UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design

UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design How and Where We Live Matter
#1 Public University for Architecture + the Built Environment and the world.

The College of Environmental Design (CED) is UC Berkeley's home for environmental design theory, research, innovation and practice. The College comprises three core departments — Architecture, Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, City & Regional Planning — and a recently-launched Real Estate Development + Design program. CED is consistently ranked as one of the most prestigious design

schools in the U.S. To read more about the history of CED and the opening of Wurster Hall, read our Frameworks article: https://frameworks.ced.berkeley.edu/2010/ced-in-wurster-hall/

Visit CED's new cafe, Rice & Bones, from the celebrated chef of The Slanted Door. To view the menu and hours, visit https://www.riceandbones.com/

09/02/2026

A new issue of A—D is out with a contribution by Assistant Professor of Architecture Emmett Zeifman, “Camping in the Ruins of Modernism.”

Drawn from his practice and teaching in sustainable architecture, Emmett Zeifman traces an avant‑garde history of “camping in the ruins of modernism,” from Mies’s ambiguous shells to contemporary interior tents and thermal refuges. Reading these lightweight inhabitation devices as critiques of sealed comfort, he shows how improvised thermal living unsettles modern enclosure and reopens everyday experiments with climate.

About the issue:

A—D 96.3 The New Heliomorphism: A New Theory of Solar Architecture, guest-edited by Salmaan Craig, Charles Waldheim, and Min Yeo, asks not whether architects should design with the sun, but how we might do so, and to what ecological and political ends.

Moving beyond passive-solar nostalgia and technological quick fixes, contributors explore shade, buoyancy, radiant exchange, and biogenic materials as tools for reclaiming thermodynamic work. Across urban, interior, and material practices, heliomorphism becomes a framework for repairing climatic relations and imagining more equitable, resilient, and sustainable futures.

ARCHITECTURALDESIGN-AD

New year, new beginnings 📌. It's been great welcoming everyone to CED, and we wish you a successful year ahead!
08/26/2026

New year, new beginnings 📌. It's been great welcoming everyone to CED, and we wish you a successful year ahead!

We’re delighted to announce that Emmett Zeifman is joining the Department of Architecture this fall as assistant profess...
08/25/2026

We’re delighted to announce that Emmett Zeifman is joining the Department of Architecture this fall as assistant professor. Principal of NOUNS, Zeifman has a record of editorial and curatorial work that brings archival research into contemporary discourse on the future of design.

“The faculty and I share the opinion that Emmett’s unique combination of architectural practice, design criticism, and editorial experience will be extremely valuable to the school and lead us into new territories vital in contemporary practice,” said Lisa Iwamoto, chair of the Department of Architecture.

Zeifman recently guest-edited Log 64: Toward a Newer Brutalism, or the Undecorated Shed and curated the Harvard Graduate School of Design exhibition Towards a Newer Brutalism: Solar Pavilions, Appliance Houses and Other Topologies of Contemporary Life, which looked at connections between contemporary practice and the New Brutalist ideas of the postwar period.

He has held teaching positions at Harvard GSD, Columbia GSAPP, and Sci-Arc, among others, and his design work and criticism have been widely exhibited and published. He holds a MPhil from the University of Cambridge, MArch from the Yale University School of Architecture, and BA in English literature from McGill University in Montreal.

Read more: https://ced.berkeley.edu/news/emmett-zeifman-joins-department-of-architecture

Please join us in welcoming Emmett Zeifman to the College of Environmental Design!

Images:

1 – Emmett Zeifman, UC Berkeley, 2026.
2 – Emmett Zeifman, Homage to the Smithsons, Lisbon, 2021.
3 – Towards a Newer Brutalism: Solar Pavilions, Appliance Houses and Other Topologies of Contemporary Life, Harvard GSD, 2024, installation view. Photo: Justin Knight.
4 – Silverlake ADU, with Alfie Koetter, 2018.
5 – Log 64: Toward a Newer Brutalism, or the Undecorated Shed.

