UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design

UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design How and Where We Live Matter
#1 Public University for Architecture + the Built Environment and the world.

The College of Environmental Design (CED) is UC Berkeley's home for environmental design theory, research, innovation and practice. The College comprises three core departments — Architecture, Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, City & Regional Planning — and a recently-launched Real Estate Development + Design program. CED is consistently ranked as one of the most prestigious design

schools in the U.S. To read more about the history of CED and the opening of Wurster Hall, read our Frameworks article: https://frameworks.ced.berkeley.edu/2010/ced-in-wurster-hall/

Visit CED's new cafe, Rice & Bones, from the celebrated chef of The Slanted Door. To view the menu and hours, visit https://www.riceandbones.com/

On , we suggest visiting one of two recently opened parks designed by Chair of Landscape Architecture & Environmental P...
03/30/2025

On , we suggest visiting one of two recently opened parks designed by Chair of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning Walter J. Hood, principal at Hood Design Studio @‌hooddesignstudio. On the West Coast, stroll the recently completed Panorama Park on Yerba Buena Island and uncover layers of history while enjoying 360 views of the San Francisco Bay. On the East Coast, visit Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park in Jacksonville, Florida, commemorating the birthplace of James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson, composers of the Black national anthem.

Photos courtesy Hood Design Studio
1-4: Panorama Park
5-6: Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing

Join us for an exhibition and presentations showcasing compelling climate change research by CED faculty who received 20...
03/26/2025

Join us for an exhibition and presentations showcasing compelling climate change research by CED faculty who received 2024 Lau Grants for Just Climate Futures.

Projects explore heat and pollution in urbanizing towns (Nader Afzalan and Lu Liang), flood adaptation strategies in unincorporated areas (Danielle Rivera and Anna Serra-Llobet), decentralized energy sharing networks (Luisa Caldas), and a digital twin to map Bay Area air quality (Kristina Hill and Charisma Acey).

Projects explore innovative ways to integrate data and design into sustainable urban development, examining how:
– Data-driven insights can shape sustainable urban design
– Landscape features influence the interaction between urban heat and pollution
– Design interventions and decentralized energy systems enhance resilience to extreme weather
– Natural and social factors of vulnerability can inform flood risk mitigation
– Real-time air quality mapping can improve community health and urban planning

Presentations: Wed, April 2 | 6:30 pm, Bauer Wurster Hall
Exhibition: April 7-23, Bauer Wurster Gallery
Exhibition Opening Reception: Mon, April 7 | 5:30–7 pm

Established in 2023, Lau Grants for Just Climate Futures support cross-disciplinary projects led by CED faculty that aim to reduce the impacts of climate change and incorporate community engagement.

Link in bio for more info.

Happy spring! From the Environmental Design Archives:Beatrix Jones Farrand
Coats Garden, Tanglewold, Bar Harbor, MaineBe...
03/20/2025

Happy spring!

From the Environmental Design Archives:

Beatrix Jones Farrand
Coats Garden, Tanglewold, Bar Harbor, Maine

Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872–1959) opened her landscape design office in New York in 1895. In 1899, she was one of 11 founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects — and the only woman.

During her 50-year career, Farrand designed approximately 200 gardens. Her first designs were for residential gardens, including for neighbors of her family’s home in Bar Harbor, Maine. She also collaborated with her aunt, novelist Edith Wharton, on landscape and garden designs for The Mount, Wharton's home in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Farrand was active as a designer of college campus landscapes. She served as the first consulting landscape architect for Princeton University and for 23 years was the consulting landscape architect at Yale University. In California, where she moved in 1928 with her husband Max Farrand when he became director of the Huntington Library, Farrand took on landscape improvement projects for Occidental College and CalTech.

Among her extant major projects are Dartington Hall in Devonshire, England; Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C.; the Rockefeller Estate in Maine; the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden; and Green Spring in Alexandria, Virginia.

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The Environmental Design Archives raises awareness of architectural, landscape, and design heritage of Northern California and beyond through collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary records of the built and designed environment. The EDA actively encourages and promotes the use of its collections by providing access to primary source material for scholarly research, teaching support, curatorial use, preservation, and public service.

For more info or to schedule a visit, see link in bio.

While the Tomodachi program at Berkeley has concluded, its impact continues. Suzanne Basalla, former president of the U....
03/11/2025

While the Tomodachi program at Berkeley has concluded, its impact continues. Suzanne Basalla, former president of the U.S.–Japan Council, says, “A decade later, we’re seeing alums become decision-makers in Japan, influencing policies, mentoring new generations, and expanding this work beyond Tōhoku.”

