties, Aakash Narayan, B.S. Urban Tech ’24, spends a lot of time thinking about one question: “Why would someone want to live here?”

Landmark is an Atlanta-based real estate firm specializing in student housing communities around the United States, the UK, and Ireland. Narayan was hired there over the summer after completing an internship in 2024.

Working with a team, he helps analyze sites by calculating risks and predicting financial performance. It’s fast-paced work that requires quick thinking, teamwork, and iterating in real time to keep projects moving forward on deadline. The qualitative data analysis falls in line with his urban planning coursework when it comes to zoning codes. But ultimately, he needs to determine what will make an urban area attractive to tenants. “That human-centered approach of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and using that thought process to carry out all the other functions,” was learned in the urban technology program.

“I’m creating a lot of the assumptions for the financial model,” Narayan says. “Does it make sense to add retail here? How much is the retail rent? What kinds of tenants would we get? A lot of it boils down to analyzing a place and why someone would want to live there, and then a lot of the financial metrics are taken from answering that singular question.”

While at Taubman College, Narayan also co-founded the Urban Technology Student Organization (UTSO), where he learned to get creative with securing funding and organize and plan meetings — skills he still employs today. Although his work is far from what he was doing in his upper studio courses, Narayan says the basic principles are central to how he operates. “That kind of workflow that we had in studios is my workflow here,” he says. “Knowing how to take feedback and adjust, and all of those kinds of intangibles from the Urban Technology course structure, that’s replicated here.”

Hannah Bernstein, B.S. Urban Tech ’25

When Hannah Bernstein, B.S. Urban Tech ’25, started at U-M, she knew she wanted to make an impact in the field of sustainability. After starting with the College of LSA with plans to enter engineering, she considered transferring to the School for Environment and Sustainability before making the move to Taubman College during her junior year.

“Urban Technology specifically seemed like a good mesh of all of these different interests, because it was multidisciplinary, and I liked the size and focus of the program,” she says. “Even though it’s broad and you can do anything with it, it also seemed more like I could do exactly what I wanted, which was to work on sustainable development.”

Today, Bernstein is a renewable development analyst with global clean energy company Invenergy, where she acts as liaison between stakeholders, including landowners, engineers, environmental protection agencies, lawyers, and community leaders, while ensuring respect for the land itself. Although she’s based in Chicago, the team she works with is focused on developing scalable renewables — including solar and onshore wind power and battery storage — in Michigan, which “hits close to home” for the Ann Arbor native.

Bernstein first connected with Invenergy through an internship in 2024, during which she helped analyze prospects for new developments based on Geographic Information Systems data and other inputs from previous projects to help determine which sites might be most viable and how responsive landowners might be. She credits her Urban Technology background with developing her critical thinking and comfort with working across sectors. A class in stakeholder relations — UT 201 Change-Making in Cities — was especially formative.

“The coursework really focuses on a large range of different factors that play into each other, which is the same thing that I’m doing with renewable energy development,” she says.

T.F. Chen, B.S. Urban Tech ’25

Ever since he was a kid, Chen has been fascinated with cities and transportation.

“I used to draw fantasy maps and imagine what cities would look like,” Chen says. “I would sketch spaghetti networks of highways and train networks.”

So when the Taubman College Career Fair helped connect him with an internship with San Francisco consulting firm Fehr & Peers in 2024, it was a dream opportunity years in the making. While there, Chen applied his experience from coursework to take the lead on a community engagement session. Drawing from Urban Technology principles, he developed survey questions and a scavenger hunt activity that got residents thinking about their neighborhood, what improvements had been made already, and what needs they still had.

Earlier this year, Chen was hired as Engineer Planner I with the firm, where he now works on data visualization and mapping to help tell the story of how the firm’s transportation projects are improving communities, as well as community engagement to ensure its recommendations are appropriate for not just the physical environment, but also the culture of local residents. 

Looking back on his time in the Urban Technology program, he says being among the first to go through and have a hand in shaping it gave him and his cohort a shared sense of confidence.

“There’s this kind of common sentiment between the people in our cohort: ‘If you have something uncertain, come to us. We’re used to it. It’s all good.’”

Creating Curriculum, Together

In an August newsletter to students, Boyer noted that, since its inception, the Urban Technology program has been working to define itself. Those definitions have focused on the combination of urbanism, technology, and design; the ways data, connectivity, computation, and automation affect how we experience and shape cities; and the digitalization of the built environment. This year, a new definition emerged, one that encompasses all of the above: a new liberal arts for the urban era.

When describing their degrees to peers, colleagues, and potential employers, Narayan, Bernstein, and Chen all get the same responses: “What is that?” or “Tell me more.” The answers vary depending on who’s talking and who they’re talking to.

“Once you find your pitch, a lot of people get pretty excited about what it is and what your background is,” Narayan says. “A lot of times I describe it as an urban planning degree with a data design component.”

