sustainability

A team of Texas A&M urban planners are investigating the value of allowing “citizen scientists” to collect environmental data for agencies charged with protecting lives and property in natural disasters as part of a two-year National Science Foundation study.

A glimpse into nature’s life cycle captured on video by Carol LaFayette, Texas A&M professor of visualization, earned a prestigious 2018 Global Independent Film Award recognizing excellence in environmental filmmaking.

For his innovative design reinventing a Canadian city’s downtown with a massive, 130,000-square-foot market and community space, Panwang Huo, a Texas A&M Master of Architecture student, placed third in the prestigious Lyceum Fellowship Competition.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, two Texas A&M groups have teamed up to launch the Community Resilience Collaborative, a program aimed at bolstering the resilience of the state’s coastal communities to natural hazards and at restoring their habitats and ecosystems.

A Texas A&M research team is investigating how coastal municipal planners can respond to increasing flood threats in rapidly growing coastal communities and build sustainable and healthy ecosystems using “green” stormwater management methods.

The myriad achievements of two former Texas A&M urban planning students have elevated them to the American Institute of Certified Planners’ College of Fellows, one of the profession’s highest honors.

The transformation of more than 2,500 used milk jugs into “Milky Way,” a luminescent artwork that adorned the Brazos Valley African-American Museum patio for six months, earned Jim Titus, supervisor of the Texas A&M College of Architecture woodshop, a museum honor for leading a team of students and volunteers who crafted and installed the piece.

Ahmed K. Ali, an assistant professor of architecture at Texas A&M University, earned the Architectural Research Centers Consortium’s 2018 New Researcher Award, a prestigious accolade bestowed annually to an emerging scholar.

The field of urban planning is gaining interest as cities around the world, including nearby Houston, are facing increased exposure to weather-related risks and hazards ranging from sea level rise and flooding to temperature build-up and urban heat island effect.

Visionary, award-winning, sustainable land development projects created by Chris Mulder and colleagues at his South Africa-based firm, CMAI Architects, were featured Feb. 9, 2018 at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center.

Texas A&M students teamed with leading design professionals including Greg Miller, president of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Feb. 16, 2018 at Aggie Workshop, a series of lectures and a design charrette hosted by the Texas A&M student chapter of the ASLA.

In the nation’s capital, congressional staff and professional meterologists heard Phil Berke, professor of urban planning, present research-based strategies aimed at heightening communities’ ability to withstand and recover from natural disasters.

Editor’s note: Texas lawmakers heard Shannon Van Zandt, professor of urban planning, describe the significant housing difficulties low-and moderate-income people face as they recover from devastation caused by August 2017’s Hurricane Harvey.

To facilitate the proliferation of green roofs and walls throughout North America, Texas A&M researchers have called for the development of standards and guidelines to improve research, policy development and management within the industry.

Municipalities are more responsive to natural disaster plans that focus on a single threat, such as flooding, than they are to comprehensive resiliency strategies, according to a study evaluating how U.S. cities are adapting to the impacts of climate change.