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| The Common Ground Community Design Festival at the Denver Performing Arts Complex from September 25-30, 2026. (Photo by Unfound Door.)
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From the Classroom to the Community: Leyuan Li and Danny Wills Led Students in the Design of the Inaugural Denver Community Design Festival
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CAP Centennial Celebration
Did you know?
The CU Board of Regents approved a new Bachelor of Science in Architecture degree in 1949, accepting the first students into the program in the fall of 1951. The program shared the first four years of the curriculum with Architectural Engineering, adding a fifth year specializing in architecture courses.
In 1952, the CU Board of Regents approved the establishment of a Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering within the College of Engineering at CU Boulder.
Join the Centennial Celebration.
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Milo, CU Denver's mascot, joined in the fun and engaged with CAP students at the Fall Kick-Off event held August 27, 2026. (Photo by Paul Wedlake.)
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Students gathered together for CAP's Fall Kick-Off event, hosted by Dean David Rifkind, to celebrate the start of our centennial year of built environment education, learn about the interdisciplinary student competition Vision 2127: The Future by Design, and test their knowledge of CAP history by playing trivia and competing for free Centennial Celebration t-shirts.
Our year of centennial celebrations continued with an ice cream social on September 21, featuring 100 toppings to honor 100 years of built environment education and music provided by the Angels Band. And we were honored to host alumni and friends of the college at our annual open house and reception on September 24. It was great to reconnect, spend time together, and spotlight student work in our second floor gallery. There's still more to come!
The ColoradoBuildingWorkshop won the Design Award of Excellence for the Vonnegut Cabins, the top honor at the AIA Colorado Design and Honor Awards, celebrating the exemplary work of Colorado architects, at the award ceremony held September 17. Congratulations to the ColoradoBuildingWorkshop team!
Twelve architecture students participated in the annual BuildFest 2026 held on the historic grounds of Woodstock at Bethel Woods, NY.
Andres Bertaud
James Charbeneau
Matthew Dowling
Kevin Harris
Ni Hoang
Olivia Hordvik-Chaussee
Natalie Huerta
Abbey Kobza
Christian Payan Arostegui
Aubrielle Prewitt
Jose Romero Bermudez
Mia Tomaszewska
Led by faculty members Assistant Professor Danny Wills and Assistant Teaching Professor Morgane Copp, the team fabricated and completed their "In the Wings" installation over the span of three intense days, a culmination of their collective efforts beginning with their summer elective ARCH 3700: Clumsy Construction. The team presented their work alongside other groups from universities across the country, including Cornell, Princeton, and UCLA.
A GOOD IDEA || STATE OF PLAY DENVER opened the first half of the show “Drawing in the Making” on September 15th at a temporary Market Station location.The second half of the exhibition “Making the Drawing” will open November 17th at 5pm.
The exhibition began in Sydney at Tin Sheds Gallery in 2025 organized by Theo De Meyer & Stefanie Everaert of Stand Van Zaken and Guillermo Fernández-Abascal of GFA2. The show arrives in Denver through a collaboration with CU faculty, Sarah Hearne and Claire Glass.
A Good Idea II brings together drawings that serve as instructions for locally crafted artifacts that will be made over the coming months when Stand Van Zaken and GFA2 arrive in November to work with our team: James Charbeneau, Olivia Hordvik-Chaussee, Grayson Goodwin, Martina Grbac, Alexander Hren, Jeremy Zerger, and Cady Messerli and the CAP Exhibition Assistant team, Catherine Nguyen, Holden Keegan, Benjamin Montoya, Kesean Marshall, Santiago Aguilera Cepeda, Camden Cramer, Esra Hima, and Jason Orringer.
Professor Jody Beck's solo gallery show Texture and Other Forms of Beauty, which included both ceramics and prints, was displayed at CORE Art Space in Lakewood through September.
For the sixth consecutive year, CU Denver is ranked No. 1 in Colorado for social mobility by U.S. News & World Report. Additionally, many of our undergraduate programs are among the best in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region, including economics, psychology, and business. Learn more about CU Denver’s rankings.
Professor Jeremy Németh co-authored "Who Governs Growth? Abundance, Preemption, and Local Democracy Under Pressure" in the Journal of the American Planning Association. The article examines how states and provinces are increasingly taking a larger role in local planning decisions to address housing shortages, infrastructure, and climate challenges. The authors argue that neither local control nor state intervention is inherently better; instead, planners should evaluate whether governance changes strengthen democracy, justice, and public accountability.
Professor David Rifkind's recent article for Architectural Record, "An All-Season Colorado Residence Designed by CCY Architects Melds with its Spectacular Mountain Setting," recounts a design process in close collaboration with both clients and consultants that resulted in the Orri Mountain Retreat, designed by CCY Architects to be “in seamless dialogue with nature.”
Galo Canizares and Stephanie Sang Delgado, CAP instructors and founders of Office CA, were featured in 5280's green home tour for their design of a modular and prefab home in Conifer, Colorado.