“I give the spiel that it’s cities, design, and code, and it’s kind of like a layer on top of urban planning,” Bernstein says. “But to me, it means sustainable development; that’s why I pursued urban technology.”

As for their own feedback for the program and future cohorts, Bernstein recommends students try some projects outside of their focus area, if just for the added experience with a new set of problems or tools. Looking back from his current role, Narayan suggests more exercises with grounded parameters, where students design solutions for real-world time and budget constraints. Chen is excited about the prospect of the new prototyping curriculum and a deeper integration between coding and design.

“What sets Urban Technology apart, to me, is the culture we have, not just as a cohort, but the entire program,” Chen says. “There’s a community that’s like, ‘Let’s do this together, let’s build this and shape this curriculum together,’ which is something I really appreciate.” 

— Eric Gallippo

Main Image: Video still from the “Smart Cities Start With You” urban technology video, produced by Lunar North (2025).

Backed by an NSF CAREER Award, Assistant Professor Mania Aghaei Meibodi and her team are pushing the field forward.

Today’s built environment is under significant pressure from multiple complex challenges, including material and labor shortages, ambitious energy goals, and climate risks such as flooding, earthquakes, and wildfires. To Mania Aghaei Meibodi, assistant professor of architecture at Taubman College, these overlapping challenges present an opportunity to pursue design and construction processes that address all of them at once. “Adopting 3D printing and machine learning will elevate the built environment, and the lives of people and other species, by expanding what we can design and build, boosting performance, enabling mass customization, raising productivity, and cutting waste,” she says.

Aghaei Meibodi is a leader in developing novel compu­tational design and fabrication methods for large-scale manufacturing in the building industry. She says machine learning’s capacity to analyze thousands of measurements enables it to spot patterns humans miss, opening new doors for 3D printing intricate geometries at scale.

“It works with designers to predict and even generate high-performance components, and it recommends manufacturing settings so parts are built right the first time, with data to back it up.”

High-performance elements are inherently complex, not as a goal, but rather from integrating multiple functions into a single part. Aghaei Meibodi says that complexity becomes an opportunity with 3D printing rather than a constraint.“The integration of robotics and 3D printing has demonstrated strong potential to produce high-performance parts that are material-optimized, structurally superior, lightweight, and capable of combining multiple functions within a single manufacturing process.”

Realizing this opportunity requires two key developments: 1) tools and computational models that allow architects and engineers to design high-performing, printable building components, and 2) robust robotic 3D printing systems capable of fabricating complex geometries without extensive trial-and-error.

Aghaei Meibodi and her interdisciplinary team at Taubman College’s Digital Architecture Research and Technology (DART) Laboratory have spent the last five years working on these developments. In July, she received a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her proposal based on their research: “Data‑Driven Extrusion‑Based Robotic Three‑Dimensional Printing of Reinforced Concrete.” The five-year NSF grant supports the lab’s efforts to develop intelligent robotic printing methods that can produce scalable “first-time-right” high-performance building elements.

“It’s an opportunity for us to be at the frontier of the field,” she says. “We will have the support to develop new models, research direction, and education curriculum.”

The work is incredibly challenging due to the shifting physical properties of concrete and the large data sets required to train machines to print complex geometries. But overcoming these challenges could radically change the construction industry — reducing harmful environmental impacts, addressing housing shortages, creating desirable jobs, and spurring innovative design, technology, and construction businesses by opening the door to producing high-performance concrete elements that inherently entail complex geometries.

“Concrete is a very unforgiving material,” Aghaei Meibodi says. “It’s super soft, and then, when printing it, you want to immediately solidify it while maintaining the structural integrity of the part being printed. Once you start dealing with complex geometry, you are facing deformations and collapse at all times.”

As a result, she says the current building elements that can be robotically 3D printed with concrete aren’t better aesthetically or functionally than what can be built with traditional formwork.

DART’s goal is to develop machine-learning geometric models that learn directly from the printing process, as well as part performance during and after fabrication. First, the team will identify which data are meaningful to capture — spanning design (geometry and targets), materials, robotic 3D-printing process signals (paths, speeds, pressures, temperatures), and other metrics (bead height, voids, cure state). Next, they will model and process the data to train machine learning systems that predict printability and performance; generate new, high-performing, printable geometries; and recommend control parameters for first-time-right fabrication, with closed-loop adjustments if conditions drift. Finally, they will validate the approach through large-scale demonstrators, running printers with real-time feedback, benchmarking against conventional methods, and publicly exhibiting the results.

“These forms are very complex, and they need models that are beyond manual modeling or existing coding,” Aghaei Meibodi says. “It will need a collaboration between humans and AI to suggest forms that are reliable for printing, because the parameters that guarantee success are too many. There are too many challenges to be considered by a single person. But data collection and AI can help solve this complex problem.”