Building on a decade of insights and impact from Tomodachi, the Center for Cities + Schools is growing this work into the future through a new Y-PLAN Global initiative. By bringing this model to communities seeking to engage youth in revitalization, it aims to support resilience, recovery, and a strengthened sense of agency among young people as they confront the increasing challenges of natural disasters and urban change. At the same time, the center is exploring emerging technologies, including AI, as strategies to deepen critical connections between people and places, ensuring that the lessons of the past decade inform more inclusive, adaptive, and future-ready communities worldwide.

Read more, link in bio.

Renee Chow announced that she will step down as dean of the College of Environmental Design at the end of her term in Ju...
02/11/2025

Renee Chow announced that she will step down as dean of the College of Environmental Design at the end of her term in June 2026.

Chow served as chair of the Department of Architecture for two years and acting dean for one year before beginning her current five-year term as dean of the college. During her tenure, Chow revitalized the college in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, overseeing the return of students as well as the hiring of a large number of new faculty and staff. She elevated the teaching mission of the college by increasing tech access support for undergraduates and fellowship support for professional and research graduate students.

Under Chow’s leadership, faculty research support, revenue-generating programs, and philanthropic support all increased. She also secured the largest gift in the history of the college, which supports tuition-free fellowships to master's students who commit to social practice careers upon graduation.

“It has been a distinct honor to serve as dean of CED. Every day, I am inspired by the exceptional work of our CED community. Together, we have strengthened the college, deepened its mission, and expanded the impact of environmental design,” Chow says.

Read more: https://ced.berkeley.edu/news/renee-chow-to-step-down-as-ced-dean-in-2026

WHITE GREEN BLACK: Methodological Racisms in Climate-Adaptation Strategies is a day-long symposium drawing on the Colleg...
01/31/2025

WHITE GREEN BLACK: Methodological Racisms in Climate-Adaptation Strategies is a day-long symposium drawing on the College of Environmental Design’s history of social critique in design and planning. With a critical focus on cultural landscapes and living with difference, the symposium examines how methodologies underpinning landscape design and environmental planning can better attend to difference.

This symposium brings together contributors to the forthcoming volume White Green Black: Methodological Racisms in Climate-Adaptation Strategies for presentations and discussions focused on how the conceptual premise and methodologies used in contemporary greening strategies reproduce and further racial injustices.

WHITE GREEN BLACK: Methodological Racisms in Climate-Adaptation Strategies | Symposium
Friday Feb 7, 10AM–5 PM | Bauer Wurster Gallery

⬜ 🟩 ⬛

SCHEDULE

Opening Lecture: Louise Mozingo (UC Berkeley)

Morning Panel
Pol Fité Matamoros + Anna Livia Brand (UC Berkeley); Anna Bierbrauer (UW Madison); Eliza Breder (UC Berkeley); Rea Zaimi (Georgia State); Roundtable: Danielle Rivera + Clancy Wilmott (UC Berkeley)

Afternoon Panel
Katherine Hankins + Khadija Benn (Georgia State), Zannah Matson (CU Boulder); Rebecca Walker (UIUC); Roundtable: Zach Lamb + Meg Mills-Novoa (UC Berkeley)

Closing Lecture: Richard Schein (University of Kentucky)

This symposium is organized by Anna Livia Brand + Pol Fité Matamoros, and sponsored by the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning.

Free + open to the public. Learn more:
https://ced.berkeley.edu/events/white-green-black-methodological-racisms-in-climate-adaptation-strategies-symposium

Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities, an exhibition of the work of Assistant Professor of Architecture Liz Gálvez...
01/24/2025

Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities, an exhibition of the work of Assistant Professor of Architecture Liz Gálvez @‌office.e.g and her (Im)material Matters Lab, examines climate resilience in desert cities, offering architects, city planners, and community members fresh perspectives on urban cooling. Collective Comfort is on view until February 5, 2025 at the Center for Architecture + Design, San Francisco @‌centerarchdesignsf.

The (Im)material Matters Lab examines the interface between architecture, theory, and environmentalism through a reexamination of building technologies for a rapidly changing world. Aligned with the College of Environmental Design’s commitment to climate change research, the exhibition’s four key installations showcase an ongoing dialogue between architecture, material research, and resilience planning, recognizing that strategic allegiances can promote equitable solutions to climate challenges.

