
Summer [In]stitute in Environmental Design
An intensive program for anyone who considers applying for a graduate degree program in an environmental design discipline: architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning.
July 3–August 11, 2023
Let us know if you want to receive a link to the recording of the most recent virtual Summer [In]stitute info session.
Each program includes a lecture series, a design or planning studio, and media workshops, while the three in-person programs [IN]ARCH, [IN]LAND and [IN]CITY also conduct site visits. By fulfilling the program requirements, students earn a certificate of completion and graded credit on an official UC Berkeley transcript. All in-person classes are held in Bauer Wurster Hall, CED's home on the UC Berkeley campus.
International students are welcome and encouraged to apply. Some international students and working professionals might find it easier to attend the online course [IN]DESIGN, which stretches over eight weeks to lighten the workload per week.
The programs are designed for post-baccalaureate students who are considering graduate study in their chosen environmental design discipline. Successful students will build a quality portfolio that can be used for further academic pursuits on a graduate level. No previous design experience is necessary.




Benefits of Attending
- Identify and explore the methods and theories of the field of environmental design
- Experience the culture of planning and design studios
- Develop a portfolio for graduate school application with the expert guidance of faculty mentors
- Connect with a network of highly engaged peers, faculty, and practitioners
- Earn college-level credit on an official UC Berkeley transcript
Recent Summer [In]stitute alumni have been accepted to graduate programs at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Rice, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, Yale, and UC Berkeley.
4 Cohorts
Students choose 1 of the 4 cohorts
[IN]ARCH teaches the fundamentals of architecture and its representation to students with no or little design experience in environmental design (6 weeks) – MORE
[IN]CITY is an introductory program in sustainable city planning for post-baccalaureate students with no or little previous experience in environmental design (6 weeks) – MORE
[IN]LAND teaches the fundamentals of landscape architecture to students with no or little design experience in environmental design (6 weeks) – MORE
[IN]DESIGN is an online architectural design studio program with a focus on architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism (8 weeks, beginning on June 20, 2023) – MORE
- [IN]DESIGN
[IN]DESIGN is an intensive, eight-week online program for students interested in graduate school and career options in the environmental design disciplines of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. Foundational lessons include history, theory, methodology, and analysis, to establish a knowledge base for the architectural design process.
The [IN]DESIGN studio begins with a two-week analytical city project, which traces the evolution of the San Francisco Bay Area. During the following six weeks, students will make models focusing on spatiality and radical representation culminating in an architectural project, sited in San Francisco.
The design studio will be taught remotely using Zoom for live visual critiques of models and drawings uploaded to a Miro white board. The iterative design process will give students the opportunity to develop a series of project-based artifacts that ultimately lead to the production of a portfolio of architectural projects for graduate school applications.
We recommend that participants reduce work hours substantially as the program is intense and a significant amount of work is required outside of class meetings. Program meetings are primarily in the afternoon and evening PST to accommodate students located along the Pacific rim, in Asian countries, and professionals who are working during the day in the U.S. and Europe. The European cohort will utilize a combination of recorded lectures and evening meetings (European time) for critique to substantiate their design projects.
Student Experience




Typical weekly schedule for an on-campus Summer [In]stitute cohort — [IN]ARCH, [IN]LAND, and [IN]CITY. All classes take place at Bauer Wurster Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.

In addition, students are spending time in the studio designing models and plans, and work on the computer, refining designs based on input from frequent design reviews. Group work and group coordination is required as well.
The schedule for the online program [IN]DESIGN is lighter (about 75% of the 6-week in-person programs), but stretches over 8 weeks. Most of the [IN]DESIGN classes take place in the later part of the day and will be recorded or repeated for other time zones.
Watch a short video about the Summer [In]stitutes:
Faculty

David Orkand is director of Atelier DOA. David returned to California to set up his architectural practice after having spent four years living in Tokyo as a Monbukagakusho Fellow in the Tsukamoto Laboratory at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. During this time David worked with numerous Japanese architects, including Toyo Ito, SANAA, Atelier Bow-Wow, Junya Ishigami, and Go Hasegawa. David spent the two years prior to this living in Madrid, working for Mansilla+Tuñón Arquitectos.
David received his Master of Architecture and Graduate Certificate in Media and Modernity from the Princeton University School of Architecture, where he was awarded a Howard Crosby Butler Fellowship to conduct thesis research in Iceland. David studied at the Architectural Association in London and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Otis College of Art and Design, where he graduated as valedictorian of his class.
David has taught architecture and architectural theory at Princeton University, UC Berkeley, and California College of the Arts.