The funding also supports the development of new curriculum and educational outreach to broaden participation by learners of all ages and skill levels and train the workforce necessary to take on new, highly skilled roles. At Taubman College, two new courses are in development, one at the M.Arch level focused on data collection, data-driven modeling, and AI for robotic 3D printing, and another for B.S. Arch students with a focus on more basic concepts. There are also plans for a workshop series introducing robotic construction and 3D printing, where students can experiment and become familiar with the tools. For young learners, the team is creating a toy building set that emulates the geometries and processes of successful 3D printing.

“AI-driven, robotic 3D printing in construction will create new job opportunities and spark educational programs that don’t yet exist,” Aghaei Meibodi says. “We will need a lot of skill sets within the next generation.”

To Aghaei Meibodi, the larger goal, and what the field still lacks, isn’t to replicate with robots what conventional concrete formwork already does, but to develop technologies and processes that can reliably print a wide range of forms and enable advanced building elements. As the industry adopts these technologies, she expects new markets and opportunities to emerge alongside collaborations spanning robotics, computer science, materials science, architecture, engineering, and entrepreneurship.

“You could imagine startups that specialize in 3D printing homes or specific building elements,” she says. “Others might reinvent the elements themselves, developing new print technologies, novel materials, smarter control systems, or design workflows built for additive manufacturing. As these efforts converge, we’ll see breakthroughs we don’t yet anticipate. What exists is only the beginning.” 

— Eric Gallippo

Martin Murray’s latest research in Detroit has its roots 4,000 miles away in Germany’s Ruhr Valley, a region once home to a booming coal and steel industry. As employers left and towns shrank, Germany invested in transforming the abandoned infrastructure into public parks and historic monuments, explains Murray, professor of urban planning at Taubman College.

Murray has long researched places like the Ruhr post-­industrial region and others globally. He’s written a number of books and articles exploring, “What happens to these leftover spaces right after abandonment?” When COVID halted global travel five years ago, Murray turned his focus closer to home. He and his Taubman College colleagues María Arquero de Alarcón, associate professor of architecture and urban and regional planning, and Olaia Chivite Amigo, M.Arch ’18, and recent architecture fellow, began studying patterns of distress in five Detroit neighborhoods.

In April, Murray received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship — one of 198 out of 3,500 applicants. The fellowship recognized his scholarship and his upcoming book, which connects dots between Detroit’s current realities through research countering both “apocryphal” tales of a “destroyed city” and recent boosterism over its thriving sports and entertainment district. “The argument is that decline is uneven, and that what happens in those spaces is very much tied to the process of abandonment,” Murray says. “If you go to the seven square miles along Woodward Avenue, you’ll find a vibrancy, but you don’t have to go very far to see that that’s very limited.”

His research draws on Brightmoor, Delray, Mapleridge, Poletown, and Riverbend — neighborhoods challenged by vacancy, abandonment, foreclosures, and diminished municipal services. Murray says a “kind of triage” is occurring, with some areas willfully neglected so others can be prioritized. “The city administration has basically decided that there are places they’re going to do nothing for,” he says. “They’re going to talk about doing things, but in fact, nothing is going to happen.”

In Delray, for example, residents face some of the worst pollution in the country due to overindustrialization. When the city offered a buyout program, few people qualified because so few were longtime homeowners.

Most funds for Detroit’s struggling neighborhoods come through private philanthropy and foundations and are devoted to projects like artist collectives and urban farms, Murray says. But with limited schools, social services, or even traffic lights, it’s hard to imagine these small-scale projects sustaining neighborhoods long-term. “What is happening in Detroit is an experiment with a new kind of urbanism,” Murray says. “What happens when the state agencies that offered a balance between private investment and public services begin to wither and fall apart?”

Research for his book-length manuscript is based on ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews and reviews of public records and journalistic accounts, as well as “walking the streets.” One clear comparison for Murray is Johannesburg, South Africa, once the world’s premier site for gold mining. The city now features extreme wealth next to widespread hardship after mining’s decline. Gated communities offer exclusivity for some, while other areas lack consistent public utilities and services. “There are a lot of cities in the world that are experiencing something very similar to Detroit,” he says.

It’s not just a lack of resources, but speculative investors extracting what little remains. Murray says these investments leave few homes for purchase, with landlords charging high rents and offering “predatory” rent-to-own schemes. “It’s not the absence of a market: It’s the actual working of the market,” he says.

Murray hopes that this collective research project can raise awareness about deindustrializing cities in distress.

— Eric Gallippo

Taubman College’s Bryan Boyer sat down with the Practice Disrupted podcast last month to discuss his early career, the urban technology program, and the future of technology in the architecture and planning fields. Boyer, faculty director of the Bachelor of Science in Urban Technology and professor of practice in architecture, joined the college in 2019 and worked with Dean Jonathan Massey to develop the urban technology major.