Gálvez says, “There is a profound intelligence in traditional material thinking that we can reintegrate into our contemporary building and urban cultures. By reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and reimagining resilient cooling strategies, we can expand the role of architecture in fostering collective resilience, especially for vulnerable communities confronting extreme weather risks. Enriching spaces that bring people together can serve as soft infrastructures, proving to be just as powerful as traditional hard infrastructures.”

Developed in collaboration wtih the University of Houston’s Urban Climate Adaptation Lab @‌uhcoadinput, directed by Dalia Munenzon. and with students in the Department of Architecture @‌ucberkeleyarch: Deniz Atayolu @‌deniz.a.rch, Catherine Chiu @‌cathihuang, Xinhui Harper D**g @‌har1219per, Kyra Johnston @‌kyra.architecture, Annette Ho @‌annette.arch, David Lin, Chloe Wang @‌xchloewang, Sarah Zhang, and Wenteng Zhao. Design by Bianca Ibarlucea @‌bianca_ibarlucea.

Read more:
https://ced.berkeley.edu/news/collective-comfort-climate-resilience-cities-liz-galvez

Maryam Hosseini, who uses AI to make cities walkable and accessible, joins CED’s Department of City & Regional Planning ...
01/22/2025

Maryam Hosseini, who uses AI to make cities walkable and accessible, joins CED’s Department of City & Regional Planning 🛣️

How does the design of the built environment influence how people use and experience cities?

This question lies at the heart of Maryam Hosseini’s work. Hosseini, who earned her PhD in urban systems from Rutgers University and conducted her dissertation research at VIDA Lab in NYU’s Computer Science Department, joins the Department of City & Regional Planning this semester as assistant professor. Since 2022, she has been a postdoctoral researcher in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, blending her expertise in urban systems, computer vision, and economics to advance urban planning methods.

Hosseini’s research centers on improving the walkability, accessibility, and equity of cities through cutting-edge machine learning techniques and open-source tools. From enhancing disability access to analyzing pedestrians’ exposure to extreme heat and flood risks, Hosseini’s work addresses complex challenges at the intersection of technology, environment, and urban design.

This spring, Hosseini will be teaching urban informatics and visualization, training the next generation in computational thinking and coding skills. Hosseini sees Berkeley, the birthplace of the disability movement, as the perfect fit for her research interests. “Accessibility is so important to me and Berkeley has always been at the forefront of this issue,” she says.

Read more: https://ced.berkeley.edu/news/maryam-hosseini-uses-ai-for-urban-accessibility

Ben Metcalf, Managing Director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, recently spoke with the Goldm...
01/20/2025

Ben Metcalf, Managing Director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, recently spoke with the Goldman School of Public Policy's Journal on what to expect on housing affordability and policy from the Trump administration.

“It’s hard to see how Trump’s housing plans provide immediate relief for rising rents and home prices. Perhaps the best hope on this topic is Trump’s knack for evolving his policies to meet the political moment. But, a growing burden is likely to fall on states and localities to address the very real housing challenges facing millions of Americans across the country,” Metcalf says.

🏗️ Read more: https://bit.ly/goldman-election-ben-metcalf

The destructive fires in Los Angeles are making everyone in California more aware of the need to protect their homes. It...
01/16/2025

The destructive fires in Los Angeles are making everyone in California more aware of the need to protect their homes. It’s a good time to look back at the fire-safe landscape designs developed by Berkeley landscape architecture students for the 2024 Landscape Design Challenge.

Participants were challenged to re-imagine the landscape around a typical home in the Bay Area. “Designers are increasingly engaging with the more personal aesthetic experience of living in landscapes that burn,” says Kristina Hill, associate professor of landscape architecture and environmental design.

Grace Diebel (MLA 2025) and Shayda Rashidi’s (MLA 2025) first place designs provide for defensible space around the house without sacrificing beauty or comfort.

We’re excited to welcome Aleks Baharlo (MArch 1997) to CED as the executive director of the Nancy and Douglas Abbey Mast...
01/13/2025

We’re excited to welcome Aleks Baharlo (MArch 1997) to CED as the executive director of the Nancy and Douglas Abbey Master of Real Estate Development + Design program.

As a real estate development executive with over 25 years’ experience at both public and private development companies, Baharlo brings deep expertise to this role. For over 15 years, he’s also taught undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental design, architecture, and real estate development at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and USC.

The Abbey MRED+D has quickly become one of the most respected programs in the country, incorporating finance and design. “I'm excited to take on the leadership of this unique multidisciplinary program and continue to develop MRED+D’s reputation for academic excellence while fostering its connections to the professional community,” he says.

