The College’s Vision
The faculty has adopted a vision for the college that focuses on the concept of Integrative Design. This vision asserts that the creation of meaningful and beautiful environments involves:
• focusing on real world relevance, stressing technical, environmental, economic, social, cultural, aesthetic, and ethical concerns;In seeking a match between the college’s core competencies and the design and planning challenges in the fast-growing Denver metro area and Western region, the college faculty are focusing on three themes:
• creating and using a knowledge base for design and planning decisions;
• fostering a multidisciplinary culture of individuals who are each expert in one of the core designing and planning disciplines; and
• seeking and supporting a rich diversity of ideas and people to support the diverse communities served.
• sustainable urbanism: extending studies of the forces that shape the contemporary urban environment; studying the design parameters and processes that can be used to develop sustainable infrastructures for urban, suburban, and rural life (Those infrastructures also support effective social, community, and intrapersonal interactions in the larger and more complex environments of the city and the country.); applying the emerging concepts of contemporary urbanism, critical regionalism, eco-design, landscape urbanism, and ecological planning to the complex task of designing and planning environments that will accommodate rapid growth in the cities of the American West.This vision and these signature themes position the college to confront the significant challenges in the design and planning of the built environment that will affect the design professions in the next few decades. A common concern affecting each of these themes is that of the impact of emerging models of design praxis that exploit the effects of digital technologies, methods, and techniques that have the potential to radically transform the way we represent, model, and produce complex environments through the interaction of digital imaging technologies, 3-d visualization techniques, rapid prototyping, and computer-enhanced fabrication.
• healthy environments: extending understanding of the different factors, forces, and concerns that shape environments that are healthy, appropriate, beneficial, and sustainable. (Healthy environments are environments designed to restore the important balance between people and their natural, cultural, social, and designed settings. They are designed collaboratively by clients, users, and designers using processes that are participatory, inclusive, and transparent. They embrace feedback as a means for continuous refinement and improvement resulting in design proposals that are mindful and that maximize human potential and health while minimizing the use of resources and restoring natural systems.)
• historic preservation: extending the use of design history, theory, and criticism to enhance understanding of the methods, techniques, and technologies that support the preservation of important buildings, neighborhoods, and districts, and the conservation of unique natural and cultural landscapes. (The case study is used as a method for studying the history and theory of the designed environment. It is also used to inform and guide the design process as it deals with the increasing demand for the preservation and conservation of the designed environment, and in the design of recycled spaces and re-used settings.)
