Technology and Material Innovations

The Softwood Lumber Board and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture have named a new studio for Berkeley’s Master of Advanced Architecture Design program as a winner of its 2024 Timber Education Prize.

Architectural Record honored Associate Professor Neyran Turan’s office, NEMESTUDIO, with a Design Vanguard 2024 award. Turan, who joined the Department of Architecture faculty in 2016, is currently serving as chair of its MArch program.

Maria Paz Gutierrez, associate professor of architecture, receives National Science Foundation grant for household greywater reuse project. Gutierrez is working with professor of architecture, Luisa Caldas, and UC Merced.

In an interview published in Arch Daily, Professor Ronald Rael shares his views on the potential of AI, material culture, the role of the architect in society, architectural education, sustainability, and more.

Architectural Record features the Kauhikoa Core House by Spiegel Aihara Workshop, the first built prototype of a low-cost, compact, easily shippable, prefabricated house that can be deployed for rapid rebuilding after disasters like the 2023 Maui fires.

Gutierrez is first CED faculty member to be awarded the prize, which is designed help campus innovators translate their discoveries into real-world solutions.

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

The founding principal of Peripheral Projects, Tidwell joins the department at a pivotal moment, when explorations into new materials and methods, and the capabilities of wood in particular, are deepening.

Geospatial scientist Lu Liang uses GIS and UAV to explore how environmental conditions, such as air pollution, impact the daily lives of individuals.

The Berkeley facility is now one of the most advanced test chambers of its type and new studies are already underway.

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.

The prize–winning architect and founding principal of Office e.g. is focused on developing new environmentalisms in architecture.

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.

Architecture faculty members Mark Anderson (Anderson Anderson Architecture) and Yasmin Vobis and Aaron Forrest (Ultramoderne) weigh in on how mass timber has the potential to radically change the role of the architect.

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.”

The grant awards include monetary and in-kind support for projects that engage emerging technologies. Rael and co-recipient, Virginia San Fratello, plan to use the grant to reexamine Indigenous mud-based building materials through 21st-century robotics.

Yifeng Wang (MArch ’21) and his team won the “Best in Tools” prize at the MIT Reality Hack. The team developed “TalkAI,” which assists speakers to understand and predict the effectiveness of their speech through AI-driven techniques and AR-enabled tools.

Thirteen students from Ronald Rael’s architectural design studio transformed a site in Vipingo, Kenya, into a living laboratory for innovation as part of their research into the design of 3D-printed houses.

Remote sensing technology is increasingly penetrating our lives — from satellite images underlying everyday routes on Google Maps and smartphones to the ever more familiar buzzing of camera-equipped “toy drones” flying above neighborhoods.