Equity and Social Justice

Paul Mayencourt is prototyping sustainable construction materials and methods in the Wood Lab, including a solar kiln.

In new research, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning Danika Cooper explores how drawing and mapping — the graphic tools of her discipline — can provide actionable strategies toward an anticolonial, antiracist future. She demonstrates that these methods of visual communication can both document Indigenous dispossession and make claims for land-based reparations.

An exhibition and lecture reveal innovative research into climate solutions by CED faculty.

The Department of City & Regional Planning is delighted to welcome urban and economic geographer Max Buchholz, whose work on metropolitan growth promises to advance more equitable urban futures though its impact on policy and planning.

In this video, Arcus Social Justice Corps Fellows speak to the community-building power and industry-shifting impact of the program.

The five-year appointment recognizes and supports Acey’s work in environmental justice, both locally in the East Bay and in African cities.

CED alum Desirée Valadares (PhD Architecture 2022) won the Phyllis Lambert Prize for the best doctoral dissertation on the subject of the built environment in Canada for her dissertation focusing on the heritage politics of confinement or internment landscapes.

Rivera’s prize-winning article argues that engaging local histories of racism and prejudice in Texas’s Río Grande Valley is key to redressing post-disaster inequities.

This new grant program supports cross-disciplinary projects led by CED faculty that aim to reduce the impacts of climate change. This year’s funded projects forge innovations in climate resilience through explorations in building technologies and materials, housing security, water access, and community-based climate visualizations. These projects stood out from the field of applications for their impact on underserved communities and their capacity to have actionable environmental outcomes.

On September 25, Terner Labs hosts the inaugural symposium, The Search for Affordable Rental Housing, a deep dive into how technology is helping and hurting individuals who are seeking affordable rental housing.

Professor Emeritus of Architecture and City & Regional Planning Raymond (Ray) Lifchez has passed away at age 90. Lifchez made a deep and lasting impact on the College of Environmental Design (CED), UC Berkeley, and the world through his teaching, advocacy for accessible design, and philanthropy.

CED announces Sierra Bainbridge as the recipient of the 2023–2024 Berkeley Rupp Prize. Bainbridge, an award-winning landscape architect and a co-founder of MASS Design Group, has worked at the forefront of initiatives that explore the role of design in cultural and environmental healing.

Vanessa Giraldo, CED MArch student and Arcus Fellow, among five students selected for a 2023 SmithGroup Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (J.E.D.I.) Scholarship.

The public park and garden surrounding the new International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, is a sacred space that pays homage to the profound history of the African diaspora.

A multiyear collaboration between the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Jackson State University in Mississippi is bringing students together to address flood mitigation and enhanced river access along Jackson’s Pearl River and California’s Sacramento River.

CED’s interdisciplinary Boyce Housing Studio proposes strategies for newly identified housing element sites in Menlo Park and Piedmont.

CED professor Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, of Emerging Objects, receive the 2023 Jeff Harnar Social & Environmental Justice award for their project Casa Covid, which combines 3D printing with Indigenous building methods and materials.

After finding community at CED, the first cohort of Arcus Social Justice Corps graduates makes an impact.

Carolina Reid discusses the structural foundations of homelessness and various approaches to developing affordable and permanent supportive housing in California.

This graduate studio explored multifamily housing in the context of California’s housing crisis.