Welcome back to Bauer Wurster Hall, Aleks!

The College of Environmental Design mourns the loss of Sim Van der Ryn (1935-2024), professor emeritus of architecture a...
11/05/2024

The College of Environmental Design mourns the loss of Sim Van der Ryn (1935-2024), professor emeritus of architecture and pioneer of sustainable design. As an influential teacher and writer, and as California State Architect in the 1970s, he was a key figure in reshaping the architectural profession to foreground energy efficiency and other green building techniques.

"A building should tell a story / About people and place / And be a pathway to understanding / Ourselves within nature," he wrote.

Read our remembrance 🌿 https://ced.berkeley.edu/news/sim-van-der-ryn-pioneer-of-ecological-design-passes-away-at-89

Izzy Cosentino is in her second year of Berkeley’s Master of Architecture program. She is an editor for the graduate arc...
10/29/2024

Izzy Cosentino is in her second year of Berkeley’s Master of Architecture program. She is an editor for the graduate architecture journal Room 1000; a project director for UC Berkeley’s Graduate Assembly, where she organizes events to support and engage academic and professional graduate student women of color; a graduate student researcher; and an intern at HOOD Design Studio.

Izzy has showcased research in engaged interviewing and equitable inclusion in the lived and built environments at state and national research conferences. Izzy joins these aspects of research, design, and connectivity to reinforce her interests in community engagement, preservation of culture and history within architecture, and interdisciplinary approaches to design.

We're in the spirit! 🎃 How are you planning to carve your pumpkin this Halloween?
10/28/2024

We're in the spirit! 🎃 How are you planning to carve your pumpkin this Halloween?

We're in the Halloween spirit! How do you plan to carve your pumpkin this year? 🎃
10/28/2024

We're in the Halloween spirit! How do you plan to carve your pumpkin this year? 🎃

Charles L. Davis II presents the mission and activities of The Black Space Project, an interdisciplinary research unit s...
10/23/2024

Charles L. Davis II presents the mission and activities of The Black Space Project, an interdisciplinary research unit starting at the UT Austin. This lecture discusses activities including research collaboration with the National Trust, an exhibit on communal uses of the Black home, and a digital archive on non-licensed Black contributions to the built environment. All activities are meant to challenge the artist-architect definition of authorship within the discipline by pluralizing the historiography of Black architectural modernity in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Wednesday October 30 | 6:30 pm
112 Bauer Wurster Hall
Free + open to the public

Sponsored by the Department of Architecture

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Justice by Design is a college-wide lecture series that brings together speakers from across disciplines to address the intersection of social justice and the built environment.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Charles Davis II is associate professor of architectural history and director of the architecture PhD program at UT Austin School of Architecture. He is the co-editor of Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present (University of Pittsburgh, 2020) and author of Building Character: The Racial Politics of Modern Architectural Style (University of Pittsburgh, 2019). His current book project, Putting Black in Place: A Spatial History of Black Architectural Modernity, recovers the overlooked contributions of Black actors in shaping the built environment from the Harlem Renaissance to Black Lives Matter. It examines the specific role of minority spatial practices in establishing a unique form of Black architectural modernity in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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More info 🔗
https://ced.berkeley.edu/events/lecture-black-space-project-charles-davis



Changing it up! ARCH 100A students were excited about peer reviews last week. Studies show that architecture peer review...
10/22/2024

Changing it up! ARCH 100A students were excited about peer reviews last week. Studies show that architecture peer reviews develop analytical and evaluation skills, foster independent thinking, heighten engagement, increase the quantity and range of feedback, and encourage deeper learning📐✏️🔗✂️📦

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230 Bauer Wurster Hall, #1820
Berkeley, CA
94720

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Monday 8am - 10pm
Tuesday 8am - 10pm
Wednesday 8am - 10pm
Thursday 8am - 10pm
Friday 8am - 10pm
Saturday 9am - 10pm
Sunday 9am - 10pm

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The College of Environmental Design (CED) is UC Berkeley's home for environmental design theory, research, innovation and practice. The College comprises three core departments — Architecture, Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, City & Regional Planning — and a recently-launched Real Estate Development + Design program. CED is consistently ranked as one of the most prestigious design schools in the U.S. and the world. To read more about the history of CED and the opening of Wurster Hall, read our Frameworks article. Visit CED's new cafe, Rice & Bones, from the celebrated chef of The Slanted Door. To view the menu and hours, visit the cafe’s webpage.