In the Oct. 2 interview, Boyer pointed out that the architecture, engineering, and construction (AECO) fields have been slow to digitize and consolidate. He pointed to a few reasons for the lack of innovation, including a lack of horizontal integration in the AECO supply chain and the business of architecture, which doesn’t leave room for innovation.

“Our work on the design and formulation of the built environment is horizontally disaggregated,” Boyer said. “The architect works with the engineer, they both work with the construction manager, and there are a bunch of subcontracts under that. In aggregate, the team that it takes to produce a new building or public space is extremely fragmented horizontally, and that produces a situation I think of as ‘chain drain,’ as in the intelligence is draining out of the supply chain at every link that’s there.”

This struggle to digitize is part of the motivation behind the urban technology program, which Boyer said is designed to be distinct from an architecture degree.

“When I worked at Sidewalk Labs, I worked very closely with Dan Doctoroff, the CEO,” Boyer said. “Dan used to say we were bridging the gap between the urbanist and the technologist. The way I think about it, with our degree program, the goal is to create a generation of students and professionals that don’t believe that that gap exists, because it doesn’t. That’s how old silos of expertise have organized the world, but our actual experience of the city is fully physical and fully digital in 2025, that’s the reality of it.”

Boyer said not many faculty were excited about the program when it was first announced, but he worked hard to demonstrate how the curriculum connects with architecture and planning.

“The amazing talent and energy of our students did a ton of work,” Boyer said. “Once they showed up and people saw them in the classroom and saw them in the building they said, ‘Wow, this isn’t an architecture student, but they’re really interested in making the city better; this isn’t a planning student but they’re really excited about affordable housing; I don’t care what they call themselves, they care about what I care about.’ That was very important for us, and we intentionally tried to bring in people from across the college to make it take root.”

Practice Disrupted is a podcast run by Practice of Architecture, a website that bridges the gap between architects and business strategy. Listen to the full podcast at Practice of Architecture’s website or wherever you get your podcasts.

Last month, Taubman College hosted an entrepreneurship panel discussion featuring four architecture and urban planning alumni highlighting their unique paths to starting their own businesses after graduation. Held in the Commons, the panelists shared inspiring stories of start-up triumphs and candid lessons from failures as they discussed how they turned challenges into opportunities and ideas into thriving ventures.

The event was hosted by Taubman College’s career and professional development team, which connects students to the college’s network of more than 10,000 alumni working in nearly 70 countries across a wide range of public, private, and nonprofit entities. 

Students were encouraged to ask questions about the panelists’ personal experiences and seek advice for getting the most out of their degrees. The panelists were transparent about their daily schedules, past regrets, life-changing circumstances, and previous work experiences.

More on the panelists and their start-ups is below.

Kyle Hoff, M.Arch ’12, FLOYD

Since launching in 2013, Kyle Hoff’s furniture company, FLOYD, has utilized a practical design philosophy to thoughtfully produce products now living in more than 50,000 homes around the world. Similar to fellow panelist Kitate Kim, Hoff began his start-up with another U-M alum. (“Your future business partner could very well be anyone you meet here,” he said.) During the panel, he was open about some of his greatest challenges following graduation; Hoff shared the failures FLOYD faced designing its second product, and how the company learned lessons through trial and error while staying consistent with its modular design strategy. Through all of it, he said the focus has always been on “Trying not to lose the spark that made the company good.” Hoff urged students to resist constraints as much as possible while in the studio and to use their time at the college to “practice the challenging ideas in your head and innovate with them.” He also emphasized the value in taking a step back when things don’t seem to be working and looking for opportunities that can come from “curves in the road.”

Kitae Kim, B.S. Arch ’16, Foveate

Kitae Kim started his company, Foveate, roughly two and a half years ago with an alumnus of U-M’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. Foveate empowers architects and designers to create immersive, interactive presentations that bring their visions to life, helping them win more projects and build stronger relationships with clients. Following graduation, Kim worked in art studios, which aligned with his conceptually focused architecture education. During the panel, he discussed how limiting it can be in the field to emphasize theory early in one’s career and the hardships that can result. Kim found his own success through adapting to new ideas and credited Taubman College with teaching him “learning how to learn.”

Ujijji Davis Williams, M.U.P. ‘17, JIMA Studio

Five years ago, Ujijji Davis Williams founded JIMA studio, focusing on enhancing human relationships through landscape and planning strategies. Overwhelmed by the changes brought by the pandemic in 2020, Williams quit a job she genuinely enjoyed. When she decided to start JIMA, several clients followed her thanks to the relationships she had built. Before launching, Williams focused heavily on marketing and business development. She encouraged students to take advantage of complementary courses offered by U-M outside Taubman College. “Take more business classes; you don’t want to be learning so many new things for the first time after you’ve graduated,” she said.

