Assistant professor Catalina Freixas and senior lecturer Pablo Moyano Fernandez participated in the 7th conference on Perspectivas Urbanas 7, Ciudades Americanas, organized by the Escuela de Arquitectura, Universidad Europea de Madrid, which introduced three perspectives on the current state of American cities. Freixas and oyano introduced the phenomenon of “ungrowth” in American cities, with a focus on St. Louis as an example of a shrinking city. Their presentation includes their ongoing research on eco-urbanism strategies as a response to the problem of “thinning” in post-industrial cities. The proceedings from the conference will be published in Perspectivas Urbanas 7.

Freixas and Moyano’s full paper “Eco-urbanism: Sustainable Strategies for Vacant Lots in St. Louis”, has been selected for oral presentation at the EDRA45 New Orleans and publication in the EDRA45 Conference Proceedings. The paper introduces The Sustainable Land Lab, an initiative by the Sustainability Office of Washington University in St. Louis that aims to showcase strategies that can transform vacant land into sustainability-advancing assets. The paper discusses the five implemented projects that resulted from the Sustainable Land Lab Competition using the Triple Bottom Line Sustainability criterion as defined by the City of St. Louis Sustainability Plan. Present research looks into HUB: Hybrid Urban Bioscapes, a finalist proposal focused on a synergistic approach to eco-urbanism, while ongoing research aims to ultimately assess all five projects.

Assistant professor Catalina Freixas co-authored an article on biomimicry titled “Developing a Common Ground for Learning from Nature,” which was published in the fall 2013 issue of Zygote Quarterly.

Zeuler R. Lima’s recently published Lina Bo Bardi (Yale University Press, 2013) has been listed among the top 10 design books of 2013 by The Guardian (United Kingdom) and also among the 10 notable books by Designers and Books (USA).