Case Study for Planning Education: Lessons from Incorporating an Interdisciplinary Teaching Approach and APA Trend Reports in Capstone Planning Studios

Abstract

Planning education has a responsibility to provide students with theoretical and practical training to address real-world issues. This study explores studio teaching as an engaged pedagogy, incorporating interdisciplinary approaches to education for sustainable development (ESD) and themes from the American Planning Association’s (APA) Future Trend reports. Focusing on two senior capstone projects at the University of Cincinnati involving 34 students, the study emphasizes the value of interdisciplinary methods and APA trend integration in fostering critical thinking and higher-order reasoning. Capstone projects show students’ active engagement with innovative planning concepts (e.g., climate migration, innovative ways of goods’ delivery, and expanding third place’s concept). Such active and innovative learning outcomes not only deepen students’ understanding of urban planning but also equip them with critical cognitive and professional skills, which are necessary as professional planners as well as forward thinkers. The experiences and findings presented can help other programs articulate the benefits of studio-based courses. The findings offer experience-based guidance for similar initiatives in planning studios globally and support the ongoing transformation of sustainability education to prepare students for complex, real-world problem-solving.

1. Introduction

Cities are continuously evolving, encountering unprecedented challenges that demand innovative strategies from urban planners and designers. These professionals are called upon to develop new insight, including a time-sensitive understanding of dynamic spatial transformations in present cities [1]. However, despite the dynamic nature of urban environments, planners are frequently limited by traditional methodologies in both academic settings and practical applications. Moreover, planners often struggle with how to address complex urban contexts [2]. Annually, since 2022, the American Planning Association (APA) has published the Trend Report for Planners in partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The report distinguishes trends into three time frames according to their urgency: Act Now, Prepare, and Learn and Watch. By considering the trends included in these reports, planners can better prepare for an uncertain future and propose sustainable alternatives [3]. In this context, this paper provides a case study of capstone-level urban planning studios focused on envisioning the future of Cincinnati, starting from the trends included in the APA reports. These capstones incorporated practical, student-centered projects that addressed real-world issues while reflecting new and emerging trends, using three years of APA Trend Reports.

We believe that through this studio format, employing the APA Trend Reports and enabling students to tailor their final projects to their own interests, planning students can develop a critical, future-oriented perspective. Furthermore, the study suggests that incorporation of the APA future trend reports into studio teaching can enhance students’ learning experiences, develop elevated outcomes, and advance students’ knowledge and skills as future planners.

The main purpose of this paper is to describe the pedagogy of incorporating APA Trend Reports and interdisciplinary teaching—one of the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) approaches—within the studio as a form of holistic and engaged pedagogy, exploring opportunities to develop new insights like future-oriented themes. The study also assumes that such a holistic teaching approach can improve students’ learning experience and outcomes while fostering the knowledge and skills necessary for the next generation of planners.

At the University of Cincinnati School of Planning (SOP), the urban planning undergraduate- and graduate-level capstones deal with real-world situations through interdisciplinary perspectives. The SOP takes a studio approach for both capstones (final semester course), engaging students individually or in small groups. In the spring of 2024, we employed a case study approach in which two sets of two researchers collaborated in designing, leading, and teaching interdisciplinary studios. One planning studio was offered to the Bachelor of Urban Planning (BUP) students and was led by landscape architecture and urban planning and design instructors. The other was offered to the Master of Community Planning (MCP) students and was led by two urban planning instructors with economics and landscape architecture backgrounds, respectively. By integrating different expertise into the capstone studio, students were supported in addressing place-based and social challenges on sites with complex issues, envisioning solutions for Cincinnati’s urban and regional future. In particular, the capstone activities were designed based on ESD approaches, including interdisciplinary, experimental, and constructivist learning approaches, which encourage students to participate in their learning process actively, and project-based learning approaches. The constructivist learning approach can promote an active, project-based learning environment in studios, like the learning by performing the approach [4]. According to the research conducted by Park et al. 2022 [5], the SOP studios have carefully considered well-designed learning environments, resources, and purposeful support of instructors to implement ESD approaches in the planning studio.