Robert Yuen, M.Arch ’11, M.S.D.M.T. ’12, Monograph

In 2019, Robert Yuen co-founded a software company to revolutionize the performance of architecture and engineering firms. Monograph partners with A&E firms to build custom tools that accelerate workflows. Challenges for the young company included shifting 100% online during the COVID-19 pandemic, only to shift back soon after for the sake of the business, and learning how to properly market a good product. Yuen advised students to learn how money works before going into the workforce and to “Take as many risks as you can, and build whenever and wherever you can.”

— Story by Christina Barber

Taubman College’s Sarah Mills was quoted in an article by Inside Climate News about a new data center coming to Saline Township, Michigan. Despite community resistance, the township settled a lawsuit over allegations of exclusionary zoning brought by Related Digital, clearing the way for the developer to build a new data center in the area.

Mills is an associate professor of practice in urban and regional planning and director of U-M’s Center for EmPowering Communities, which works with communities across the urban-rural spectrum to leverage decarbonization opportunities, including locating and developing sites for large-scale renewables like wind and solar, that advance their goals and enhance local quality of life. She spoke about the inconsistent impacts of data centers on local energy and land use.

Because of the lack of standardization, Mills said local communities should take a proactive approach, evaluating their land use and energy capacity before large developments are planned. 

“I think this [shift] is an invitation, an opportunity for rural communities to really assess what it is that they care about and want to be in the future,” she said.

Read more on the Inside Climate News website.

Alumni Josh Sirefman, M.U.P. ’03, and Christopher Locke, M.Arch ’16, have been recognized with awards for their remarkable accomplishments and continued contributions to the Taubman College community. Sirefman and Locke both were honored during a ceremony held in October at the college. Read more about the winners below and look for profiles of each of them in an upcoming issue of Portico.

Josh Sirefman

Distinguished Alumnus 2025

Josh Sirefman, M.U.P. ’03, exemplifies leadership in urban development and is a leader and pioneer in the field of urban technology. His recent role leading the Michigan Central Innovation District in Detroit’s Corktown district spans public and private sectors, putting his experience in planning, negotiating, and implementing complex development strategies to work, fostering what Fast Company has called “the most important economic project in Michigan.” His work with U-M and Taubman College as a volunteer, mentor, and collaborator demonstrates his ongoing commitment to the college and the next generation of built environment leaders.

As a co-founder and head of development at New York-based Sidewalk Labs, now a subsidiary of Alphabet, Sirefman was an early leader in urban technology. In addition to other major projects, he oversaw the design of a futuristic neighborhood near downtown Toronto that proposes adaptable modular buildings, passive house construction, and deep implementation of urban tech.

As founder and president of Sirefman Ventures, he led transformative development projects for a range of corporate, nonprofit, and government entities, including Cornell University’s successful effort to build its Cornell Tech campus in New York, the University of Chicago’s transformation of Hyde Park, and the repositioning of the New York Public Library’s renovation of its flagship building. 

Before founding Sirefman Ventures, he was senior vice president for U.S. development at Brookfield Properties. He also held a series of high-level roles within the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, including chief of staff to the deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, and interim president of the New York City Economic Development Corp.

Sirefman was responsible for bringing Newlab, an organization he had worked with in Brooklyn, to Detroit. Newlab supports tech startups and entrepreneurs and has been particularly successful in bringing emerging mobility-focused companies to Detroit from across the country, jumpstarting a new economic pathway for Southeast Michigan. Michigan Central has won numerous awards for design and innovation, including the Construction Association of Michigan’s 2024 Project of the Year.

Sirefman remains highly engaged with Taubman College. He serves on the Urban Technology Advisory Group and was key to launching the new degree program. He gave the keynote lecture at the college’s 2018 Shaping Future Cities Symposium and helped host an alumni event at Sidewalk Labs in New York. He served on the external review committee commissioned by Dean Massey for the Urban Planning Program. He has also served as a guest lecturer at U-M, Columbia University, and New York University. He sits on the boards of Fist and Heel Dance Company, New York Restoration Project, the Lowline, and Spaceworks. 

Christopher Locke

Outstanding Recent Graduate 2025

Christopher Locke, M.Arch ’16, works on strategies to help architects deliver critical design services in diverse and underserved communities. This work has been accomplished through research, advocacy, community organizing, and the delivery of well-executed buildings. Notable projects from his time with ZGF Architects include Cal State Los Angeles, a 150,000-square-foot services building, and the ZGF Office Tenant Improvement. In 2016, he co-founded Designing in Color (DCo), a think tank and distributive digital initiative aimed at diversifying the way architecture is taught and practiced, and a 2019 honoree of the AIA Diversity Recognition Program, celebrating architects and organizations actively committed to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion within the architecture profession.

Building on DCo’s efforts, Locke launched Collective Unbound earlier this year. The social benefit organization designs opportunities for communities to flourish, free from the legacies of exclusion and colonial harm, with a team of designers, architects, and community organizers located throughout the U.S. that facilitates educational programming, creates workshops, designs socially responsible projects, and distributes digital initiatives, all rooted in principles of design justice.

