Environmental Design

Emily VanGuilder, Landscape

Regan Widergren — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 11:22:47 +0000

Emily VanGuilder, Landscape Regan Widergren Mon, 04/07/2025 - 05:22

Where are you from?

I lived in Northampton, Massachusetts and San Rafael, California for equal amounts of time before coming to Boulder, so I usually say both.

What inspired your decision to come to Environmental Design at CU Boulder?

I’ve always loved nature and wanted to help protect it, but became increasingly interested in medicine and public health towards the end of high school. When researching majors, I found Environmental Design’s interdisciplinary approach to combine my academic and personal interests. Being able to try out the different disciplines was also appealing as somebody who wants breadth and flexibility from my education. The deal was sealed when I came to visit and became excited about all Boulder has to offer.

Did you know right away that you wanted to major in landscape architecture? How/when did you know?

I was inclined towards landscape architecture coming into ENVD but definitely wasn’t sure. I enjoyed planning and landscape the most out of my freshman year studios and chose them for my pick two. It wasn’t until after taking both at a slightly higher level in the first semester of this year that I became totally sure landscape is what I want to be doing. I’m glad I approached everything with an open mind, and am very happy with my decision.

Do you have a favorite project that you're currently working on/have worked on in the past?

Our project from my 8-week studio last semester was a redesign of Boxyard Park in the RiNo District of Denver. It was a smaller site but provided a lot of opportunities to learn about designing in urban settings i.e. access, circulation, stormwater, urban heat island, and much more. I had a lot of fun with analysis and challenging myself to explore solutions and forms. I’ve enjoyed applying this knowledge for my current project, park design at Larimer Square in Denver, which is a whole new challenge. I have a feeling that my current project will become my favorite.

What has the program taught you about yourself as you’ve taken on your educational career?

My top two are that there's always more to learn, and that I am capable of much more than I think I am. Studio classes can be a lot, especially with other classes and the extra research that goes into a thoughtful design. This is a challenge and an opportunity to push out of your comfort zone to invest in the work you do, which I’ve found to be very rewarding.

What would you like to do upon graduating from Environmental Design?

Honestly, this semester has piqued my interest in many kinds of landscape architecture, so I’m not sure where I want to end up. I hope to embrace more opportunities to experience and learn, in general and through the lens of landscape, across climates and cultures both inside and outside of my professional life. I want my work to restore ecosystems and help improve human health. I could see myself working at collaborative firms on the coasts designing for flood mitigation or doing urban health projects to create ecologically and community-oriented greenspaces in underserved urban areas.

What tips or advice would you give to future design students?

Exploring is one of the great parts of design school. Design is complex and learning that complexity can be difficult or really fun. You’ll make mistakes and will have to learn to receive criticism but trust that it’s all to help you grow as a designer whether it’s constructive or something you decide isn’t for you.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions: design is a conversation that embraces creativity with functional guidelines. There is space to incorporate or find other passions.
ENVD is a place that will challenge you in many ways, but can give you an opportunity to grow as a person and a designer. The community is a unique combination of camaraderie and competition, but we’re ultimately all here to support each other.
Time management is your best friend.

An interview with Emily VanGuilder and her experience as a landscape architecture major.

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Jota Samper Receives Award for Excellence in Engaged Scholarship

Regan Widergren — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 11:20:22 +0000

Jota Samper Receives Award for Excellence in Engaged Scholarship Regan Widergren Mon, 04/07/2025 - 05:20

Associate Professor Jota Samper, Program in Environmental Design, is the 2024 recipient of the Excellence in Faculty Community Engagement Award from the Engagement Scholarship Consortium (ESC). This national award is one of the most prestigious of its kind.

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An evening celebration: ENVD Open House

Regan Widergren — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 11:03:05 +0000

An evening celebration: ENVD Open House Regan Widergren Mon, 04/07/2025 - 05:03

Faculty and students decked the halls of the Environmental Design building with a semester’s worth of design work, highlighting architecture, environmental product design, landscape architecture, and sustainable planning and urban design from all class levels. The ENVD Open House on Dec. 13 marked the sixth iteration of the building-wide exhibit.

Couldn’t make it this year? Browse through the photo gallery.

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Creating shade: building sun-safe communities in Denver

Regan Widergren — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 10:29:41 +0000

Creating shade: building sun-safe communities in Denver Regan Widergren Mon, 04/07/2025 - 04:29

By Sierra Brown

The allure of Denver's 300 days of sunshine is hard to resist. But this cherished sunny climate comes with a tradeoff: increased UV radiation levels in a city lacking robust shade design infrastructure.