Building on these considerations, the paper presents the procedures and results from the Spring 2024 SOP capstones at the University of Cincinnati, which focused on possible future directions of Cincinnati, Ohio, and its region. They aimed to explore the impact of interdisciplinary instruction by faculty members in diverse disciplines and the integration of ESD pedagogical approaches in interdisciplinary studios [6,7,8,9]. The key research question is as follows: How does participation in an urban planning capstone course with ESD approaches, as offered by the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati, impact student learning?

This research outlines the course background, the facilitation of course activities, and discusses the final deliverables, which reflect students’ perspectives on urgent issues for Cincinnati’s future. The final outputs include a physical exhibition, websites, and an oral presentation. Additionally, the paper provides critical reflections on the lessons learned from incorporating ESD pedagogical approaches into the planning studio and offers recommendations for future work in urban planning education.

1.1. Background of the Planning Programs at the University of Cincinnati

The Bachelor of Urban Planning at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, University of Cincinnati, was initially developed in 1962 as the Bachelor in Community Planning (BCP) in the Department of Architecture, College of Design, Architecture and Art (DAA). In 1964, the BCP was assigned to a new Department of City Planning in the same College. In 1974, the BCP was renamed to the Bachelor of Urban Planning (BUP). In 1981, the School of Planning was formed and, the year after, the DAA was renamed to the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) [10]. The BUP has been accredited since 1966 [11], and it is currently one of 16 accredited bachelor’s programs in planning.

The Master of Community Planning (MCP) program at the University of Cincinnati (UC) dates back to 1963 when it was developed in the Department of Geography, College of Art and Science, at UC. In 1980, the Graduate Department of Community Planning moved to the College of Design, Architecture, and Art [10]. The MCP degree has been accredited since September 1964.

The BUP, with an average student enrollment of 114 over the 2015–2023 period, is a distinctive five-year program due to the co-op education system that characterizes it. The BUP program requires students to achieve 120 credits. Due to the mandatory co-op system, the academic year is organized into three semesters: Fall, Spring, and Summer. BUP students start their first of five paid co-op semesters in the Spring of their sophomore year, then return for the summer semester, co-op in the Fall, and so on, for eight semesters of formal education and five of co-ops. The core curriculum requires students to take six studios for 26 credits, including six credits or two foundational skill-based studios, in the first year. Starting from year two, four studios (site planning, neighborhood, topical, and comprehensive/regional) are offered, and their last Spring semester culminates with a four-credit capstone. Capstones for both undergraduate and graduate planning students are intended as studio experiences.

Co-ops have been required since 2015 in the MCP program, taking place during the summer between the program’s first and second years. The MCP, with an average student enrollment of 47 over the 2015–2023 period, has a curriculum requiring 48 credit hours over two years, full-time, including the required summer co-op in-between. MCP students take one six-credit studio course in the Fall of their second year and either a six-credit capstone studio in the Spring or a six-credit thesis course split into two three-credit courses in the Fall and Spring.

Co-op placements and studios both enhance the long-established real-world and service-based learning project orientation of the SOP programs [12,13]. John Friedman [14] captured this specific character of the UC School of Planning in his 1996 study on the core curriculum: “Of the 20 schools, five have an internship requirement, with another four listing internships as an option. Only one of the schools (Cincinnati) […] has this requirement, with the remaining schools relying primarily on studio projects for their “practical” training component.” (p. 93). Friedman’s conclusion is valid for the MCP and the BUP. The BUP is even more focused on the practical training component since it is offered through 11 experiences—six studios and five co-op semesters—spread over five years of education as compared to the MCP’s one co-op semester, one studio, and one optional Capstone.

In the past decade, SOP studios, with the exclusion of those in the first year, have often been sustained and sponsored by external entities: redevelopment corporations, transport agencies, local communities, conservancies, foundations, developers, and public agencies. Although none of the studios and capstones in the past decade were conducted as part of formal contracts between the SOP and external partners—some of them were supported by gifts and donations from local foundations, non–profit organizations, and public entities—the attitude toward the studio topic, and eventually its ultimate value, was that students and instructors were working on real problems while interacting with community members, associations, and stakeholders that genuinely were expecting results.

