Equity and Social Justice
Research + Design

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.

Alan Ricks, founding Principal and Chief Design Officer of the award-winning MASS Design Group will be the Spring 2023 Lifchez Visiting Professor of Practice in Social Justice. 

The exhibition Small Infrastructures examines how architectural practice can contribute to recent housing legislation and larger problems of urban housing in the U.S.

On September 30th, fifteen Abbey MRED+D students (almost half of the thirty-six student cohort) competed in Ivory Innovations’ Hack-A-House competition, with one team winning first place in their category.

In Cities for Life, public health expert Jason Corburn shares lessons from three of these cities: Richmond, California; Medellín, Colombia; and Nairobi, Kenya.

This report explores the market dynamics pushing up rents across California and offers recommendations for policies that might strengthen accountability.

CED is proud to announce that the inaugural NASA Equity and Environmental Justice Grant has been awarded to Professor of Landscape Architecture Iryna Dronova, DCRP Professor Emerita Karen Chapple, and DCRP Assistant Professor Zoé Hamstead for their proposal, “Where the Grass Grows Greener: The Impacts of Urban Greening on Housing Prices and Neighborhood Stability.”

“We cannot address climate change without climate justice,” says Danielle Zoe Rivera, an assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental planning at Berkeley and a member of the new Climate Equity and Environmental Justice faculty cluster.

Seeking solutions for society’s most urgent social and environmental justice issues, the fellows make up a cohort who will not only dedicate themselves to supporting vulnerable communities but also foster a greater sense of belonging for all CED students.

Five new faculty members at UC Berkeley this fall hail from disparate U.S. states, academic disciplines and personal backgrounds. But they’re already forming a team partnered around one critical global issue — climate equity and environmental justice —

CED announces a transformative $5.3 million gift from Berkeley alumnus Jon Stryker that will fund a four-year fellowship program aimed at providing debt relief to more than 100 graduate students.