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, in the U.S., more people are diagnosed with skin cancer each year than all other cancers combined. In Colorado, it’s the sixth most diagnosed cancer in the state. And while city planners and public health organizations have worked to enhance human health initiatives through advancing neighborhood walkability and bikeability in urban spaces, sun safety considerations, which increase with outdoor activity, have often fallen short.

Last summer, the Community Engagement Design and Research Center (CEDaR) partnered with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to explore the connection between sun exposure, skin cancer and the built environment, and work towards building sun-safe communities in the Mile High City.

Assistant Teaching Professor and CEDaR Research Associate Sara Tabatabaie has been involved with this work for nearly ten years and first conducted shade audits for neighborhoods in Denver as a PhD student. “At that time, it was part of my dissertation and research,” she said. “We did it for the CDPHE, but it was a small version. They contacted us again a year and a half ago, and they asked whether we could do it for the whole city.”

The project team, which consisted of Tabatabaie, Associate Professor and CEDaR Co-Director Jota Samper and four ENVD student interns: Logan Shockey, Cameron Cooper, Carl Eberly and Theodore Johnson Mencimer, worked to develop a methodology to assess sun exposure levels across the city. This required completing extensive shade audits within neighborhoods that varied across socio-economic level and built environment amenities.

To complete the audits, the team surveyed public areas like sidewalks, trails and urban parks at different times of day. Audits specifically noted and mapped both walkability of the blocks as well as objects that cast shade, whether from a cluster of trees or from a built structure. They also noted the physical activity within each neighborhood to better understand how often people use outdoor, sun-exposed spaces.

The shade audits evolved into comprehensive shade models for the entire city. The team used ArcGIS to map shade from both trees and buildings, combining these into a shade factor for each neighborhood and block group. Through integrating shade, walkability scores and socio-economic status information, the team calculated the sun risk index for each neighborhood and block group within neighborhoods to help prioritize areas for shade improvement.

According to the resulting maps, neighborhoods with high physical activity coupled with insufficient shade structure, which heightened risk of UV exposure, fell mainly to marginalized communities. In many cases, these at-risk neighborhoods also had higher percentages of children, a group that is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of radiation.

“Maybe not surprising, but disheartening, is this idea that the poorest neighborhoods are the ones who need the most intervention in these areas,” Samper said. “It's the ones who actually need the most shade that get the most exposure.”

Currently, Denver does not have a shade auditing component embedded within its Health Impact Assessment, a process that helps identify built environment impacts on community health. The CEDaR team hopes that the results of this study can be a first step in conducting comprehensive health assessments across Denver. They also believe that the CDPHE can use this research and the team’s recommendations as a policy leverage to support existing urban forestry initiatives, enhance streetscaping guidelines and direct more funding to the neighborhoods that need it.

“We know that what we are doing has a positive impact for the city,” Tabatabaie said.

Samper and Tabatabaie also recognized the positive impact the project had on the team’s student interns. The students were given the opportunity to gain field experience, learn and apply GIS mapping, support data analysis, provide input into the final report’s design and create connections within a government entity. CEDaR hopes to hire more student interns in the future to continue the next phases of the project.

“This is just the first phase of the project, it was about assessing,” Samper said. “The others will be about changing policy. And in the future, it will be about developing prototypes, designing and building things. It’s the entire spectrum of environmental design experience.”

Sun Risk Index for neighborhoods in Denver. The circles represent the percentage of children in each neighborhood.

Shade Score for neighborhoods in Denver.

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A better way

Amanda J. McManus — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:52:49 +0000

A better way Amanda J. McManus Tue, 02/25/2025 - 11:52

By Joe Arney
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18)

There’s a brick paver walkway that crosses 18th Street on the CU Boulder campus by the ATLAS Institute. Thousands of pedestrians use it each day, crossing the brick path while cyclists, e-scooters, buses, emergency vehicles and the occasional car wend their way down the street.

“Design is a powerful tool to make an impact, because then we’re not telling certain people they’re functionally not correct. Instead, we’re saying, how do we create an environment that actually matches the needs of the user?
Elena Sabinson
Director
Neuro D Lab

Is it a crosswalk?

From the description above, you might assume so. But there’s no signage warning drivers of pedestrian activity, or telling them to stop or yield. And you’ll find none of the striping associated with crosswalks.