While the literature supports the value of co-op and student-community engagement [15,16,17,18], and these will both remain core values of our programs, some faculty recently discussed how to challenge and test students’ capacity to engage more with conceptual ideas about the future of our cities within the established curriculum. The most suitable courses for this exploration appeared to be the two Capstones. The BUP capstone already includes a programmatic input in the subtitle: “Planning Futures, Innovations, and the Public Good”. In addition, as an accredited program, we must address and refer to PAB standards. Until 2019, PAB required programs to demonstrate compliance with the Self-Study Report developed for the accreditation site visit with the “Required Knowledge, Skills, and Values of the Profession”. One of these “Required Knowledge, Skills, and Values of the Profession”, was “4A.1.e. General Planning Knowledge. The future,” described as the “relationships between past, present, and future in planning domains, as well as the potential for methods of design, analysis, and intervention to influence the future”.

Although this specific requirement is no longer part of the “Draft 1 of Proposed Amendments to 2022 PAB Accreditation Standards and Criteria”, approved by PAB on 10 June 2024 [19], the amended standards, while eliminating direct reference to the future, include it as a reference throughout, such as: in “4. Curriculum and Instruction” ascertain that: “Planners are committed to serving the public interest, infusing the values of equity and sustainability into their knowledge and skills as they envision the future and lead in decision-making that affects people and places” (p. 8); “Guiding Values: Sustainability, Resilience, and Climate Justice” talks about reducing “impacts of climate change; and create equitable, resilient, and adapted futures” (p. 9); “General Planning Knowledge in Global Context” speaks about “past and present conceptions of the future, including the relationship between planning and the future” (p. 10); and “Skills and Tools for Planning Practice” refers to “methods of design and intervention to understand and influence the future” (p. 10) (all emphasis added by the authors). Therefore, the future remains a determinant factor for forming prospective planners.

Among the capstones’ instructors, the questions then became: How can we engage students in thinking about the future, and what is the timespan we can reasonably consider? After having contemplated several potential sources for the students to ignite their explorations—such as the Urban Agendas [20,21] or the World Bank reports on macroeconomic prospects [22] of possible futures, we decided to utilize the American Planning Association (APA) Trend Reports published regularly every year since 2022 [23,24,25]. The Trend Reports, developed in partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, have several advantages from a pedagogical point of view. First, they are issued by the American Planning Association, an organization that most students know because they are already members—through a program that allows planning students to join for free [26]. Second, the collaboration of APA with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy makes the reports very thorough. The Cambridge-based think-tank is, in fact, well-regarded in the planning and public policy arena nationally and internationally [27]. Third, the reports show a series of issues that might affect not only cities and regions but also the way planning and planners will have to adapt to those changes. This argument resonates well with senior undergraduate and graduate planning students ready to work in a constantly changing environment due to new technologies, questions to be answered, and issues to be faced.

1.2. Interdisciplinary Teaching to ESD in the Planning Studio

In response to the growing need for ESD, planning and design education has increasingly embraced interdisciplinary teaching in studio settings. These efforts focus on enhancing course content through collaboration across disciplines, with faculty leadership, co-instructors, and students working together to address real-world challenges [8,28].

Interdisciplinary teaching enables studios to incorporate multiple disciplines and scales, ranging from site-specific projects to global issues, while fostering diverse ethical, political, gender, and disciplinary perspectives [8]. By fostering knowledge sharing and collaboration, interdisciplinary teaching enhances students’ learning and supports a better understanding of complex concepts by integrating two or more subject areas [29]. However, implementing such programs comes with pedagogical challenges, including design, coordination, and maintaining coherence in learning outcomes [30,31]. Nevertheless, the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach in addressing complex urban issues emphasize the necessity of incorporating this approach in planning studios [28,32]. Accordingly, many planning and design programs, for example, adopt interdisciplinary learning frameworks or collaborative studios that aim to engage students in real-world challenges [7,33,34]. However, our approach stands out by integrating customizable themes, such as the APA Trend Reports, as well as its emphasis on individual or small group autonomy, which might differ from the more rigidly structured or team-based capstone models commonly seen elsewhere. In particular, this case study highlights the implementation of interdisciplinary teaching in planning studios, encompassing urban planning, landscape architecture, urban design, and economics. By dissolving traditional disciplinary boundaries, this approach aims to prepare students to address real-world sustainability encounters through innovative and collaborative methods [29].