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| Meet CAP's Student Government Representative Andrew Keady
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Bachelor of Science in Architecture student Andrew Keady enjoys solving complex problems, which was one of the major reasons he chose to study architecture in addition to taking on the role of president of the American Institute of Architecture Students chapter at CU Denver and serving in student government. Andrew was also involved in the greenhouse renovation at Lynx Crossing during the 2025 Maymester Design-Build course. "The class made me a much better and more aware designer,” said Andrew, "and all my studio projects since have been designed to be 'reasonably realistic' in terms of structure and proposed material/construction methodologies.” Andrew wants students to know that they can reach out to him with their ideas and thoughts about the future of the campus. "I wish more students knew that Student Government is here for you,” said Andrew. "We put in a lot of work and make significant changes around campus, with objectives ranging from hosting events to shaping academic and administrative policies. We are here to help all the students, and as the Senator focusing on CAP and academic policies here, I'm here to help connect you to resources, represent your opinions to high-level administration, and make changes that are sparked by my peers."
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| Nikki Nolan Shifts Career to Pursue her Lifelong Dream of Becoming an Architect
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For most of her life, Master of Architecture student Nikki Nolan wanted to be an architect, and after spending 15 years working in digital product design, she is chasing her dreams. "I have wanted to be an architect since I was about eight years old,” said Nikki. "I remember measuring my parents' house, drawing its floor plan to scale, and then building the house to scale out of Legos as a kid. I ended up taking a different creative path through art, interactive media, and eventually product design, but architecture never really went away.” Nikki worked in digital product design for 15 years after earning her MFA in Interactive Media at Pratt Institute. As a result, she said, "I realized I wanted to take what I had learned about people, systems, collaboration, and problem solving and apply it to physical spaces. I’m especially interested in sustainable and regenerative architecture and how we can design places that contribute positively to both communities and the environment.” Outside of CAP, Nikki is on the advisory board for the Emerging Media Technologies program at Arapahoe Community College of Denver, and it was there that she, alongside her teammate Andrew Emerson, won first place in the National Museum of Outdoor Arts’ 2026 Design and Build Competition!
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| | Students in Claire Glass' graduate research studio explored the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde. (Photo courtesy of Claire Glass.) |
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Atmospheric Interfaces: Designing Thermal Architecture
Atmospheric Interfaces: Designing Thermal Architecture is a graduate research studio led by Claire Glass that follows two guiding questions: How can architectural systems interface with the atmosphere to make spaces comfortable without resorting, automatically, to mechanical conditioning? Secondly, how can designers expand the thermal comfort zone by differentiating residency, research, and common spaces through temperature gradients?
Observation precedes understanding. Alongside a technical and theoretical study of atmospheric and climatic phenomena, students learned directly through field work. Over the course of a three day road trip from Denver, south through Colorado Springs, Great Sand Dunes, Rio Grande National Forest, and finally, the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, students learned about ancestral building methods and environmental phenomena firsthand. This research forms the foundational understanding they need to design a research residency for Boulder's Mesa Lab, famously designed by I.M. Pei.
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October 3, 2026 | College of Architecture and Planning
The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, in collaboration with University of Colorado Denver, will host a Workshop in Classical Architecture on Saturday, October 3, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., at the College of Architecture and Planning. Free for students and faculty; $50 for professionals. Please register to attend.
October 5, 2026 | Anschutz Medical Campus
October 5, 2026 | College of Architecture and Planning
October 12, 2026 | College of Architecture and Planning
You are invited to a lecture presented by Shin Bin Tan, an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. "From Policies to Realities: Living (in) an Urban Planner’s Dream"examines Singapore’s efforts at tackling familiar planning challenges, like residential ethnic segregation, housing affordability, and urban redevelopment, and unpacks their impacts on population health and social equity. From Noon – 1 p.m. in CAP's second-floor gallery.October 14, 2026 | Anschutz Medical Campus
October 22, 2026 | College of Architecture and Planning
Join us for "Manual of Instructions" with Kevin Hirth, professor of architecture and founder of internationally recognized KEVIN HIRTH Co., a multivalent design practice. From Noon – 1 p.m. in CAP's second-floor gallery.October 26, 2026 | Anschutz Medical CampusThe Design/HEALth Speaker Series concludes with "Architectural and Epidemiological Violence: Perspectives on Design and Health in Prisons and Detention Facilities," featuring Kate LeMasters, PhD; Shawhin Roudbari, PhD; and Michael Clifton, MD. From noon – 2 p.m. at the Fulginiti Gallery on the Anschutz campus.
Through November 12, 2026 | Anschutz Medical Campus
The Design/HEALth exhibition showcases work by students from the College of Architecture and Planning at CU Denver and the Department of Environmental Design at CU Boulder. On view at the Fulginiti Gallery on the Anschutz campus through November 12, 2026.
Through November 17, 2026 | Market Station
The exhibition "A GOOD IDEA" || STATE OF PLAY DENVER will be on view through November 17, at Market Station, 1661 Market St., Denver 80202. Organized by STAND VAN ZAKEN, GFA2, Claire Glass, and Sarah Hearne. Featuring Bangkok Tokyo, Colby Vexler, Davidson Rafailidis, Every Island, Ine Meganck, Nuno Melo Sousa, Office for Roundtable and Studio Glass, Willie Morlon, 11 x 17. Prints by Desplans.
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