Unviersity of Colorado Denver College of Architecture and Planning

A Vision of Integrative Design

To help students prepare for an engaging, productive career in the design and planning professions, the College of Architecture and Planning has developed a bold vision called Integrative Design. This vision directs the college to:

• Engage design and planning challenges that are significant for our society. We are not an ivory tower. Learning experiences address real issues facing designers and planners as they create healthier, more sustainable, more meaningful environments for the 21st century. In recent years, among many other socially important projects, our students have: designed alternatives to suburbia; built award-winning solar-powered homes; written new codes to encourage livelier, safer cities; discovered ecological design principles in Colorado ranches; proposed ways for neighborhoods to recover from natural disasters; and invented new ideas for affordable housing.
• Engage these challenges in partnerships among the disciplines and with our external communities. No one discipline can address these issues alone. Architects, landscape architects, planners, urban designers, and developers must work together to create holistic, healthy, sustainable environments.

In our college, students have opportunities to:

• Participate in multi-disciplinary teams, modeling the practices of today’s successful design and planning firms.
• Interact with outstanding practicing designers and planners in the Denver metro area, through internships, mentorships, design juries, lectures, and student professional organizations.

Communities of Interest

To implement this vision, the College has organized many of its activities around “communities of interest.” These bring together faculty, students and practitioners across the disciplines who share an interest and expertise in a particular theme, building synergistic relationships as they explore new design and planning ideas.

The college’s communities of interest currently include:

• Emerging Practices in Design
  Exploring how the digital design revolution and sustainable design practices are reshaping the professions. These include sustainable design and design/build practices as well as digital visualization and Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies
• Sustainable Urbanism
  Exploring new ideas about creating livable cities in the midst of intense pressures for growth and fragile ecosystems
• Healthy Environments
  Exploring how to build healthier buildings, cities and landscapes
• Cultural Heritage
  Understanding, interpreting and preserving our cultural heritage in design and planning, including historic buildings, landscapes and intellectual and cultural ideas