2. Materials and Methods

This case study explores how planning studios can be improved through interdisciplinary approaches. The project involved 19 BUP students and 15 MCP students, alongside external experts and four faculty members. These faculty members brought diverse expertise in urban planning, landscape architecture, urban design, and economics/finance, creating a robust interdisciplinary foundation. Keeping in mind our overall research question of how participation in an urban planning capstone course with ESD approaches impacts student learning, this particular study was designed to investigate the impact of interdisciplinary teaching methods and the integration of APA Trend Reports on student outcomes in capstone planning studios. More clearly, what lessons can be learned from incorporating an interdisciplinary teaching approach and APA Trend Reports in capstone planning studios to enhance planning education and student deliverables?

To address this question, we focus on processes for building interdisciplinary teaching in planning studios, including structuring teaching and learning processes. The sample for this study consists of 33 student projects submitted during the Spring 2024 semester. These projects were analyzed to identify how students applied themes of APA Trend Reports within the City of Cincinnati and its regions and planning solutions employed by students when addressing real-world challenges. The researchers conducted a qualitative content analysis of course activities’ outcomes, including students’ capstone projects, reports, and presentations. This process provided a structured way to understand and describe the perspectives, as also noted in other fields of study [35] reflected in the students’ deliverables.

Following an inductive reasoning approach, the findings were not predetermined by the students during their work. Instead, as part of our qualitative analysis, we carefully reviewed course outcome content during the coding process to describe students’ perspectives on their deliverables by reducing and grouping data to respond to the study questions using concepts, categories, or themes [36].

2.1. Course Activities and Students’ Deliverables

The two interdisciplinary planning capstone studios were conducted throughout one spring semester, combining literature reviews, semi-structured interviews, guest lectures, visual graphic sessions, desk critiques, and collaborative peer work. Capstone studios incorporated APA Trend Reports into the curriculum, facilitating active engagement with current planning practices and enhancing the students’ critical thinking skills.

As this case study focused on interdisciplinary studio activities on students’ skill development and understanding of planning and design practice, key components of the course were designed to engage students in both theory and practice. Essential components of the curriculum included interdisciplinary guest lectures, discussions with invited experts, AI image generation, and 3D graphics workshops, combined with traditional bi-weekly desk critiques, allowing students to engage with emerging trends in the field.

Students produced drawings, models, reports, websites, and physical exhibitions; multiple types of outcomes were explicitly produced to assess the effectiveness of these pedagogical tools and the capacity to communicate effectively with the external public invited to attend the annual College-wide exhibit of final-year projects (DAAPworks [37]). These materials were analyzed based on criteria such as creativity, integration of sustainability principles, and effectiveness in addressing real-world planning challenges, as presented in the APA trends reports.

The capstone studio structure for both BUP and MCP programs followed a similar progression (see Figure 1). To begin, students identified planning themes by analyzing the two available APA Trend Reports (the 2024 Trend Report was available in week 4), which were organized under the STEEP framework (Societal, Technological, Environmental, Economic, and Political trends). These trend reports offered insights into emerging and potential future issues in planning, helping students identify key challenges that planners may face, and the skills needed to address them. This initial “warm-up” exercise prepared students to select project topics by identifying themes for individual or group projects. Each project subsequently centered on one or two topics derived from the APA reports.