Locke is currently an associate, job captain at Steinberg Hart and a member of the SoCal chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects in Los Angeles, where he is actively engaged in youth mentorship through the organization’s pipeline project summer camp. In 2017, Locke co-founded small talks: LA, a community-based organization created to assemble a network of people and construct safe spaces to amplify disparate voices in the city. He is currently studying and sharing stories of the housing crisis across Los Angeles through filmmaking.

Locke helped shape and energize the student-led movement, Design Justice Actions, which pushed Taubman College toward creating a more just and inclusive future. He contributed an article to the Fall 2020 issue of Portico: “Living a Double Consciousness: The Complexities of Navigating White Supremacy While Black.”

Photo credit: Devin O’Neill

Architecture faculty members McLain Clutter and Cyrus Peñarroyo, who work together as the design collaborative EXTENTS, unveiled their new project, “Internet Cafe,” at the INCA Exhibition in Bologna, Italy, last month. The project is part of INCA’s Data Materialities, a multiyear exhibition focused on the materiality of techno-capitalism on the micro and macro scale. Clutter and Peñarroyo’s project was one of four selected and planned during a one-week research colloquium last year. Late last month, the exhibit moved to the Limonaia di Villa Saroli, in Lugana, Switzerland, where it will be on display until Nov. 22, before moving to Aarhus, Denmark, in spring 2026.

“Internet Cafe” is an effort to recreate the experimental nature of early internet cafes in the 1990s. The cafe is designed from different building component systems hacked to playfully unite while destabilizing digital and dining habits to create visual and spatial relationships across surfaces and guests. Visitors are invited to sit down and celebrate connection with friends, strangers, and technology.

“Our work on this project began with reflection on the desocializing effects of many of our contemporary digital habits,” Clutter said. “Today, most people are free to browse the web in the comfort of their homes: curtains drawn and nestled behind the veil of iPhone’s privacy mode. We surrender to feedback loops of online advertising tailored toward our individuated data profiles, and we seek out digital communities of consensus to reinforce our political and social ideologies. We had a hunch that by looking back at cyber history, we might find counter-examples.”

With “Internet Cafe,” EXTENTS reasserts the internet as a material space. The two were influenced by community forms of internet access and data ownership, which suggest possible alternatives. Created with fabrication help from Krzysztof Lower, M.Arch ’27, and proposal support from Axel Olson, M.Arch 24, “Internet Cafe” invites guests to look back on the internet as a carefully negotiated social space. 

“Much of our work is critical of techno-determinism or -solutionism, and we try to foster alternative models for coexistence with web-based technologies,” Peñarroyo said. “We had been inspired by community wireless organizations, for example, who build and maintain their own internet infrastructure as a way of empowering users to be the stewards of their own data, and we drew upon firsthand experience navigating a spatial geography reconfigured by internet access during the pandemic. These examples demonstrate that ‘another internet’ is possible, and our Internet Cafe is one attempt at testing that.”

INCA, which stands for “Increase corporate political responsibility and accountability,” investigates the impact digital platforms have on European democracies and institutions. Peñarroyo and Clutter hope visitors will reflect on their own online habits and imagine a new possibility for the future of the internet.

“We hope that the project will cause visitors to reflect on how they normally use the internet, and whether their digital habits help to make them productive members of democratic society,” Clutter said. “We also hope that visitors will have fun. The project is intended to cultivate novel relationships between people, technology, and food, and we hope that those relationships will encourage imagination of new possibilities at the intersection of space, technology, and public life.”

— Story by Joshua Nicholson

New work by architecture faculty McLain Clutter and Cyrus Peñarroyo exploring time, attention, and spatial arrangements of media consumption is on exhibit now at the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennial. 

This year’s Biennial, Shift: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, features nearly 100 participants, including Clutter and Peñarroyo’s design collaborative, EXTENTS, from 30 countries and runs through February 2026 at the Chicago Cultural Center and other venues across the city.

Their project, “Time Capsules: An Anti-Antenna for the City of Chicago,” examines how alternative spatial arrangements of media consumption might disrupt contemporary media habits. Through the creation of a raree, an antique spatial format of collective media consumption — one that starkly contrasts today’s increasingly isolated and insular media formats — the project stages new relationships between people, space, and technology to critique contemporary media formats that extract and monetize our attention, foment societal division, and speciously evangelize innovation. 

According to Clutter and Peñarroyo, “‘Time Capsules’ is a miniature infrastructure for connection and disconnection. It is both a media-archeological recovery of the raree and a ⅛-inch to 1-foot scale model of an ‘anti-antenna’ for the city of Chicago. An anti-antenna is an imaginary technology used to make place possible in the 21st century. If a regular antenna connects a point in space to multiple other points in space through the reception of electromagnetic waves, an anti-antenna reconnects a point in space to its point in space by resisting those waves, the onslaught of digital distraction they sponsor, and the claim they make on time.”

