The Diverse Faces of CED

One of the core missions of the College of Environmental Design is to provide access to an extraordinarily fine university education and college experience, regardless of the financial circumstances of the students we recruit, teach and mentor. Part of this mission is to encourage students from diverse backgrounds to come to CED. At the undergraduate level, for example, we have particularly sought to increase access for students of color, as well as those who come from low income households, are immigrants, or are the first in their families to go to college.

These efforts have been led by Susan Hagstrom, Director of Undergraduate Programs, and Renee Chow, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs. Several strategies have been important. They include aggressive recruiting via the CED website, social networking, and visits to high schools and community colleges. Adviser Omar Ramirez serves as Undergraduate Diversity Officer, working with campus on larger student recruitment strategies. And, since peer-to-peer relationships are always persuasive, Susan and her advising team created the CED Admissions Ambassadors Internship Program, that mobilized current CED undergraduates to speak to high school and community college groups, talk to prospective students, and chat with them on the web.

The results have been striking: CED is now home to UC Berkeley’s highest percentage of students coming from households of modest means, indicated by their eligibility for Pell Grants, as well as the highest percentage of historically underrepresented minority students and many immigrant and first generation college students. In 2012-13, 48% of CED undergraduates received Pell Grants, 16% above the campus average. Our unique student body creates a rich and vibrant community within the College of Environmental Design. Also enlivening our community are growing numbers of out-of-state and international students.

UC Berkeley’s Blue and Gold Opportunity Program insures that students coming from families with modest household incomes ($80,000 or less), do not pay tuition or fees. But the financial constraints of many CED students present distinct challenges for them: according to UC Berkeley’s Financial Aid Office, in 2014, the average family income of CED Pell Grant recipients was under $25,000. And, because CED offers design-based majors, our students face additional costs. They need an up-to-date computer that can run design and animation software, and are also required to purchase modeling, building and art supplies and to print and plot (in 2 and 3 dimensions) to complete their projects and their degree programs. Architecture majors, for example, spend on average more than $3600 per year (excluding books or computer). This amount constitutes 15% of the average family income of CED students who receive Pell Grants.

New CED Digital Fabrication Lab Enlarge [+]

Thus almost half of our 570 undergraduate students struggle to cover both their living expenses, and the added costs of a CED education. This situation directly impacts their performance in school. As one student wrote to us, “Coupled with costs for model-making materials, each project becomes an extremely expensive endeavor. It not only takes hard work and dedication to thrive in the major, but also the ability to afford printing and material costs.” Sometimes students are forced to make untenable choices; as another student explained: “Due to limited amounts of personal funds, I have had to choose between paying for materials or lab fees, or paying for living expenses. In the past, I have chosen to pay for groceries and rent instead.”

As dean, I am committed to doing my utmost to deploy existing resources, and generate new resources, to insure that no student is compelled to go hungry in order to succeed at CED. So, we have created an Access Fee Waiver Program for Pell Grant recipients. This program offsets a portion of facility access, use and printing fees. While this existing financial waiver program is helpful, we know it is not enough. In an effort led by Assistant Dean for Infrastructure and Information Technology Patty Mead, and our Fabrication Shop Manager Semar Prom, with an Innovation Award from the UC Berkeley Office of Equity & Inclusion, we are also opening a Materials Store. At the Materials Store, students will be able to conveniently purchase a range of course-related materials and supplies, at reasonable prices; some of the proceeds will go to enlarging our Access Fee Waiver Program.

If you would like to contribute to either of these efforts — by providing Access Fee Waivers ($500 each) or supporting the Materials Store — please contact me at Wolch@berkeley.edu.

Vertical Cities 2013: Everyone Harvests

How does a rapidly growing Asian city facing issues of sustainability and quality of life also address the region’s food production needs?

This was the exciting challenge that two interdisciplinary teams of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and city and regional planning graduate students from the College of Environmental Design took up as they developed and presented their proposals for the third Vertical Cities Asia International Competition in Singapore.

The exponential speed of urban development in Asia requires new thinking around sustainable high-density solutions that reduce the potentially devastating effects of urbanization on land, infrastructure, and the environment. Vertical Cities Asia, a 5-year program organized by the National University of Singapore (NUS), each year challenges teams from 10 schools around the world, including three from the U.S., to contribute to this endeavor with solutions that address a unique theme and location in Asia.