After setting individual goals, students participated in a panel discussion with experts to explore and discuss the newly released 2024 APA Trend Report themes. Emphasizing student-centered studio work, the capstone studios encouraged students to take greater ownership of their projects. In-class activities, including posting selected topics on a whiteboard and group presentations, fostered a collaborative environment where students could cross-pollinate and refine their ideas. Following collaborative midterm presentations, students received iterative feedback to further refine their themes. Students then developed Interim Progress Reports, allowing them to gain an in-depth understanding of their project development. Additional workshops were offered, covering graphic tools like Lumion, and 3D rendering software, which enhanced students’ visual communication skills. To conclude the course, the school participated in the College’s DAAPworks exhibition, in which students presented their completed projects. This event, attended by external experts and faculty from the School of Planning, allowed students to showcase their work to the broader public.

2.2. Panel Discussion and 2024 Trends Presentation

In the early stages of the semester, the capstone instructors included two initiatives to make the students aware of the APA Trends reports’ contents and structure and to strengthen the value and importance of including future thinking in the planning profession. The first initiative was an in-person lecture by one of the authors of the Trends report, followed by a panel discussion with planning practitioners and scholars. The lecture was mandatory for the Capstones’ students but open to faculty and the public. It described the documents’ structure, APA’s process in selecting the Trends, and an overview of the most current trends and why they are relevant.

The subsequent panel discussion included key voices from the field: the Director of the Department of City Planning and Engagement for the City of Cincinnati, the Regional Planning Manager of OKI Regional Council of Government, a founding principal and owner of a Cincinnati private planning firm, an expert in energy efficiency and green communities, and an academic expert in digital and virtual interaction design. Together, they offered insights into how these trends are shaping current and future planning practices, adding depth to the students’ understanding and appreciation for integrating foresight into their projects.

One Capstone instructor moderated the five panelists. They received questions in advance from the Capstones’ faculty and were encouraged to include topics and issues they would like to be considered by the students, the instructors, and the other panelists. The intention of asking these questions and facilitating the conversation between experts and students was to elicit the directions the experts observed in the planning profession that merit particular attention from the soon-to-be-graduated and, for those familiar with Cincinnati and its region, what trends they envision will become prevalent in the future and that are worth investigating. Students and other faculty members attending the panel were encouraged to ask questions. The specific questions asked by our experts were:

• What are the biggest challenges that you see coming up in your industry?
• What direction do you see [your field] going in the future? How do you feel that this ties into planning?
• For students studying the City of Cincinnati in this semester’s capstones, do you see any trends that are very relevant to the city or the region?

The panel discussion offered valuable insights into emerging trends and challenges in planning and related fields, particularly how they are manifesting in the local and regional context. These perspectives shaped the students’ understanding of professional expectations and provided context-specific guidance for their capstone projects focused on Cincinnati and its region. By bridging theoretical concepts with practical applications, the session enhanced the students’ awareness to address real-world issues as they transition into their professional careers.

3. Results

The study’s findings suggest that incorporating future trends and a student-centered studio approach enabled planning students to develop a conceptual understanding while fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

3.1. Selected Themes from APA Trend Reports

In both the BUP and MCP capstone studios, nine main categories or themes emerged, with both programs showing similar thematic selections (see Figure 2). Most students integrated two or three themes into their projects, with the most popular topics being community (chosen as the topic of exploration by seven BUP projects and four MCP), technology (five BUP and four MCP), climate (four BUP and three MCP), and transportation (three BUP and four MCP). One example that combines technology, transportation, and to a lesser extent, climate is the MCP project, “Clean Air Mobility: Cincinnati’s Route to Lower Pollution and Smarter Mobility”. This project proposed the use of AI-powered drone surveillance to monitor air pollution and provide GPS navigation for drivers in the greater Cincinnati region, with the end goal of enhancing area air quality. Some students explored less conventional themes, such as equity (one BUP and one MCP) and governance (one MCP). For instance, the BUP studio project “Beyond the Coffeehouse: Reimagining Third Places for the Modern Era“, focused on community with an emphasis on equity. This project envisions third spaces designed by and for members of a local community, fostering diverse connections and community, promoting in-person interaction, and sparking imagination.

However, no students selected the themes of the future of jobs, or youth, which hold significant relevance for future urban and community planning. This suggests a preference for more mainstream project topics, highlighting an opportunity for course design to broaden students’ perspectives by encouraging the exploration of diverse and emerging subjects.