Working with team members Martin Rodriguez Jr., M.Arch, ’25, and Nancy Lynch, Clutter and Peñarroyo built their “Time Capsules” from six, vertically stacked 2-by-2-by-2-foot frame units assembled from half-inch diameter aluminum tubes with custom black rubberized fittings at the corners of the units. Inside the frame are multiple volumes composed of faraday fabric, a composite textile that has been woven with copper thread in order to block the transmission of electromagnetic waves. Within are tiny interior worlds cut off from the pervasiveness of digitally-regulated time, each offering a different vantage of the surrounding gallery viewable through lensed apertures. Visitors are invited to engage the installation in the round to look through peepholes in various surfaces and negotiate one another in space — while they engage the enclosed worlds within.

“Time Capsules” is on exhibit in the Yates Gallery at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Taubman College hosted Mumbai-based architect Sameep Padora earlier this semester as part of its ongoing Correa Lecture Series. Speaking to a group of students and professors from architecture, urban planning, and urban technology, Padora discussed the motivations behind his work and the challenges of completing projects on a shoe-string budget.

The Charles Correa International Lecture fund was established in 2016 in honor of renowned Indian architect Charles Correa, B.Arch. ’53, and annually hosts an international architect for a lecture on their work. This year, Padora was invited to speak about his firm, sP+a, and nonprofit sPare, which researches urbanization in India.  

The Correa Lecture represents a unique opportunity for students to learn from an international perspective. In an interview with the Taubman College Newsroom following his lecture, Padora said Correa’s work is foundational to how he and his peers practice architecture in India.

“There are value propositions in Correa’s work, and in the work of my own practice and of my peers that practice in India today, that build on Correa’s ideas,” Padora said. “These value propositions are relevant not just for our country but for the world at large. They talk about frugality, sensitivity to material and process, and to an understanding of culture and lived experiences in a way that is, in some sense, unique to the Indian condition but also an integral part of Correa’s work.”

Padora’s talk focused on a number of his projects, including a library, student hostels, and temples. At the center of all of these projects is a combination of inspiration from India’s architectural history, modern techniques, and local materials. His project, the Maya Somaiya Library, blends Swiss and Uruguayan building technologies with Spanish techniques and local materials from Maharashtra.

“It’s been like this in the past, there are durable knowledge networks that traditionally used to perpetuate throughout the world through trade routes,” Padora said. “But today, because of our interconnectedness, these knowledge networks are even more accessible and embedded in our day-to-day work. I think there’s an incredible amount for us to take away from these knowledge networks, to deepen what local value systems are. I don’t see these as contradictions, the idea of the global and the local, but there is an opportunity to look at these global networks to deepen and enrich what comprises the local.”

Padora is also the dean of architecture at CEPT University in Ahmedabad, India. During his visit, he met with Dean Jonathan Massey, who gave him a tour of Taubman College. Padora said collaboration between universities can lead to innovative change and new knowledge.

“The kind of world that we live in, even though we might study in a particular place, the ability to accrue all of this intense learning and experience adds up to possibilities where this knowledge transfer can be applicable to other geographies as well,” Padora said. “This doesn’t have to be a one way process. There is a possibility where we can imagine these universities that are distributed around the world can come together in solidarity to look at problems that concern not just one particular place but the world over.”

Padora hopes students will take away that India, and the world, are diverse and contain conflicting realities.

“Globally, we live in very polarizing times,” Padora said. “In India, if you have seen something and think it’s true, know that the exact opposite also exists (somewhere else). This understanding of difference and accepting that is a way of making peace with the world in India. In Mumbai, for instance, the extreme density of the city and the adjacency of opposites pushes you towards this idea of negotiation to survive and coexist, but I think that’s also a way for us to start thinking about the world at large and not just about architecture.”

– Story by Joshua Nicholson

Taubman College was well-represented at 2025’s Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Conference, with several faculty members and Ph.D. students traveling to Minneapolis late last month to lead talks and participate in roundtable discussions. With a focus on justice, sustainability, the future, collaboration, and action, the college’s contingent gave nearly 20 presentations. A list of presenters and their topics is below.

Faculty

Chair and Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning Robert Goodspeed
“Making Learning Outcomes Our Own: Debating the Use and Value of Program-Level Learning Outcomes” (Roundtable Session)

Associate Professor Lesli Hoey
“Taking on the Food Industry: Government Capacity to Change Food Environments in Bolivia”

Assistant Professor Xiaofan Liang (co-authors Meixin Yuan, Ph.D.; Jack Bernard, B.S. Urban Tech ’27; Qifan Wu, Ph.D. student)
“Generative AI-Driven Insights for AI Regulation, Governance, and Application across Cities”

Professor Richard Norton
“Nuancing Coastal Management Using a Best Management Process for Adopting Best Management Practices”

Associate Professor Ana Paula Pimentel Walker
“In Defense of Autogestão: Overcoming Barriers to Collectively Managed Housing in Brazil and Uruguay”