UC Berkeley Architecture nounstudio

We’re thrilled to announce the appointment of Sean Canty to the faculty as assistant professor of architecture. Canty is...
08/25/2026

We’re thrilled to announce the appointment of Sean Canty to the faculty as assistant professor of architecture. Canty is an architect and educator whose work explores the capacity of architectural form to reorganize spatial norms and forms of social life.

“His work is impactful not just for the rigor it brings in synthesizing context, material, geometry, and space, but also in the manner in which he has been able to expand this work in increasingly public environments,” said Department of Architecture Chair Lisa Iwamoto.

Canty is the founder of Studio Sean Canty (SSC), an architecture practice that introduces novel geometries and materials to enrich the spaces of everyday life, and a co-founder of design collective Office III. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, The Cooper Union, and A83 Gallery. He is the recipient of the 2023 Arts and Letters Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2023 Architectural League Prize, and the 2020 Richard Rogers Fellowship from Harvard. Canty is the author of the forthcoming book Black Abstraction in Architecture and his writings have appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Log, Domus, and MAS Context, among other publications. He earned his BArch from CCA and MArch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he also served on the faculty.

Please join us in welcoming Sean Canty to the College of Environmental Design.

Read more: https://ced.berkeley.edu/news/sean-canty-appointed-assistant-professor-of-architecture

Images:

1 – Sean Canty, UC Berkeley, 2026
2 – Studio Sean Canty, Made to Dwell, House Transformed, Princeton University School of Architecture, 2025.
3 – 322A Table, 2024
4 – Studio Sean Canty, House, Block, Commons, Philadelphia, 2021.
5 – Black Abstraction in Architecture (Park Books forthcoming 2026)

UC Berkeley Architecture Sean Canty S SC

We’re incredibly proud of the eight CED alums who were named to the Wallpaper* US400 () this year. We’re not surprised t...
07/15/2026

We’re incredibly proud of the eight CED alums who were named to the Wallpaper* US400 () this year. We’re not surprised that architects and landscape architects shaped by UC Berkeley are among the leading creatives in the nation, defining the discourse and advancing design culture. Congratulations!

Benjamin Gilmartin, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York
BA Architecture 1992, CED Advisory Council

Michael Chen, MKCA, New York
BA Architecture 1996

David Godshall, Terremoto, Los Angeles
MLA 2010

Walter Hood, Hood Design Studio, Oakland
MLA + MArch 1989, Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning

James Leng, Figure, San Francisco
BA Architecture 2007, Lecturer in Architecture

Jennifer Ly, Figure, San Francisco
BA Architecture 2007

Christopher Leong, Leong Leong, New York
BA Architecture 2000

Elizabeth Roberts, ERA, New York
BA Architecture 1995

Read more at wallpaper.com.

This week, we welcome Professor of City & Regional Planning Daniel G. Chatman as interim dean of the College of Environm...
06/30/2026

This week, we welcome Professor of City & Regional Planning Daniel G. Chatman as interim dean of the College of Environmental Design.

A respected scholar of local and regional land use and transportation policies, Chatman centers issues of social welfare and equity in his work. He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 2009 and has served as chair of the Department of City & Regional Planning since 2021.

Chatman will lead CED for one year, between the retirement of outgoing William W. Wurster Dean Renee Y. Chow and incoming dean Nicholas de Monchaux, who begins his term in July 2027.

As he moves into the Dean’s Office, Chatman’s priorities include highlighting the research and creative work of faculty, fundraising in support of improving the student experience and enabling faculty research, and continuing to improve the operations of the college.

“In this transition year, I look forward to continuing ongoing efforts started by Dean Chow during her term,” says Chatman. “We have amazing faculty, staff, and students in CED. I hope to build on that strong foundation, and to foster a cohesive and collaborative college community.”

Read more on our website and at link in bio.

It was great to see the enthusiastic turnout for the first mass timber conference ever held in California, hosted this w...
06/22/2026

It was great to see the enthusiastic turnout for the first mass timber conference ever held in California, hosted this week by the UC Berkeley Wood Lab (.woodlab) a joint enterprise of UC Berkeley, Rausser College of Natural Resources (), and the College of Environmental Design.