3.2. Relationship Between Selected Themes from APA Trend Reports and SDGs

As we analyzed the themes derived from the APA Trend Reports, we identified clear connections with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [38]. While these alignments were not an intentional part of the initial course design, they became evident as we reviewed the final capstone topics more closely. Connections were identified by examining how the themes aligned with the language, objectives, and key focus areas of the SDGs, a global agenda emphasizing human well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental protection [23,24]. As shown in Figure 3, several APA trend themes related to sustainable urban planning, equity, and economy demonstrated clear parallels with goals such as fostering inclusive cities and communities, addressing climate change, and improving food security and health issues. For instance, SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) intersect through the APA themes of equity and health. Similarly, SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) encompasses themes of community, equity, and governance, illustrating how these APA themes collectively support comprehensive and sustainable urban planning (See Figure 4).

These similarities illustrate how the course content and outcomes naturally reflect global sustainability priorities. In the future study, we will expand this section to suggest ways that SDG principles could inform future curriculum planning and instructional practices.

3.3. DAAPworks Exhibition and GIS Story Map

We incorporated interdisciplinary, experimental, and constructive learning approaches throughout the course to strengthen the students’ applied practical skills and foster critical thinking. As shown in

Table 1. Selected Student Projects from the BUP and MCP Studios in DAAPworks website [39].

Title	Project	Description
[BUP] Eco-Distribute Cincinnati: Pioneering Sustainable Delivery Solutions for a Smarter Cincinnati		The project’s vision is to revolutionize urban deliveries and create a city-wide sustainable delivery system with the use of cutting-edge delivery technology, underutilized spaces, and streetscape redesign to complete emission free last-mile delivery.
[BUP] Destination Cincinnati: Making Cincinnati into a Climate Haven		The goal is to turn Cincinnati into a climate haven for climate migrants, providing them with housing, community resources, and opportunities, creating six new housing typologies, a downtown community campus with educational resources, recreational opportunities and programming, multiple job centers and co-working spaces, social housing, and host family programs, and so much more.
[BUP] Beyond the Coffeehouse: Reimagining Third Places for the Modern Era		Due to car-centric urban planning, Cincinnati lacks sufficient social spaces; as society shifts towards tech-centric lifestyles, social opportunities diminish, highlighting the need for people-centric gathering places. The project envisions third spaces designed by and for the people, fostering diverse connections and community, promoting in-person interaction, and sparking imagination.
[MCP] Clean Air Mobility: Cincinnati’s Route to Lower Pollution and Smarter Mobility		The project focuses on utilizing AI-powered drone surveillance to monitor air pollution, vehicle identification, and GPS navigation to provide alternative mobility solutions and implement a pricing strategy imposing higher charges on less efficient vehicles, aimed at enhancing air quality.
[MCP] Urban 3D Print Revolution Project		Urban 3D Print Revolution tied together technology, housing, and again, to a lesser extent, sustainability to explore affordable and sustainable housing solutions. 3D-printed homes would be customized to make the buildings resilient to the environmental conditions and concerns found in different areas of Cincinnati.
[MCP] Reconnected, Gender Inclusive Communities Project		The project integrated equity and transportation, using both design and policy to advocate for the reintegration of neighborhoods torn apart by transportation infrastructure. The intention is to increase the inclusivity and mobility of gender minorities with a pilot project in a Cincinnati neighborhood exhibiting multiple, intersectional social issues.

and Appendix A, students dealt with various projects, and their progress was systematically assessed through a series of oral presentations, culminating in a final showcase at the DAAPworks exhibition. This event, which serves as a platform for students to present their work publicly, offers students the opportunity to communicate their ideas to a broader audience. While some students relied on traditional presentation boards during the exhibition, others developed physical and interactive deliverables, including video projections, digital applications, cardboard architectural models, fabricated product models, and citywide models, which exemplified their ability to translate spatial concepts into tangible forms.

