Associate Professor

Francisco Alaniz Uribe joined SAPL as an assistant professor in 2014 and was awarded the University of Calgary’s inaugural Teaching Award for Sessional Instructors before becoming a full-time tenured faculty member as an associate professor in 2023. Prior to this, Alaniz Uribe worked as a research associate at The Urban Lab for 10 years. He has been its co-director for the past several years, and through it has worked with community associations, town and city councils, neighbourhood committees and other civic groups to collaboratively address issues of public realm quality and how the built form impacts people. His research work at The Urban Lab is primarily focused on sustainable urbanism, compact cities, and the quality of public life. His work often incorporates community-based participatory research methodologies and explores the applicability of new technologies like virtual reality and drones.

Alaniz Uribe began his architecture career in Mexico but shifted his focus to urban planning to address his interest in the broader context of the built environment. “My approach and my interest in research [are] in understanding how places impact people and how can we learn from the use of these spaces, from people, into making better places for everyone.” To do this, Alaniz Uribe breaks down urban morphology into the layers of its built environment, connection to the natural environment, and use in public life. “This is where the social justice has always been an important layer. Coming from a country where there is a huge inequality… there’s a very small minority that have the resources.” Alaniz Uribe considers Canada’s challenges to be based on an abundance of resources, resulting in different inequalities. “We have way more resources here, especially land. I see it as a disadvantage to becoming efficient because communities don’t have the necessity to really be efficient.” Alaniz Uribe says that in addition to having high carbon footprints, this low-density style of development leads to a neglected public realm. “Anytime you have more condensed, compact cities, private spaces become smaller. People that don’t have the benefit of having their own private open space, will need to use that in the city.” Alaniz Uribe was struck by the strong focus on private spaces in Canadian cities but believes that current issues of housing affordability and pedestrian mobility are increasing the interest in compact sustainability, which could benefit everyone. “If we can design a public realm of high quality, for all mobilities, all incomes, all ages, then we have created a place that is good for everyone.”

Social justice also informs Alaniz Uribe’s research methodologies. One of his main approaches is community-based participatory research, which provides communities and local experts opportunities to have meaningful involvement in decision-making processes. “This has always been challenging because of many different reasons. It has to do with power struggles or structures, where the regular citizen is definitely not as involved, as informed with the same kind of capacity or empowerment to contribute to some of these processes.” Alaniz Uribe is looking to new technologies to help with this process. He uses virtual reality environments to create immersive experiences where the public can walk through potential scenarios of new developments in their communities. He found this to be clearer  and more relatable for the public to engage with than traditional printed posters. “This process is both informative and empowering for the community. It is not only educational but also impactful because its results in information that gets added to policy and influence future projects.”

Alaniz Uribe is also exploring the use of drone technology in urban planning as part of his PhD research. “The drone has been a very interesting development in our field in the sense that it provides easy access to a bird’s-eye-view. Before drones, we would have to rely on aerial photography captured by planes or satellites, with its own limitations and expenses.” Dones can collect large amounts of data that can be used to create unique spatial analyses, for example, pedestrian, cyclist and vehicular conflicts. To process large amounts of data, Alaniz Uribe collaborates with various disciplines and draws on other technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. “There are many disciplines that can contribute to our work. It often takes great effort and risk to innovate with new technology and methods. Exploring and experimenting with some of their methods and technology can significantly contribute to the advancement of urban planning and design.”

In harnessing the unique capabilities of both new technologies and community expertise, Francisco Alaniz Uribe’s research pushes the boundaries of what can be discovered and achieved in urban planning. His resourcefulness, creativity, and passion for building a more sustainable built form and a high-quality, equitable public realm, is helping to build a bright future of cities that everyone can enjoy.

Learn more about Francisco in his full academic CV >>

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