“When the students describe it, they’re like, ‘It’s basically Frogger out there,’” said Elena Sabinson, an assistant professor of environmental design at CMCI and director of the Neuro D Lab, which explores the intersection of design, neurodiversity, equity and innovation. “That space of ambiguity becomes a place where conflict or confusion happens. The lab looks at how that affects everyone, but especially neurodivergent folks who might rely on clarity and clear signage to understand how to navigate things.”

Neurodivergence has become a global point of conversation as a movement builds to both recognize that each brain functions differently and to better understand how to design products, services, buildings and so on that serve everyone, instead of asking people to conform to the built environment.

“Design is a powerful tool to make an impact, because then we’re not telling certain people they’re functionally not correct,” Sabinson said. “Instead, we’re saying, how do we create an environment that actually matches the needs of the user?”

Elena Sabinson crosses the street in front of the CASE building. While the brick paver walkway looks like a crosswalk, it lacks striping and signage indicating it's safe to cross, which can confuse both pedestrians and drivers. Part of Sabinson's research work involves assessing wayfinding on the CU Boulder campus for confusing design cues.

A new direction for her work

Sabinson is uniquely suited to such challenges. As a PhD student at Cornell University, she was studying self-soothing technologies—especially in the area of soft robotics, like breathing wall panels that help people regulate their biorhythms during stressful experiences—when she received a diagnosis of autism and ADHD.

“That changed the trajectory of my research,” she said. “I’m still focusing on emotional well-being, but with this environmental lens of how to create inclusive, accessible products that are centered around self determination, agency and empowerment.

“I make a choice to say I’m an autistic-led lab, and I invite this type of conversation in by making that choice, rather than just being an autistic person doing research.”

Bringing students into her lab and giving them opportunities to engage these challenges will, she said, push her to question some of her own assumptions developed after years of working in the field. But it’s also creating opportunities to potentially reshape the campus, such as the wayfinding project examining features like the ambiguous campus crosswalk.

That work is partially funded by an undergraduate research opportunities program grant issued by the university. Earlier this month, Sabinson’s work was accepted by EDRA56, the influential conference of the Environmental Design Research Association. She’s looking forward to presenting it this May, in addition to helping drive conversations around making the campus easier to navigate.

“One thing we have as a research lab is access to students who are really engaged and passionate about this work, and who want to take on projects that can’t always happen in industry, due to timeline and budgetary constraints,” she said.

Industry feedback

Another thing she wants through both the lab and her classes is the chance for ideas from industry to influence her students’ innovation. In a course she teaches on fidgets and stims, one student created the Cacti Clicker, a plastic cactus with moveable segments. When you twist it, it makes a clicking sound, which isn’t always acceptable in a work or school setting.

“So the student redesigned it so some of the spins make noise and some don’t, so you can still get the sensation if you’re in a crowded space,” Sabinson said. “That’s an example of how we field test these products with people, get feedback—and learn to take feedback—to make their products better.”

It also doesn’t look like a traditional fidget toy. That’s also by design—it just looks like a cactus statue on a desk in Sabinson’s office.

“A lot of what I consider in my work, and that we talk about in class, is the social stigma around using a fidget—that a lot of people might want to, but they’re considered to be toys,” she said.

The bigger goal is to eliminate that stigma altogether—but in the meantime, she said, this product is an option for people who need it, while “just living on your desk and looking like a decoration.”

Can design help those with neurodivergence be more comfortable in their environments? A new lab is searching for answers.

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Elena Sabinson demonstrates using an inflatable sensory band in her office. Part of Sabinson's research looks at inflatable surfaces and products that can be used by people managing anxiety to make them more comfortable in their environment.

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Designer label

Amanda J. McManus — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:11:50 +0000

Designer label Amanda J. McManus Wed, 02/19/2025 - 13:11

All things CMDI

Visit our CMDI resources page for more on the college name and FAQs about the opportunities this change will afford to students and alumni.

By Joe Arney
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm'18)

Art by Cuauhtémoc Campos

A childhood trek to visit Aztec temples in Mexico was the first time Cuauhtémoc Campos thought about a future in architecture.

It wasn’t the last.

Long before the first-year landscape architecture student set foot on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, Campos helped his father design a porch and a patio area for their home. Now, in his environmental design courses, he’s refining those skills and interests to bring his visions to life, from reusing physical space on campus to a design of his name that borrowed from those Aztec ruins that inspired him.

“Most of the projects we do are hands-on and challenge us to experiment with our creativity,” Campos said. “But also, we do a lot of presentations to prepare us for when we need to talk about our work publicly.”

