Aleks Baharlo

Aleks Baharlo is a practitioner and educator whose work spans real estate development, architecture, and higher education. He serves as Executive Director of UC Berkeley’s Abbey Master of Real Estate Development and Design (MRED+D), where he articulates the program’s vision, strategic direction, and academic objectives, and oversees curriculum planning and implementation. He also leads the MRED+D Capstone course. His teaching emphasizes the full real estate development lifecycle, including feasibility analysis, entitlements, finance, design integration, and construction, with a strong focus on the civic, spatial, and societal implications of development practice.

Aleks previously authored and taught Shaping Cities Through Real Estate at the USC Price School of Public Policy and delivered a recurring entitlements module in The Approval Process. At UCLA Extension, he authored and taught Real Estate Development Management. Earlier, at UC Berkeley’s Department of Architecture, he served as a Lecturer in graduate and undergraduate design studios and environmental design courses, including Environmental Design 4 and 11B, undergraduate studios Arch 100A, 100B, and Arch 101, and the graduate studio Arch 200. His academic work emphasized context, structure as a spatial organizer, and the mediation of private and shared space, principles that continue to inform his teaching and professional practice.

In professional practice, Aleks is President and Managing Partner of a real estate development platform focused on infill housing and master planned communities throughout California, and Principal Architect of Aleks Baharlo Architecture. His work spans small lot and missing middle infill housing prototypes as well as large scale communities, including Springville Township in Camarillo. He also manages a diversified portfolio of industrial and multifamily assets. Earlier in his career, he served as Executive Vice President at the Larwin Company, one of the most significant and longstanding residential development firms in the Los Angeles region.

Aleks has held numerous leadership roles within professional and civic organizations that shape housing and urban policy discourse. He has served on the Governing Board and Political Action Committee of the Building Industry Association of Southern California and as President of both the Los Angeles Ventura and Antelope Valley Chapters, where he led advocacy efforts focused on entitlement reform, sustainable growth, and CEQA modernization. His ongoing engagement with the Urban Land Institute, including membership in the Residential Local Product Council in San Francisco, reflects a continued commitment to advancing innovative infill housing models and equitable development strategies.

His contributions to the built environment and community development have been recognized by numerous public agencies, including commendations from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the City of Los Angeles, and the United States Congress for leadership in housing policy, urban planning, and civic engagement. The California State Assembly and the Building Industry Association have likewise recognized his efforts to promote responsible development and constructive community collaboration.

A frequent panelist and moderator for organizations such as the Pacific Coast Builders Conference and the Urban Land Institute, Aleks regularly contributes to public dialogue on entitlements, housing policy, and real estate development. He holds a Master of Real Estate Development from the University of Southern California, a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is a California licensed architect and general contractor.

MRED+D Program
RDEV 280 – Directed Capstone
RDEV 290 – Real Estate + Design Intensive: Los Angeles

UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
ARCH 200A – Introduction to Architecture Studio
ARCH 101 – Advanced Architectural Design
ARCH 100B – Fundamentals of Architectural Design
ARCH 100A – Fundamentals of Architectural Design
ED 11B – Introduction to Design
ED 4 – Introduction to Environmental Design