Assistant Professor Wonyoung So
“Tracing the Social Constructions of Whiteness Through Restrictive Housing Covenants in Massachusetts;” “Investigating How Property Managers Use Residential Property Technology to Set Rents”

Ph.D. Students

Jones Adu-Mensah
“Rethinking Travel Time: When Minutes Become a Matter of Well-Being”

Timothy Berke
“Urban Displacement: Innovative and Inclusive Data Collection Approaches in the Global South”

Brianne Brenneman (co-authors Kimberley Kinder, associate professor, Sophia Hoffacker, Ph.D. student)
“Planning for Health Equity: Enhancing Urban Environments to Support Women’s Safety and Independence”

Lauren Chew
“Indigenous Foodways in Transition: Navigating Urban Encroachment in Malaysia’s Peri-Urban Landscapes”

Eunsoo Hyun
“Benevolence For Sale: The Real Estate Turn in Public Housing of Colonial Manila, 1934-35”

APIL KC
“What Happens to the Promise of Resilience and Equity in Post Disaster Recovery?”

Rand Makarem
“Who Runs Detroit? Philanthropy, Public Projects, and the Future of Urban Governance”

Lanika Sanders
“Balancing Solar Expansion and Farmland Retention: Local Planning Responses in Minnesota”

Hanae Soma
“How Do Residents Construct and Modify Informal Housing in Informal Settlements of Dhaka, Bangladesh?”

Shubhayan Ukil
“App-based Ride-hailing in the Global South and its Impact on Destinations: A Case Study of Bengaluru”

Maina Wachira (co-author Xiaofan Liang, assistant professor)
“Evaluating Reconnecting Communities Program Highway Projects Using A Social Network-Based Metric”

Tsz Yan Ng, associate professor of architecture at Taubman College, has received a 2025 Innovative Research Award of Excellence from the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA). The award recognizes original research that advances the field of digital design and highlights work with the potential to reshape contemporary architecture.

Ng is principal of an architecture and art practice with built works in the U.S. and China. Her interdisciplinary research projects explore questions of labor, underscoring broader issues of industrial manufacturing, human crafting, technology, and aesthetics. Her material-based research and design focuses on experimental concrete forming, timber construction, textile innovation, and additive manufacturing processes, underscoring elements of R+D across scales, media, and applications.

Ng is the recipient of The Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices Award, Architect Magazine’s R+D Award, and the Architectural Research Centers Consortium’s New Research Award. She has served as a board member of ACADIA and is currently on the editorial board of the The International Journal of Architectural Computing. Ng first joined Taubman College as a Walter B. Sanders Fellow.

Established in 1998, the ACADIA Awards of Excellence honor outstanding contributions to architectural computing. Each year, select individuals or programs are recognized for exceptional and innovative achievements that advance the field of digital design in areas including teaching, service, research, and impact on education and communities. 

A new research initiative founded by Taubman College’s Sheng-Hung Lee, assistant professor of urban technology, will explore how design can shape a longevity society that is healthy, equitable, and multi-generational.

Rooted in Taubman College’s culture of innovation, d-mix lab blends design (d-) with evidence-based research, service innovation, and emerging technologies to reimagine products, environments, and cultures for the 100-year life.

An international collective of designers, researchers, and practitioners, d-mix lab operates across scales — from tangible products and complex services to systemic urban futures. Its mixed-methods approach combines human-centered design and systems thinking, integrating qualitative ethnographic insights with quantitative analysis. Through this synthesis, the lab uncovers new design opportunities to address the complex challenges of aging populations and demographic transformation, turning longevity into an engine for creativity and social innovation.

For more information, visit d-mix lab.

Lead Image: Sheng-Hung Lee, assistant professor of urban technology and director of d-mix lab (photo by Jake Belcher).

Students in Taubman College’s Urban Technology program come from a variety of backgrounds with an equally diverse number of interests. Whether it be product design, real estate, or urban planning, Urban Tech students are applying their skills and design philosophies to complex and novel issues facing today’s cities.

The Taubman College Newsroom recently talked with five students about their summer internships. Click the links below to learn more about their experiences, ranging from designing new evaluations for public utility employees in Seattle to engaging with communities for planned development communities in suburban Detroit.

Jack Bernard, Urban Tech ’27, performance development intern with Seattle City Light, Seattle

Neel Marathe, Urban Tech ’26, geographic information systems intern with Spalding DeDecker, Rochester Hills, Michigan

Aditya Nimbalkar, B.S. Urban Tech ’26, technical program manager intern with Microsoft, Redmond, Washington

Emma Vitet, B.S. Urban Tech ’26, service design intern with Cities Reimagined, Detroit

Kenyatta Washington, Urban Tech ’26, purchasing intern with Toll Brothers construction, Northville, Michigan

Interviews by Joshua Nicholson, B.S. Urban Tech ’26