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Stuart Weitzman School of Design

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In school and in practice, mass timber gains ground

In school and in practice, mass timber gains ground

Penn architects and students are designing with mass timber to highlight its expressive potential and sustainability for construction in cities around the world.

Ani Liu: Motherhood, microplastics, and her multimedia works on display
Ani Liu standing at a table speaking to students.

Ani Liu is the Carrafiell Assistant Professor (Emerging Design) at the Weitzman School.

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Ani Liu: Motherhood, microplastics, and her multimedia works on display

Weitzman professor of fine arts Ani Liu explores the physiological and emotional transformations in motherhood through her multimedia artworks while teaching students how to conduct fine arts research.

From the Weitzman School of Design

2 min. read

Turning peels into pavers: How Penn designers turn food scraps into biodegradable building materials
Two students working with biodegradable food waste specimens.

At the DumoLab, research associate Yasaman Amirzehni is working to develop a biocomposite suitable for indoor and outdoor cladding applications, which could eventually serve as true structural components like load-bearing columns.

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Turning peels into pavers: How Penn designers turn food scraps into biodegradable building materials

The Weitzman School’s Laia Mogas-Soldevila and Yasaman Amirzehni transform unavoidable food waste—like fruit peels and eggshells, which account for 14.8% of post-consumer restaurant food waste—into durable, biodegradable building materials in collaboration with Penn Dining.

4 min. read

Chapters of Change: The blossom of Penn’s professional schools in the 19th century
Penn’s campus in 1891.

A view of campus on May 20, 1891, looking northeast toward the corner of 34th and Walnut streets.

(Image: Courtesy of University Archives)

Chapters of Change: The blossom of Penn’s professional schools in the 19th century

“Chapters of Change” highlights key moments of change in Penn’s history, adapting to shifts in society. In the 19th century, the University faced industrialization and more by creating some of its first professional schools.

6 min. read

Designing opportunities, not solutions, in Northeast Arizona
Max Taylor, a Hopi ethnobotanist, leads students on a site visit at the Hopi First Mesa Consolidated Villages.

Max Taylor, a Hopi ethnobotanist, leads students on a site visit at the Hopi First Mesa Consolidated Villages in the fall of 2025.

(Image: Courtesy of Weitzman News)

Designing opportunities, not solutions, in Northeast Arizona

In a collaboration with the Hopi of Arizona, Weitzman School of Design students learn to listen to the land and channel the community’s aspirations.

From the Weitzman School of Design

2 min. read

Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Two workers in a lab working on cooling structures.

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Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion

Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.

5 min. read

Energy Week to explore solutions for transition to clean energy
Two people have conversation in front of research poster.

The annual Energy Week Poster Session is a good way to learn about the energy-related research of Penn students and postdocs.

(Image: Bill Cohen)

Energy Week to explore solutions for transition to clean energy

Penn’s sixth Energy Week, taking place Feb. 23-27, features events that highlight cross-disciplinary research at Penn and bring in leading industry experts.

2 min. read