Stuart Weitzman School of Design

Penn researchers are leading a multidisciplinary land-use project that blends trees, livestock, and streamside buffers to turn New Bolton Center into a living lab for stewardship agriculture.

Third-year students Nafisa Bangura and Angelica Dadda expanded upon a multidisciplinary research endeavor to evaluate a reflective pavement coating as a tool to mitigate extreme heat. Their work may inform policy efforts to improve urban heat resilience.

The Richards Transportation Initiative at Penn (R-TRIP) is a new hub for research, innovation, and real-world solutions in transportation. Housed in the Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR). The Initiative is led by Penn IUR Faculty Fellows Leslie Richards, former CEO of PennDOT and SEPTA and now Professor of Practice at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, and lead faculty adviser Megan Ryerson, UPS Foundation Professor and chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the Weitzman School.

The funds will support the Institute for Urban Research’s advancement of research, education, and policy solutions for cities.

The KlimaKover team includes architects, researchers, and builders from Penn, Henning Larsen, AIL Research, SKANSKA who are addressing urban cooling by adapting a radiant cooling system to an architectural-scale application that uses far less energy than traditional AC.

The Weitzman School’s MSD-PDD degree is a new post-professional program tailored for architects, landscape architects, and planners looking to lead in the fast-evolving real estate development sector. It expands on the School’s Real Estate Design and Development Certificate to offer a more immersive academic experience and robust credential. 

Graduate student Frank Chen provides insight into his project to find the best spots to plant street trees and optimize shade coverage for pedestrians in Philadelphia.

Ahead of Move-In and the start of a new academic year, construction teams mark milestones in vital renovations and maintenance across the University.

Eugenie Birch, Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research and Education in the Department of City and Regional Planning and co-director of Penn’s Institute for Urban Research, has been selected to receive the Above and Beyond Award from the Regional Plan Association (RPA) for her contributions to urban planning policy and longstanding service to the RPA.

Research from Weitzman’s Allison Lassiter and an international team of researchers highlights how a combination of climate change impacts and localized human activities are intensifying the increase in salt in vital freshwater sources.