In response to the unprecedented announcement of the Berkeley campus's closure for the summer of 2020, the faculty leading CED's special summer programs have devoted considerable resources to crafting innovative and expansive remote curricula for our global commnunity of summer learners.
The result of their efforts is a robust slate of course offerings in sustainable urban planning, landscape architecture, architecture and urban design that collectively uphold CED's goal of preparing students to shape the future of environmental design, wherever they are.
CED Summer students who fulfill course requirements will receive a Certificate of Completion as well as college-level credit on an official UC Berkeley transcript. Remote courses utilize cutting edge virtual platforms to establish one-on-one connections with faculty and mentors, build a network among peers, teach crucial software skills, facilitate lectures and discussions, and tap into a global roster of practitioners and experts as guest speakers.
Participants in this summer's offerings can expect to experience a new twist on the fundamentals of design. For instance, "my studio pedagogy will take a traditional avant-garde format," says Summer Institute faculty Keith Plymale who has led the [IN]ARCH ADV cohort for more than ten years. "We will meet and work and build in a gallery with live reviews and one-on-one desk crits, viewing each other's work as a group and offering feedback in real time." The primary differences between this and other summers? "We'll be together in a virtual space instead of a physical one. And during our site visits, we'll be aerial," using drone flights to teach students about significant elements of architectural landmarks in the Bay Area and further afield.
Kim Suczynski-Smith, director of the embARC High School Design Academy, explains that rising to the challenge of making design and planning education accessible during times of crisis mirrors the program's and the college's mission as a whole: "The embARC program has always been strongly rooted in the creation of environmentally and social equitable places, and I am excited for a summer of innovation and growth as the instructors and students come together to generate new ideas and methods for collaborating remotely."
CED Summer special programs:
ENV DES 2 Summer [IN]STITUTE in Environmental Design: Four immersive introductory tracks, for participants considering graduate school in the environmental design disciplines.
- Section 001: [IN]ARCH: fundamentals of architecture for non-designers
- Section 002: [IN]ARCH ADV: intermediate practice for architecture students
- Section 003: [IN]LAND: fundamentals of landscape architecture for non-designers
- Section 004: [IN]CITY: fundamentals of urban planning for non-planners
ENV DES 8 Disc* (Design & Innovation for Sustainable Cities): An interdisciplinary approach to global urbanism's wicked problems, for currently enrolled undergraduates
ENV DES 9 embARC Summer Design Academy: Architecture, digital design, and sustainable city planning, for high school students
Applications accepted at cedberkeley.slideroom.com.
Other CED courses offered during the 2020 Summer Session:
Arch 11A
Arch 11B
Arch 108
Arch 109 and Arch 129 (combined)
Arch 124A
Environmental Design 1
Landscape Architecture 1
Visual Studies 185X