Climate Solutions

Undergraduates in UC Berkeley’s sustainable environmental design (SED) program are tackling real-world climate, housing, and equity challenges in direct partnership with the California Governor’s Office.

Professor of CIty & Regional Planning Daniel Chatman joins the Road Scholars podcast to talk about the findings in his paper “Does Transit-Oriented Gentrification Increase Driving?”, co-authored with Ruoying Xu, Janice Park, and Anne Spevack and published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research. Road Scholars is a transportation-focused interlude from the creators of the UCLA Housing Voice podcast.

Emma Lasky, UC Berkeley PhD candidate in landscape architecture and environmental planning, discusses her multidisciplinary research on how climate change-induced groundwater rise presents urgent challenges for public health and environmental policy.

Master of Landscape Architecture students presented fire-safe designs to residents of the Berkeley Hills, highlighting key strategies for adapting to new regulations without sacrificing aesthetic appeal.

A new paper from PhD candidate in Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning Minho Kim, with Professor of City & Regional Planning Marta Gonzalez and Marc Castellnou of the Catalan Fire Service, details a novel computational approach that helps anticipate fire movement before it happens, with the aim of preventing catastrophic wildfires. The paper, “Modeling Potential Fire Spread Polygons and Networks for Suppression Strategies,” was published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

The Routledge Handbook of Urban Design Practice, with contributions by five CED authors, aims to provide innovative, “actionable steps to empower practitioners, students, and academics in creating vibrant and sustainable cities.”

In the wake of the king tides that swamped San Rafael and Corte Madera in January, KQED interviewed Associate Professor Kristina Hill, an expert in sea level rise and climate adaptation. “We should be ready to live in a bathtub,” Hill said. “Then I think we’re in business and will have a way to live for a 100 years and preserve the city’s tax base.”

The Architect’s Newspaper says that the Chengdu Pavilion, a building in China’s Sichuan Province designed by Chair of Architecture Lisa Iwamoto’s firm IwamotoScott, “represents a trajectory toward environmentally adaptive architecture in anticipation of the context taking shape around it.”

Drawing on research developed by Paul Mayencourt’s team at the UC Berkeley Wood Lab, Mad River Mass Timber has emerged as California’s first producer of dowel-laminated mass timber, which has the potential to improve forest health, mitigate wildfire risk, and accelerate the production of affordable housing — while also contributing toward the long-term goal of decarbonizing the environment.

A study by Professor of Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering Stefano Schiavon found that temperatures inside a Miami-area prison routinely reach dangerous levels for extended periods. His report is central to a lawsuit claiming that excessive heat in the prison complex violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Schiavon’s report for the FJI lawsuit is part of a larger effort to protect marginalized populations as weather across the globe becomes more extreme.

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.

Paul Mayencourt talks to Climate Break host Ethan Elkind about solar kilns as a low-energy alternative for drying lumber for construction.

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. 

Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Urban Design Kristina Hill, a leading expert on adapting cities to rising sea levels and groundwater due to climate change, was awarded the 2025 Landscape Architecture Foundation Medal. One of the foundation’s highest honors, this annual award recognizes a landscape architect for distinguished work over a career in applying the principles of sustainability to landscapes.

Kristina Hill, Institute of Urban & Regional Design Research Director and associate professor, alongside five Bay Area environmental justice organizations launches the Bay Area Community Air Quality Map, a new tool designed to provide real-time estimates of air quality across the Bay Area for students and their families.

In this 101 in 101 video, Professor of Architecture Ronald Rael gives a primer on earthen architecture and explains why our future homes could be made using the soil beneath our feet. Soil is a material so compelling that it has long been a central pillar of Rael’s work and teaching.

A new report from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation finds that some metro areas have outperformed national trends in building housing in walkable neighborhoods. Understanding what these cities have done may help others make similar progress.

For the first time, Berkeley teams came out on top in the 2025 Innovation in Affordable Housing Student Design and Planning Competition. The theme for this year’s competition, which received entries from schools across the country, was “designing for disasters.”

Designer, educator, researcher, and alum David Brown (MArch 1990) led this year’s competition, with the theme Lot, Garden, and Void. Student teams of five to six students had 58 hours to create their designs before presenting to a panel of jurors. Brown, professor of architecture and director of the College of Architecture at the University of Illinois – Chicago, is best known for The Available City, his ongoing initiative to document, explore, and reimagine vacant lots in Chicago as landscapes of collective action.

The California Institute for Energy and Environment announced Aoyu Zou, a PhD student in architecture (BSTS), as the recipient of the 2025 Art Rosenfeld Award for Energy Efficiency. Working in the Center for the Built Environment under Professors Stefano Schiavon and Gail Brager, Zou is developing scalable, grid-interactive solutions to improve energy efficiency in the built environment.