University of Texas El Paso Projects

SITES has partnered with the University of Texas at El Paso on several projects that enhance outdoor spaces across campus, support student life, and reflect UTEP’s distinctive setting.

For the Engineering Building addition, SITES designed a sunken outdoor plaza that features decorative, functional steps and dual-purpose planters that double as amphitheater seating for small events. Custom gabion benches, artistically designed trash receptacles, turf grass, flowering trees, and low water plantings create a lively, shaded environment and strengthen pedestrian connections between buildings.

Phase II improvements at the UTEP Swimming and Fitness Facility focused on outdoor recreation areas. The work included relocating a sand volleyball court, updating the ropes challenge course, and creating a new multi-purpose synthetic turf field on a steeply sloped site that required extensive contouring. SITES collaborated closely with UTEP staff, user groups, and design partners to ensure the final layout met a wide range of needs.

Additional upgrades included aesthetic improvements to the Student Union Building landscape and student plaza, where native and xeric plantings provide year-round color while preserving the campus’s mature shade trees.

For UTEP’s centennial celebration, SITES designed five unique outdoor areas across campus. Each concept was supported by 3D models, sketches, and presentation boards that illustrated how the new spaces would support academic and social life.

SITES also enhanced the outdoor areas around the former Psychology Building, preserving major shade trees and adding native plantings, patios, and deck areas that offer flexible spaces for study, gathering, and campus events.