College of Design News

Sports Product Design Students Excel at Merino Wool Challenge

Today’s performance sports gear is made from spandex, polyester and even Kevlar. But UO students have been developing new ideas for an old-school staple: wool.

Professor Emeritus Howard Davis's Latest Book Meditates on Insights from a Hundred Places

Davis's latest book meditates on his personal insights that have come visiting one hundred places over several decades. Davis writes poetically about everything from the mundane to the famous, with some of the sights emblematic of beauty, some the product of fine craftsmanship, some active, and some quiet, but all memorable.

PPPM Professor Diana Mason Talks with KLCC about the Changing Relationship of Volunteers and Organizations

PPPM Professor, Diana Mason, talked alongside other volunteer experts to KLCC about the new trends in volunteering, where volunteers are engaging in shorter terms of engagement instead of long, multiyear engagements with hundreds of hours of service dedicated to a single organization in a year.

Art Student Earns 2026 Cornelia Hoppe Art Exhibit Award

The Department of Art at the School of Art + Design is celebrating Ava Murakami's, Art '27, well-deserved recognition as the 2026 Cornelia Hoppe Art Exhibit artist.

Sports Product Design Professor Jumps into Olympic Gear Conversation

The Olympic Winter and Summer Games are a time of celebration and reflection, as more than 200 countries come together to compete and showcase athletes in a myriad of different sports and traditions. Another important part of the Games are the innovative materials and uniforms used by the athletes. Sports Product Design Professor Susan Sokolowski understands the hard work and time that goes into designing these innovative sporting goods for athletes and takes time to talk with OregonNews about the gear at this year's Games.

PPPM Awards are Coming May 28!

A RARE and PPPM alumna and Ford Family Foundation leader, a pioneer in education, and a spatial strategist and design researcher are the 2026 winners of three public service awards presented by the UO School of Planning, Public Policy and Management and the PPPM Advisory Council. The awards ceremony will take place May 28 at the Ford Alumni Center on the University of Oregon campus.

LArch Associate Professor Selected for 2026-27 LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership

Congratulations to Liska Chan for her well-deserved selection for the 2026-27 LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership.

Jayne Cole Southard's, HAA PhD '22, Latest Exhibition Awarded 2025 Best Thematic Museum Show by "ARTnews"

Jayne Cole Southard, HAA PhD '22, alongside fellow curators christina ong and Howie Chen, was awarded the 2025 Best Thematic Museum Show. The exhibition, titled “Legacies: Asian American Art Movements in New York City”, was the first institutional show to survey artists of Asian descent in the city during the period from 1969 to 2001 while being centered around three organizations: Godzilla: Asian American Art Network, the Basement Workshop, and the Asian American Arts Centre.

New Masters Programs are Here to Stay

The College of Design has developed two new options for students looking to get more value from their time at the University of Oregon. The goal? To give high-achieving art history majors and planning, public policy and management majors an opportunity to earn a BA and MA within five years.

Meet the HAA MA Graduate who Joined JSMA as its Executive Director

The new executive director of the JSMA, Olivia Miller MA '09 (art history), returns to a museum and a university that shaped her. Read more about her journey. 

Portland Parks Foundation Panel Treats Crowd to Tales of Historic Landmark

All across the United States, there are examples of history and artistic expression left behind by previous generations, with communities featuring culturally significant statues, monuments, portraits, graffiti, posters, signs, architecture, and more.

ZGF and UO Alumnus Recognized by Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction for PDX Airport Terminal Expansion and Renovation

ZGF, including BArch '89 Gene Sandoval, were recognized by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. The foundation recognized 20 unique projects for the foundation's upcoming 2025 Holcim Foundation Awards. One of the twenty projects recognized was the Portland International Airport main terminal renovation and expansion.

Building a brand on a love for Portland

Marcus Harvey, BS ’12 (digital arts), is a Hillsboro, Oregon native who founded Portland Gear in 2014 after losing his job at a Eugene screen printing shop and moving back home. He said he had no expectation that this passion project would evolve to what it is today. He was just doing what he knew and loved, while creating a community of people who shared his passion for Portland.

Students design hospitals of engineered wood while sharpening job skills

School of Architecture & Environment students recently created models for the hospital of tomorrow for their end-of-term reviews, using mass timber as a base for the projects.

Why ancient people depicted elks as wolfish monsters

Maude I. Kerns Professor Emerita of Asian Art talks to "Popular Science" about why Elks were traditionally depicated in ancient art as monstrous.