4. Discussion

In the final capstone semester, it can be challenging to keep students engaged in, and enthusiastic about, their work. This is especially true for students who have already found their first post-graduation job or are already working part-time for their future employer, both of which are common situations for our planning graduates. It is also challenging if the topic of their final capstone has been imposed on them. After teaching capstones over several years, it has become clear to SOP faculty that the customizable nature of this studio approach resonates better with students. The APA Trend Reports appeared to be the right choice due to their ample latitude of subjects and themes to satisfy this principle. Using the APA Trend Reports, with their wide range of subjects and themes, has proven to be a successful strategy for addressing these challenges.

First, the option for students to choose their own topics within the APA Trend Reports framework gave them greater ownership of their projects. Students in both capstones chose to work individually or in groups of two or three. After years of enforced studio teamwork, several students (five of 15 MCP and five of 19 BUP) opted to work independently on their projects. One feature of this studio’s approach was that students could choose their own topic(s)—within the trends developed and described in the Trend Reports — to investigate during the semester—a sort of “bespoke” studio tailored to the unique interests and academic and professional experience of each student or student team. For instance, a team of two MCP students honed in on a current hot topic in the Cincinnati area: transportation and, more specifically, the replacement of the I-75 bridges across the Ohio River. However, they approached the topic from perspectives of community development and gender inclusivity arenas. This unique combination of topics is not “mainstream” and would probably not be chosen, as the topic for an entire studio, but it made sense to this team of students as to how they would tackle the issue. Their interest in this triangulated topic drove their engagement throughout the semester, resulting in a strong final product. It also demonstrates the value of giving students autonomy within broad but structured frameworks, allowing them to focus on topics that align with their individual interests.

Second, supporting a diverse range of topics requires faculty to navigate various disciplines and methods. One potential solution is applying interdisciplinary collaboration by involving guest speakers, practitioners, or faculty with expertise in different areas. A feature of interdisciplinary teaching, as employed in this studio, is the broadening of the subject matter knowledge that faculty can bring to the classroom and a diversity of approaches to investigating, reporting, and communicating findings to a larger public.

Another aspect of this approach to capstone topic development is that it is adaptable to the technological, graphic, and design-oriented skills of students through personalized support. Just as students are able to choose the trends that they are interested in investigating, they are also able to choose the technologies that they will use in that investigation as well as the visual media that they will use to share their results. Students were required to produce an online digital presence as part of our college-wide annual display of graduating student work in DAAPworks [39] websites as well as an in-person display of their results.

Additionally, the public display has often created a certain level of discomfort and reluctance in students and faculty alike. The discomfort was mainly determined by the comparison of exhibiting planning projects (usually displayed on a poster) in parallel with architecture, industrial design, or fashion design capstone outcomes, traditionally shown through sophisticated 3-D models, innovative graphic design solutions, or full-scale and wearable prototypes. An uneasy fear of unequaled competition determined by the different nature of the products displayed, added to the intrinsically hard-to-explain content, characters, and values of planning as a discipline to a larger public, had resulted in past DAAPworks exhibiting poor displays of otherwise rich content. The reluctance, especially among students, was determined by the mandatory nature of the exhibit that, in their own words, did not add value to their work or create job opportunities.

To alleviate discomfort and increase the perceived value of the exhibit, the following strategies were implemented: (1) introducing DAAPworks at the beginning of the semester, (2) considering it as part of the capstones’ graded results, (3) emphasizing the important role of communicating their ideas to a wide and lay audience, (4) showing examples of successful domestic and international planning or planning-related exhibits, (5) and giving students considerable latitude to explore methods of communicating their findings to multiple audiences. The results varied, but these steps helped improve this year’s displays, although more can always be performed. Incorporating workshops on visual communication and exhibit design earlier in the semester could further build students’ confidence and skills.

