MUD launches urbanism symposium with Peter Calthorpe
This fall, UC Berkeley’s Master of Urban Design program is presenting The Challenge of Whole Earth Urbanism, a three-part symposium that aims to engage the entire College of Environmental Design community in a discussion of urbanism. For each Monday evening presentation, architect and urban designer and planner Peter Calthorpe will be joined by a different expert to explore the history, evolution, and current challenges of what he terms Whole Earth Urbanism; sessions will focus on the housing crisis, forms of urban growth, and metropolitan regions and will be moderated by Professor Christopher Calott, vice chair of the MUD program.
“Whole Earth Urbanism is based on a radical notion: urban forms must respond to unprecedented new environmental challenges as well as profoundly shifting social, economic and political forces,” says Calthorpe. “It started with the notion that cities and metropolitan regions must operate more like homeostatic ecologies with all the qualities biologists find in successful living systems. It ultimately evolved into a fundamental revisioning of the urban environment addressing coevolving challenges of our time: climate crisis, environmental stress, housing deficits, decaying mobility, global economies, and more.”
With UC Berkeley Professor Sim Van der Ryn (1935–2024), Calthorpe wrote Sustainable Communities (1986), which launched a legion of movements to rethink the way we shape cities. Calthorpe is also the author of The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream, which helped create the Congress for New Urbanism and the idea of transit-oriented development, and Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change (2010). His design firm has created regional plans for Los Angeles, Mexico City, Ho Chi Minh City, Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, and post-Katrina Louisiana.
“I am thrilled and honored that Peter is going to share his insights on decades of international leadership in launching several important movements surrounding world stewardship of our cities and our environment,” say Christopher Calott, professor of architecture and member of the MUD executive committee who will serve as moderator for each presentation.
The symposium is co-sponsored by global architecture and engineering firm HDR and by the Urban Design Academic Network (UDAC), a consortium of urban design programs from across the nation.
Symposium Schedule
Mondays from 5:30 to 8 p.m. in 112 Bauer Wurster Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.
Free and open to the public.
Monday | Sep 22
Whole Earth Urbanism and The Housing Crisis
Monday | Oct 13
New/Old Urbanism
Monday | Nov 10
Metropolitan Whole Systems