Core Faculty & Executive Committee

Stefan Pellegrini is an architect, urbanist, and planner who directs the thesis studio for the MUD program. He studied architecture at the University of Notre Dame and urban design at UC Berkeley. Since 2001, Stefan has been a principal at Opticos Design.

Stefan has contributed to a wide variety of urban design, planning, and architecture projects, including the design of new towns, master planning and revitalization endeavors for central cities, and the design of mixed-use and civic structures. Much of his recent work has focused on community-based planning, coding, and revitalization strategies for small towns and underserved communities, as well as the development of contemporary urban design guidelines and Form-Based Codes.

Stefan’s professional and academic work has won numerous awards, including an Urban Design Travelling Fellowship from the Skidmore Owings & Merrill Foundation (2002), the Chicago Institute of Architecture and Urbanism Award (with Professor Peter Bosselmann, 2002), and the Driehaus Form-Based Coding Award (2008 and 2011).

Scott Elder is an urban designer and researcher. He holds a B.Arch from University of Oregon, a MS in urban design from Columbia University, and a PhD in Landscape Architecture from University of California, Berkeley. Scott teaches urban design and landscape architecture at UC Berkeley.

After starting a career in corporate urban design and real estate consulting, Scott returned to academia compelled by his interest in landscape-driven concepts and the territorial scale. His dissertation examined continental-scale heritage trails. He now works for the U.S. National Park Service in heritage trail planning, creating tails that extend from urban to wilderness and everywhere in between.

Zachary Lamb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. He holds a M.Arch and Ph.D. from MIT.

Zachary’s research focuses on the role of urban planning and design in shaping uneven vulnerability and resilience in the face of climate change. His dissertation focused on the role of design in shaping urban flood infrastructure and the changing spatial politics of urban flooding in New Orleans, Louisiana and Dhaka, Bangladesh. His current book project, Making and Unmaking the Dry City, focuses on the historical evolution and contemporary problems of flood mitigation in these two cities.

Professor Lamb is also the co-founder of Crookedworks, a design-build firm that uses collaborative design and building projects to tackle complex urban challenges, including food security, cross-species living, and climate-change hazards.

Originally from Israel, Julia Grinkrug holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard GSD. She is an architecture designer and urbanist, focusing on social and cultural awareness in architectural education through community building practices, interdisciplinary connections and civic engagement.

Julia’s experience in social interest design and youth empowerment include working with Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, on projects such as Five Keys Mobile, Pop Up Resource Village and mentoring at SF NOMA summer camp Project Pipeline. Her recent research is centered on the contested nature of the shoreline through the lens of transient live-aboard communities, which was developed as part of Creative Cities Working Group and included in Bracket [On Sharing],2019.

Julia has also worked in local architecture firms such as Fletcher Studio and Anne Phillips Architecture, and previously was a design-lead at Schwartz Besnosoff Architects in Israel.

Margaret Crawford holds degrees in Architectural History, Housing and, Urban Planning. Her involvement with Urban Design began in the late 1990s, when she co-taught Urban Design studios at SCI-Arc. That led to the co-edited book, Everyday Urbanism with John Kaliski and John Chase. The book made a significant impact, leading Doug Kelbaugh to call it “one of the 3 leading paradigms today in urban design.”

Before coming to Berkeley, Margaret chaired the History, Theory, and Humanities program at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles and, from 2000-2009, was Professor of Urban Design and Planning Theory at the Harvard GSD, teaching history and design workshops and studios. Her scholarly work includes Building the Workingman’s Paradise: The History of American Company Towns, The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment and Daily Urban Life, along with numerous articles and book chapters on immigrant spatial practices, shopping malls, public space, and other issues in the American built environment.

Since 2003, Margaret has been investigating the effects of rapid physical and social changes on villages in China’s Pearl River Delta. She recently co-edited Critical Texts in Chinese Urbanization, a four-volume collection of English-language studies of Chinese urban development.