Moreover, one significant lesson learned was the potential benefit of integrating the UN SDGs into the initial research and discussions on planning trends. Including these goals could help frame students’ projects within a global sustainability context while encouraging them to explore critical intersections between local challenges and international objectives. For instance, common trends like transportation and community development that align closely with SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and SDG 5 (Gender Equality) are global issues that students can engage with at a local level. By introducing these connections early, students might uncover innovative ways to integrate sustainability into their projects. While students were naturally inclined toward popular trends like transportation and community development, certain topics—such as youth engagement, job creation, and governance—were less explored. This gap underscores the importance of broadening the scope of initial discussions to encourage students to consider underrepresented or emerging trends. Facilitating discussions on why some topics resonate more strongly than others could offer valuable insights into student priorities and inspire more diverse capstone topics. By embedding UN SDGs and a wider range of trends into the early stages of the studio, future capstones can better balance student autonomy with exposure to diverse and globally relevant issues. These strategies can ensure that capstone courses not only meet educational objectives but also prepare students to address complex, real-world challenges as they transition into their professional careers.

5. Conclusions

This paper supports existing research on educational initiatives that attempt to integrate sustainability education into the curricula. Our study emphasizes the importance of studio teaching as an engaged pedagogical approach that effectively integrates an interdisciplinary approach, one of the sustainability education principles. Capstone students’ deliverables illustrate how integrating an interdisciplinary approach not only enhances critical thinking and higher-order reasoning but also equips students with the skills necessary to address real-world issues, such as climate migration, innovative delivery systems, and the expansion of third places. More so, students were engaged in issues on a range of scales, from the local to the global. Using the APA Trend Reports, which assemble and distribute information about planning issues at a national level, students were stimulated to inquire into large-scale trends, assess novel data sources, and investigate themes that may be beyond the scope of their experience or education. By then envisioning how these trends may intersect both internally as well as in the context of the city of Cincinnati and its region, students also rely on local, perhaps more familiar, sources of information for data. The mix of the familiar and unfamiliar, local, and national, pushes students out of their conventional approaches and comfort zones and into areas where original thinking is given latitude to develop into innovative design and policy approaches. In a future iteration of this studio, integrating the UN SDGs into the course as another, higher level of data inputs and ongoing trends could enrich studio outcomes for the students.

The examples presented here also emphasize the important role of communication and graphic visualization in planning. The issue of communication and showcasing the outcomes of the two capstones was both foregrounded and stressed by the specific situation in which planning students’ products were compared and, in some way, competing with the exhibit of the final outcomes of graduating students from programs much stronger in visual communication and in the use of prompts such as architectural models or 3-D prototypes. Nonetheless, the role and importance of visual communication in urban planning, and, in particular, in the construction of urban future [40], as in this specific case, needs attention in the curricula of planning programs as a way to provide good, effective, clear, and attractive communication to be utilized later in their career in the community engagement realm and through participatory design. The educational and professional side of it involves the use of digital tools, social media, Artificial Intelligence, and other technology [41,42,43]. The examples presented here also accentuate the important role of communication and graphic visualization in planning.

The future direction of this study also focuses on expanding the interdisciplinary approaches by incorporating students and faculty from the Landscape Architecture and Horticulture programs into the capstone studio in 2025. Considering contributions from these curricula, such as expertise in spatial design, ecological systems, and knowledge in planting and real-scale practices, is expected to deepen the integration of ecological, spatial, and sustainable practices within urban and community planning. As planning education continues to evolve, integrating interdisciplinary approaches can provide a model for the broader adoption of collaborative pedagogies in planning and sustainability education by bridging disciplinary boundaries. The interdisciplinary approach to the two capstones has also responded to a mission that the SOP is strongly pursuing, the so called “ecotone” approach. Such term has, in this particular occurrence, the meaning to push the studio instructors to find, when the pedagogical opportunities arise, ways to involve students of SOP’s multiple constituent programs —in addition to the BUP, there are two undergraduate programs in urban studies and horticulture, and besides the MCP, SOP also offer a Master in Landscape Architecture (MLA). In the past, capstones with a combination of BUP and Urban Studies students have been undertaken, as well as a more recent (Fall 2024) first-year graduate studio with MCP and MLA students. While we do not have data to support the comparison between pure disciplinary and interdisciplinary versions of the same studio or capstones, we can empirically assert that the results, in many circumstances, have been enhanced when more disciplinary perspectives were involved. Ultimately, these collaborative approaches will foster diverse perspectives, equipping students to address the multifaceted challenges of the urban environment.