He said he hopes to further strengthen his communication skills once the environmental design program becomes fully integrated with the College of Media, Communication and Information. On July 1, Campos and his peers will formally become part of CMCI, at which point the college will rebrand itself as the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, or CMDI.

“I was a little shocked when I first heard we were becoming part of CMCI,” he said. “But I feel like the resources we’ll have from being part of the college will add more to what we’re able to learn, while hopefully introducing CMCI students to what makes ENVD special.”

An important charge for Lori Bergen, founding dean of CMCI, was structuring the integration in a way that added value for ENVD students, alumni, faculty and staff without disrupting the cultures of either entity. As a department within the college, environmental design will be able to retain its identity while benefiting from enhanced and expanded services and networks.

“When we created CMCI, we had three concepts that guided our vision—think, innovate and create,” Bergen said. “Now, as we become CMDI, those principles are just as relevant to our identity. If anything, the intensely hands-on nature of an ENVD education reinforces our mission as a college that brings different, but related, disciplines together, to help us bring interdisciplinary insights to increasingly complex problems.”

Azza Kamal, right, works with a student on a project to refresh the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse.

First forays at collaboration

Faculty and staff from environmental design became part of the college in July 2024, so some collaboration has already begun. Azza Kamal, an associate teaching professor of sustainable planning and urban design, is working with Pat Clark, an assistant professor of critical media practices, to give her students access to the college’s Immersive Media Lab later this semester.

“In my studio, we’re working on a virtual reality/augmented reality model for retrofitting neighborhoods in Denver to comply with green building codes and emission reduction bills, and we’ll use his facility so that students can work on their models, but also to explore and get hands-on with the technology,” Kamal said. “I was going to buy the equipment, but then found out Patrick had everything we needed in his lab. And he’s just amazing—he works around our schedule, students will have access to the lab 24/7, I couldn’t ask for more.”

That kind of collaboration is something Stacey Schulte hopes faculty will build on as the players begin to work together.

“No discipline exists in a vacuum,” said Schulte, director of environmental design. “I am excited to see how environmental design will collaborate with communication- and media-related disciplines, and vice versa.

“As our students continue to create impactful work, they learn how to tell the story of their projects—the problems their designs are intending to solve, and how those solutions create positive community impact—in ways that resonate with stakeholders.”

CMCI's emphasis on communication and presentation skills has Ella Seevers excited about environmental design becoming part of the college.

Kamal said she’s still learning about the players in CMCI who would be good fits for collaboration, “but there is a lot of potential where technology meets storytelling.

“Communication has always been a challenge for architecture and planning students—how to communicate in lay terms. Helping students to take technical, complex designs and be able to tell a story through them—so their clients and the public can appreciate their vision—will be incredibly helpful in their careers.”

That’s a need students recognized, as well. Sophomore Ella Seevers, a landscape architecture student, got some professional communication experience last year, when she worked on a project for the city of Boulder and was challenged to make better use of sites along its creek path. Earlier this month, she went on a site tour and presented her vision to city officials and landscape architects working on a pop-up installation for the summer. Hers is one of three student projects that will influence the final design.

“It was an amazing experience to share our ideas and see that they were actually valued by professional designers who have been doing this for decades,” said Seevers, a teaching assistant in ENVD’s design studios and a mentor to first-year students. “So, I’ve had this opportunity to work with the city already, which is very exciting, because that usually doesn’t happen with a first-year project.

“If you can’t present your design well, and tell other people what you’re thinking and how it’s going to be implemented, then you won’t be a very effective designer,” she said.

Helping students to take technical, complex designs and be able to tell a story through them—so their clients and the public can appreciate their vision—will be incredibly helpful in their careers."
Azza Kamal
Associate Teaching Professor
Environmental Design

‘The story we live in’

While both entities value hands-on learning, critical thinking and creativity, at first glance, it may not be immediately obvious how ENVD and its four majors—architecture, environmental product design, landscape architecture, and sustainable planning and urban design—fit into CMCI. However, “when you think about the stories we hear, tell and watch, environmental design becomes another dimension of the story that we live in,” said Stephanie Marchesi, president of WE Communications, a global integrated communications firm.

“Storytelling is verbal, written and visual—but through their environmental designs, these talented individuals are bringing stories to life in 3D,” said Marchesi (Jour’85), who sits on CMCI’s advisory board. “This will be something very defining for the college, because it’s taking storytelling to new dimensions—literally.”

That’s something faculty in the college are excited to explore in depth.