By 2050, it is anticipated that 80 percent of the world’s projected population of 9 billion will reside in urban centers. Food production is expected to increase by approximately 70 percent globally and nearly 100 percent in developing countries. This year’s theme, “Everyone Harvests,” challenged students to create innovative approaches to urban agriculture and food production in the context of Asia’s accelerating urbanism at a site about 17km west of the city centre of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Farmways — Growing frames, parkways and boulevard Enlarge [+]

The Berkeley student teams — who participated as part of the studio course led by UC Berkeley associate professor of architecture and urban design, Renée Chow (who is also CED’s associate dean for undergraduate programs) — each selected an area of one square kilometer to house 100,000 people on no more than half of the land surface. Of the two teams of 15 students total, 14 traveled to Hanoi to research the project and two members from each team presented final proposals to the prestigious international jury in Singapore in July.

During their visit, students were awestruck by the transparency of the food system in the urban Hanoi environment. Food was commonly prepared, sold, and eaten on urban sidewalks, with agriculture production beginning just beyond the urban fringe. In an effort to bridge these divided realities and raise the prestige of the farmer, one team developed Farmways, which garnered an honorable mention from the competition judges. Via a three-dimensional framework of vertical farm parkways, Farmways integrates the urban and the agricultural with a closed-loop model of green market arcades, air purifiers, food forestry research laboratories, aquaponics, and clean energy cogeneration. Farmways works as an urban biofiltration system ensuring cleaner resources and healthier food production.

The second team’s Edge City proposal responded to the challenge by reconnecting fresh food production and consumption economies through a fingered interface at the edge of the urban boundary. Edge City confronts the notion that an urban edge should be defined by a highway and instead joins urban residents to the source of their food. Re-envisioning Hanoi’s outer ring highway, they created a dynamic corridor that includes production, storage, packaging, processing, and distribution, in so doing, better integrating the urban and the agricultural. The result is a vibrant place where people live and work along the urban edge, maintaining a close connection to fertile farmlands.

The Vertical Cities Competition stands out as a major opportunity for CED graduate students to gain a truly interdisciplinary experience at an international level. Working closely with fellow students from diverse disciplines gives participants a taste of their potential future where an understanding and appreciation of different urban design systems and tools, planning strategies, and multidisciplinary collaboration are essential in the creation of successful urban-scale developments.

Group photo of Vertical Cities CED student participants — Vertical Cities CED student participants. FRONT ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: Jennifer Siquiera, Monica Way, Michelle Gonzales, Minjae Ahn, Rebecca Sunter, Niknaz Aftahi; BACK ROW: Daniel Prostak, Max Edwards, Gabriel Kaprielian, Luis Jaggy, Ned Reifenstein, Leo Zhou, Stephen Steward, Ben Golze (Missing: Anna Konotchick) Enlarge [+]

From the perspective of a teacher, designer and architect, for Renée Chow this ranked as one of her most rewarding studio experiences. “The students were totally motivated to see and deeply understand another place. They learned to collaborate which also transforms their views. They now feel that as designers they can make a difference.”

Student Teams

FARMWAYS Team

Niknaz Aftahi (M.Arch) 2015 ATG
Minjae Ahn (M.Arch) 2014 ATG
Max Edwards (M.Arch) 2014 ATG
Luis Jaggy (M.Arch) 2014 ATG
Gabriel Kaprielian (M.Arch/MCP) 2014 ATG
Daniel Prostak (MLA) 2014 ATG
Rebecca Sunter (MLA) 2014 ATG

EDGE CITY Team

Benjamin Golze (M.Arch) 2014 ATG
Michelle Gonzalez (M.Arch)
Anna Konotchick (M.Arch/MCP) 2013 ATG
Ned Reifenstein (M.Urban Design) 2013 ATG
Jennifer Siqueira (M.Arch) 2015 ATG
Stephen Stewart (M.Arch) 2014 ATG
Monica Way (M.L.A.) 2014 ATG
Xin (Leo) Zhao (M.Arch) 2014 ATG

Wudadao

Imagine working on the revitalization of a 500 acre historic district in China—in a city that just demolished all of its courtyard compounds within its original walled city. Last year, this was the task for fourteen M.Arch students in their final year of study.

The City of Tianjin is China’s third economic development zone (with Shenzhen and Pudong being the first two) providing the nation’s economic and political power to both build and eradicate large swaths of the city. Throughout Tianjin, evidence of splintering urban design and architectural practices are evident—widening of roads and deep building setbacks, retail malls with their own interiorized marketing logic, iconic skyscrapers that add little back to their local context, and rows upon rows of rubberstamped housing blocks. While progress measured by standards of living and the ever changing skyline are palpable, the unique conditions that form the identity of Tianjin are being lost. There is a homogenizing of urban experiences within and between Chinese cities.

Wudadao Enlarge [+]Section showing project site between the new city and the historic district.

Our project site was Wudadao, or Five Main Streets, located within the inner city and as yet undeveloped due to its isolation from the major networks of the city. This separation is rooted in the original settlement of this district by the British during the concession era of the city. The long streets and gridded blocks occupied by an eclectic mix of small scale buildings are rapidly being surrounded by large scale, coarse grained, object oriented developments. At the invitation of the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute (TUPDI), the research seminar and studio explored urban paradigms that recognize that we live horizontally, rethinking habits twentieth century habits of considering buildings as vertical containers.