The day kicked off with inspiring remarks from Rausser College Dean David Ackerly and California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (). Foresters, architects, manufacturers, state fire officials, affordable housing advocates, developers, investors, and UC Berkeley students came together for an enlightening day of presentations, demonstrations, and discussions focused on taking mass timber — a sustainable, fire-resistant engineered wood product — to the next level in the state. Bringing these different stakeholders together showed how locally sourced, manufactured, designed, and engineered mass timber can be part of the solution to many issues we face, including forest health, wildfire prevention, housing affordability, climate change, and rural economic revitalization. The audience included architects, foresters, manufacturers, affordable housing advocates, researchers, builders, developers, and UC Berkeley students.

Organizing Committee: Patrick Kallerman (Bay Area Council), Masume (Parisa) Dana (Forell Elsesser), Katie Harrell (Board of Forestry and Fire Protection), Philip Tidwell (UC Berkeley), and Paul Mayencourt (UC Berkeley).

Conference Sponsors: , FORELL ELSESSER, .international, , ,

Meet Emma Lasky, a PhD candidate in landscape architecture & environmental planning at UC Berkeley, whose research sheds...
05/28/2026

Meet Emma Lasky, a PhD candidate in landscape architecture & environmental planning at UC Berkeley, whose research sheds light on a climate change–induced threat: rising groundwater pushing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into our homes. We chatted with Lasky following the publication of a recent paper co-authored with Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Urban Design Kristina Hill ().

Using Richmond Field Station () as their research site, they investigated the hypothesis that potentially hazardous contaminants could enter sewer systems because of rising groundwater. “We used seasonality as a proxy for sea level rise because the shallow, unconfined coastal groundwater table can be influenced by physical processes like heavy precipitation or tidal effects, storm surges, and sea level rise,” Lasky says.

This research is just one step in this multiyear endeavor that she’s been working on with Hill. “My hope is to bring this idea and information to a global community — connecting and building this research on an international level,” says Lasky.

Read more on our website:

https://ced.berkeley.edu/news/uc-berkeley-phd-candidate-emma-lasky-climate-change-public-health-environmental-policy

Congratulations to the Class of 2026! 🎓 As you head out to shape the world, we leave you with this reminder from our key...
05/26/2026

Congratulations to the Class of 2026! 🎓 As you head out to shape the world, we leave you with this reminder from our keynote speakers Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu: “Know what home means to you, and let that be the ground you build from.” Hats off, graduates! 💙💛

Looking back at last week’s spring final reviews. Congrats to all our students on completing another semester! Images:1:...
05/14/2026

Looking back at last week’s spring final reviews. Congrats to all our students on completing another semester!

Images:

1: CP 208 – Collaborative Plan Preparation Studio, Instructor: Jane Lin

2, 3: LA 200B – Case Studies in Landscape Design, Instructor: Du Solier
LA 202 – Designs of Landscape Sites, Instructors: Rivera .z.rivera, Domlesky
LA 204 – Advanced Project Design, Instructor: Meyer

4, 5: ARCH 204B – Thesis Studio, Instructors: Anderson , Davids, Gutierrez, Jaehning
ARCH 100D – Architectural Design IV, Instructors: Miley, Riley

6: RDEV 270 – Development + Design Studio, Instructors: Smidek, Kennerly
ENV DES 253 – Thesis Studio, Instructors: Mozingo, Gaffney

7, 8: ARCH 100D – Architectural Design IV, Instructors: Atwood , Hu and Huang

9: ARCH 204B – Thesis Studio, Instructors: Anderson, Davids, Gutierrez, Jaehning

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230 Bauer Wurster Hall, #1820
Berkeley, CA
94720

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Tuesday 8am - 10pm
Wednesday 8am - 10pm
Thursday 8am - 10pm
Friday 8am - 10pm
Saturday 9am - 10pm
Sunday 9am - 10pm

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