“My initial reaction to the news was one of intense joy and excitement over what’s possible,” said Bryan Semaan, chair of CMCI’s information science department. “Design intersects so many different spaces. Environmental design researchers are looking at many of the same problems and topics as people across CMCI and within our disciplinary communities, but they’re operating on a scale of how humans will experience and be shaped by the natural and built environments in ways that are important to a sustainable future.”

That could be anything from a database that governs an algorithmic system to the impact of a data center on the environment and people who live nearby.

Elena Sabinson, an assistant professor of environmental design, said an important part of her program’s culture is recognizing and creating things that match the needs of their users. It’s something she works on very closely as director of the Neuro D Lab, which studies how design can trigger innovations that support wellbeing and accessibility to those who are neurodivergent.

“I would say my colleagues in ENVD are interested in bridging those mismatches between the environment and the needs of a user,” she said. “And I think CMCI is already doing a lot of that in its own way, whether it’s documentary or information science or any of those spaces.”

‘Who needs to learn about argument more?’

Alumni like Christopher Bell (PhDMediaSt’09) are watching to see how the college prepares students for the kinds of challenges he sees at work. Bell, a consultant and president of CreativityPartners LLC, said he’s excited to see student and alumni collaborations going forward, such as social media managers who can raise money and awareness for life-changing products coming out of environmental design.

“People who believe they are ‘just’ technically focused are the people who need the most instruction in communication,” said Bell, also a member of CMCI’s advisory board and an instructor who teaches courses in screenwriting and cultural studies. “Those are the people who need us the most, because they are making arguments and sending messages.

“Architecture and city planning are arguments. They’re arguments about what matters, who matters and doesn’t, how we see ourselves in relation to other people, and what is important to spend resources on. So, who needs to learn about argument more than environmental designers?”

When you think about the stories we hear, tell and watch, environmental design becomes another dimension of the story that we live in.”
Stephanie Marchesi (Jour’85)
CMCI Advisory Board member

Meet the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information.

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CMCI and ENVD share a tradition of hands-on learning, a thirst for innovation and a passion for solving problems in ways that move the world. Those shared values will guide them as they join together and CMCI renames itself the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. Art by Ella Seevers.

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CMCI and ENVD share a tradition of hands-on learning, a thirst for innovation and a passion for solving problems. Those values will guide them as CMCI renames itself the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. Art by Ella Seevers.

Brushing up their skills

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 21:05:17 +0000

Brushing up their skills Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/13/2024 - 15:05

By Malinda Miller (Engl, Jour'92; MJour'98)

High up on scaffolding, students meticulously paint bright floral patterns on the west side of the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse.

They’ve been learning the traditional art of ornamental painting—nakkoshi—from Maruf Mirakhmatov, who is visiting Boulder from Khujand, Tajikistan, for six months.

“I really want to get into art restoration or just restoration overall, especially with bigger buildings,” said Kaija Galins, a junior architecture major. “My favorite part has been to watch each step of the way, like the sanding, laying down the charcoal and the tracing process.”

Galins is one of 17 students who over the summer took a course on restoration of the Dushanbe Teahouse with Azza Kamal, an associate teaching professor in the Program in Environmental Design and a former historic preservation commissioner.

Students studied cultural heritage and preservation, practiced painting techniques in the classroom, and applied those skills to onsite restoration under Mirakhmatov’s guidance.

Kamal said the students also learned about the urgency to account for embodied carbon in new construction and restoration, as well as the value of refurbishing and recycling materials so they don’t end up in the landfill. A gift from Boulder’s sister city in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the teahouse’s intricate carvings, painted woodwork and ceramic panels were created by more than 40 artisans, including Mirakhmatov’s grandfather.

“It’s important work, because there are only a couple people in Tajikistan still doing this,” said Mirakhmatov, a fifth-generation artisan. “For me, it’s easy because it’s in my blood, and every day when I’m painting here, I’m enjoying it.”

A student paints a section of the wall.

Students work on restoration at the teahouse.

Azza Kamal, right, works with a student on a corbel design.

Students practice painting techniques in class.

The corbels under the roofline have been repainted, while restoration of the lower panel is still underway.

Maruf Mirakhmatov paints white outlines on a floral design. The Program in Environmental Design, the city of Boulder and the Boulder-Dushanbe Sister Cities Project partnered to bring Mirakhmatov to Boulder for six months.

A beloved Boulder landmark is getting a refresh thanks to students who are touching up the complex paint job under the guidance of an artist from Boulder’s Tajikistan sister city.

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