Wudadao Enlarge [+]October 2011 field work in Wudadao. (Left to right:) directions to Wudadao; lilong housing; early morning; the influx of cars; the old and new.

As in all urban and architectural design, there were multiple and parallel research goals. One overarching objective was to develop tools of analysis and design that describe the relational, connective conditions of urban form. A corollary was a proposal for how to design “big” since many projects in China have large project sites. The group developed systemic design parameters that define urban continuities both internal and external to any site without pre-figuring architecture as building envelopes (objects). These parameters were tested for their ability to integrate the work of a group of architects—to develop density, identity with variety and the larger legibility of Wudadao within Tianjin. The analyses, systems, and designs were exhibited and reviewed in Wurster Hall in April of 2011.

Wudadao Enlarge [+](Left to right:) June presentation to TUPDI (Left to right:) Nicole Lew, Nancy Nam, David Dahl, Daniel Gasser, and Steven Brummond; Chengdu Biennale middle: Renee Chow, Daniel Gasser and alumna Doreen Liu in background; (Far right:) alumnus Yung Ho Chang in front of our exhibit.

Another objective was to define the architectural tactics that aid in revitalizing Wudadao. Toward this end, an urban network study identified differences between local blocks and streets that presented opportunities to connect the district to the rest of the city and guided a local architectural code. In addition, the need for residential density along the edge of the historic district to animate the district was illustrated by the design proposal. The findings and projects of the research group were presented by five students to TUPDI in June of 2011.

Wudadao Enlarge [+]Chengdu Biennale: Exhibit designed by Daniel Gasser with Renee Chow; Video by Kirsten Heming. (Left to right:) Design parameters developed by research group, rendered by Daniel Gasser; Lot 8 Nancy Nam and Nicole Lew, Lot 10 Kirsten Heming and Katherine Cong.

Individual research programs were also woven into the framework, in particular the collective potentials to capitalize on natural ventilation, storm water collection, and daylighting. In our proposal to the 2011 Chengdu Biennale whose theme was “Holistic Realms: Garden Cities,” we highlighted the project’s storm water system, treatment, collection, and urban parks. In a city where current and future water shortages are and will be extreme, water management is one key to a green city. The studio’s work has been on exhibition since late September and recently closed.

Wudadao Enlarge [+]Chengdu Biennale: (Left to right:) Lot 9 Justin Short and Daniel Gasser; Lot 8 Nancy Nam and Nicole Lew; aerial view of Lot 7 David Dahl, Lot 8, Lot 9 and Lot 10 in the foreground.

Our thanks to TUPDI for funding the research, in particular Mr. SHI Wujun, Dean; Ms ZHU Xuemei, Vice Chief Planner; and Ms JIANG Bei, urban designer and graduate of our Urban Design program. Our thanks also to the Department of Architecture Charles W. Moore Endowment for the Study of Place and to the Department of Architecture for the publication of our forthcoming research pamphlet.

Researchers included: YaOu Zhang, Hechang Chen, Won Shim, David Dahl, John Faichney, Benjamin Lueck, Nancy Nam, Nicole Lew, Justin Short, Daniel Gasser, Kirsten Heming, Katherine Cong, Hao Zhou, Steven Brummond.

The design propositions and tools are guided by on-going research on field relations by Renee Chow. Renee is Associate Professor of architecture and urban design and Principal at Studio URBIS, currently completing a book on the evolving forms of Chinese urbanism.

Wudadao Enlarge [+]Systemic design parameters and the projects that emerged. (Left to right:) Design parameters developed by research group seen from the west, rendered by Daniel Gasser; Lot 8 Nancy Nam and Nicole Lew; design paramters from the east; individual designs and parameters; Lot 7 to Lot 10.

Tianjin City Building

In September, Studio Urbis was asked by the Hexi District government in Tianjin, China, to prepare a conceptual design for four sites divided by an intersection of a 12-lane arterial highway and six-lane “local collector.”

We took this project on as “research” into the problems of superblocks with increasingly wide roadways and setbacks that predominate contemporary Chinese development. This current pattern reinforces boundaries between sites, with each development discontinuous from the rest of the city. Our strategy was to extend the pedestrian fabric of the district into the form of the buildings as three dimensional paths that move through multiple levels of all four sites and span the river of cars. The city of Tianjin, agreeing with our analysis of the district, has accepted our proposal for an expanded pedestrian environment.

Tag: Renee Chow

The Diverse Faces of CED

Vertical Cities 2013: Everyone Harvests

Student Teams

Wudadao

Tianjin City Building

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