News

The Department of Architecture is thrilled to welcome alum Thomas Robinson, FAIA, back to UC Berkeley as a spring 2026 Friedman Visiting Professor of Practice. Robinson is founder of LEVER Architecture, a research-based design practice in Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles that is a recognized leader in material innovation and mass timber design. Robinson will teach a graduate-level studio focusing on a mass timber project for a site in Portland, Oregon.

Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, is joining us as the second JW&VL Visiting Professor of Practice in housing and urban design. Scarpa is principal of the award-winning firm Brooks + Scarpa and co-founder of housing nonprofit Livable Places, Inc. and the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute.

The Department of City & Regional Planning is pleased to welcome AJ Kim, associate professor of city planning in the School of Public Affairs at San Diego State University, as the 2026 Robert S. Cornish Chair of Regional Planning. A specialist in housing and community economic development, participatory methods, environmental justice, and health equity, Kim will co-teach a spring-semester graduate environmental justice studio, Toward Equitable Health Outcomes in Low-income Communities of Color, with Margaretta Lin.

The College of Environmental Design was saddened to learn of the death of Professor Emeritus of City & Regional Planning Michael B. “Mike” Teitz (1935–2025), who served on the faculty from 1963 to 1998. In a long and varied career, Teitz served as department chair, rejuvenated the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, chaired the UC Berkeley Academic Senate, and helped form the Public Policy Institute of California as a solidly nonpartisan policy research organization. His contributions to campus and the Department of City & Regional Planning earned him the Berkeley Citation upon his retirement.

Terner Center Managing Director and Professor of City & Regional Planning Ben Metcalf provides a 101 of housing solutions in less than two minutes. Metcalf has dedicated his life to housing research and policy, motivated by a deep understanding of what’s at stake. “If we can’t start from that place of having a stable home, it’s very hard to do just about anything else,” he says.