Research & Teaching

What is the relationship between the natural environment and the design of successful places? How do we know? And how can we mobilize these ideas as planners and citizens?

Wildlife, vegetation, soil, air, water, and aquatic ecosystems, together with their human uses, are related to the distinctive, especially spatial, attributes of suburban and urban landscapes.

Developing and implementing good solutions to real problems facing human society requires a broad understanding of the relationships between technology innovation, science, manufacturing, design thinking, environment, sustainability, culture, aesthetics, business, public policy, and government.

This project-based class focuses on the planning and design of sustainable strategies for cities in the developing world, using the city of Hermosillo in northern Mexico as the basis for analysis and action.

GIS is not just for mapping. As an information system and science, it also provides tools and perspectives for learning what spatial data can tell us about the world and its geography.

In recent years, high-performance green buildings have gone from fringe to mainstream.

TBA

Urban infrastructures are socio-technical systems of facilities and services (i.e. energy, telecommunications, transportation, water, waste management, food distribution, housing) vital to the basic functioning of cities and regions.

Through the lens of climate change, this foundation course surveys the intellectual development of resilience and adaptation in the social, natural and applied sciences. Through a critical reading and analysis of central bodies of literature, students are provided a conceptual and empirical basis

How can one optimize the benefits of environmental or social sustainability while generating a higher return on investment in buildings? Where are the opportunities for real estate initiatives that are highly functional, healthy, aesthetically pleasing and financially rewarding?

The Envision tool for sustainable infrastructure can be used for infrastructure projects of all types, sizes, complexities, and locations to assist the project team achieve higher levels of sustainability.

This course provides extensive background on the history of ecotourism, its role in the development of local economies, its connection to the global tourism trade, its role in the conservation of natural resources, and its context in key case study regions including Central America, Southern Afri

This introductory course surveys the historical foundations, economic logics and underlying physics that underscore the design, development and operations of sustainable buildings.

Responding to contemporary urban patterns, ecological pressures and decaying infrastructures, this course brings together a series of influential thinkers and researchers from the design commons across North America to discuss different methods, models and measures of large scale, long range desi

The world faces challenges stemming from rapid urbanization, increasing pressure on the environment and on basic resources, and the growing difficulty governments face in managing the confluence of these trends.

Provides an overview of the issues involved in transportation policy and planning, as well as an introduction to the skills necessary for solving the various analytic and managerial problems that are peculiar to this area.

As a scarce and necessary resource, land triggers competition and conflict over possession, use, development, and preservation. For privately owned land, the market manages much of the competition.

Selected topics in the history of the North American coastal zone, including the seashore as wilderness, as industrial site, as area of recreation, and as artistic subject; the shape of coastal landscape for conflicting uses over time; and the perception of the seashore as marginal zone in litera

This course offers a multidisciplinary exploration of the engineering, economic, and institutional principles involved in water system development and management. The course is divided into two parts:.