Betsy Clifton is an architectural designer, lecturer, and co-founder of the design studio Associates And. She has collaborated internationally on exhibitions and housing projects with Sam Chermayeff Office, SITE (James Wines), Norman Kelley, NEMESTUDIO, Studio Ames, among others. Betsy was an assistant curator for the Pavilion of Turkey in the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (2021) and has acted as design lead for exhibitions at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Columbia GSAPP. Betsy has been a visiting lecturer at Syracuse University and Bard College, as well as an invited architectural critic at the Architectural Association, Columbia University GSAPP, University of Pennsylvania, Pratt, University of Texas at Austin, and Vassar College. She received an M.Arch. from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts.

Brooke Hair is an architectural designer with experience working with Gehry Partners, First Office, and Taalman Architecture. She calibrated on the design of Frank Gehry’s Grand Avenue Project in Los Angeles, among others. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art from Brown University and a Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley, where she was the recipient of the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize, the John K. Branner Traveling Fellowship, and the AIA Henry Adams Certificate. In 2016, Wallpaper Magazine named her one of 20 top graduates in architecture from around the world. She has served as a critic at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Michigan, Syracuse University, Woodbury University, and the University of Southern California.

Professor Plymale is a continuing lecturer in architecture at UC Berkeley and founding partner of the San Francisco-based Volume21: Office for Architecture. V21 is a research office that makes speculative projects, constructs houses, and pursues international competitions. The architecture of V21 is propelled by studies in bodily proportion, built-in cabinetry, pre-fabrication, material technology, art, music, and the dwelling patterns of the 21st century. Research interests include the body and architecture, construction and material technology, earthwork art/architecture, Native American architecture, Italian modernism, and the work of architect Leonardo Ricci. For ten years Professor Plymale worked with José Oubrerie, assistant to Le Corbusier at Atelier Rue de Sèvres 35. Professor Plymale received an AIA honor award for his work with Oubrerie on the Miller House, which is published extensively.

Michael Larice is a designer and educator who teaches urban design and urbanism, applied theory, design methods, street and transit design, and progressive housing. Although he is an architect, city planner, and urban designer, he is primarily an urbanist. He takes a comparative, pluralist, and collaborative approach in teaching, research, and practice to help students, professionals, and clients better transform their cities — how they can overcome struggle, how they can sustain themselves, and how they can thrive.
Over his career, Professor Larice has helped educate and place hundreds of forward-thinking planners and urban designers with firms and public agencies across the country. Professor Larice’s professional and academic work focuses largely on the transformative urban design of livable places — and increasingly on how to manifest socially sustainable places. Previous research looked at dense urban neighborhoods, development approvals, slum upgrading, streetcar impacts on quality of life, urban arterial livability, and the history and theory of livability thought. He continues working toward the professionalization of the urban design field, the democratization of planning, and the transformation of urban places.
Professor Larice is a son of California, who holds a Ph.D. in City Planning from UC Berkeley, where his dissertation focused on the form and livability of high-density neighborhoods in North America. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of British Columbia, the University of Utah, and the University of California, Berkeley. Most recently he directed the Graduate Certificate in Urban Design and the PhD Program in Metropolitan Planning, Policy and Design at the University of Utah. After serving in the US Peace Corps in Swaziland (Eswatini) from 1992-1995 in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, where he coordinated the nation’s largest slum upgrading project, he worked as a licensed architect for several years in California.
In 2009, Professor Larice was awarded the G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2012, he was named Professor of the Year at the University of Utah’s College of Architecture + Planning. He and his urban design studios have won a number of competitive design awards and made lasting impacts on local municipalities and the public realm. For several years Professor Larice served as the Urban Design Track Chair for the American Collegiate Schools of Planning annual conference. In September 2019, he and Molly O’Neill Robinson signed a contract to author/edit The Routledge Handbook of Urban Design Practice, forthcoming Fall 2021.
In his free time, he is an avid soccer fan.

Hyunch Sung (she/her) has been practicing as a landscape designer and artist for over 10 years. She has led designs and built public and residential landscapes ranging from the scale of art installation to plaza. She is the founder of Studio Moonya. Moonya believes that landscape is cultural memory, space is sculpture, connection is nourishment, and art is amplification. Ten percent of all design fees are used to build spaces & actions for and with BIPOC communities. Hyunch received a B.A. in Literature and Film Theory from Amherst College, and her M.L.A. from Rhode Island School of Design.
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