Environmental Design (ENV DES)

This is an archived copy of the 2014-15 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu/.

Courses

ENV DES 1 Introduction to Environmental Design 3 Units

This course will teach anyone how to start to be a designer, not just of drawings and objects, but also buildings, landscapes, and urban spaces. And not just in isolation, but in the complex web of ecological and man-made systems which makes up our shifting environment. You will take from the course first-hand experience of drawing, measuring, and design — which form the basis of the professions of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning— and which culminate in a final design project in the course. The course is open to all undergraduate students.

ENV DES 2 Introduction to Environmental Design Summer Lectures 1 Unit

This course accompanies the summer studio and media classes in the architecture and landscape architecture post-baccalaureate programs, (IN)Arch and (IN)Land, of the College of Environmental Design. This series of eight lectures by faculty in the College of Environmental Design at Berkeley presents a range of approaches, theories, and practices in the design fields. Lectures will include topics in landscape architecture, architectural practice, building construction and systems, global cities, urban ecology, building sustainability, social and political aspects of architecture, and a panel discussion by professionals who are previous students of the College.

ENV DES R3B Reading and Composition in Energy, Society, and Environmental Design 4 Units

This course will expose students to key literature that examines, primarily, the relationship between sustainability and environmental design disciplines. Our goal will be not only to investigate the central ideas that inform the design of sustainable landscapes, cities, and buildings, but also to understand how competing arguments are presented in writing. Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement.

ENV DES 4A Design and Activism 3 Units

This course explores the relationships between design and activism, raising critical questions about what design is, and how designers serve as guardians of culture and as agents of change. Students will participate in "spontaneous acts of design activism" that address contemporary issues through the making of forms and space to reinvent relationships between people and their environments.

ENV DES 4B Global Cities 3 Units

This study of cities is more important than ever; for the first time in history more people live in urban than rural areas, and cities will account for all of the world's population growth for at least the next half-century. We will explore the challenges facing global cities in the 21st Century and expose students to some of the key texts, theories, and methods of inquiry that shape the built environment, from the human scale of home and community to the regional scale of the megacity.

ENV DES 4C Future Ecologies: Urban Design, Climate Adaptation, and Thermodynamics 3 Units

This course is intended to provide students with an overview of current thinking about cities and their components (buildings, parks, streets) as ecological and cultural systems. It will provide an introduction to methods for investigating the dynamics of flows and relationships in the built environment and students will gain experience constructing their own narratives as ways of asking and answering questions about human habitat that could shape the future.

ENV DES 8 Summer DISCovery Program: Design & Innovation for Sustainable Cities (DISC) 5 Units

This course is about cities, their environmental challenges, and the potentials of design innovation as a catalyst for change. The course is organized in four components: global cities and global challenges, design innovators, technology and media workshop on environmental visualization, and product design and fabrication studio.

ENV DES 9 Introduction to Environmental Design: embARC 1 Unit

The embARC program allows high school students to explore the fields of sustainable environmental design and experience the culture of the design studio. Students study architecture, urban design, and city planning through a series of lectures, field trips, and studios. Introductory instruction in freehand sketching, drafting, model building and digital representation teaches students how to think with and communicate two- and three-dimensional design ideas.

ENV DES 10 The History of Thought in Environmental Design 3 Units

With emphasis on key events of the 20th and now 21st century, this course introduces the big ideas and individuals that have shaped architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture.

ENV DES 98 Directed Group Study 1 - 4 Units

This is a special topics course intended to fulfill the individual interests of students, and provide a vehicle for professors to instruct students based on new and innovative developments in the field of environmental design.

ENV DES 98BC Berkeley Connect 1 Unit

Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. Over the course of a semester, enrolled students participate in regular small-group discussions facilitated by a graduate student mentor (following a faculty-directed curriculum), meet with their graduate student mentor for one-on-one academic advising, attend lectures and panel discussions featuring department faculty and alumni, and go on field trips to campus resources. Students are not required to be declared majors in order to participate.

ENV DES 100 The City: Theories and Methods in Urban Studies 4 Units

This course is concerned with the study of cities. Focusing on great cities around the world - from Chicago to Los Angeles, from Rio to Shanghai, from Vienna to Cairo it covers of historical and contemporary patterns of urbanization and urbanism. Through these case studies, it introduces the key ideas, debates, and research genres of the interdisciplinary field of urban studies. In other words, this is simultaneously a "great cities" and "great theories" course. Its purpose is to train students in critical analysis of the socio-spatial formations of their lived world.

ENV DES 101A Writing about Environmental Design: Short Compositions 2 - 4 Units

An intensive workshop for students interested in writing about architecture, landscape, and the built environment. Recognizing that undergraduate students who take this course represent departments outside as well as within the College of Environmental Design, assignments are touchstones for students of different disciplines to bring their current academic interests into play when writing about environmental design. Weekly assignments include prose readings, generally essays related to life experience. Brief readings and discussions during each class, along with weekly writing assignments of 3-5 pages of prose will illustrate the skills involved in the craft of writing.

ENV DES 101B Writing about Environmental Design: One Longer Composition 2 - 4 Units

In 101B: The Notebook (one long composition in 14 weekly assignments) assigned readings (principally short stories) offer examples of writing which parallel the focus of the week's writing assignment. Prompts and assigned readings encourage the individual development of a "story" or "theme" that each student at the outset or in the process of writing, arrives at a personal narrative. Course approved for English department credit and UC Undergraduate Minor in Creative Writing.

ENV DES 102 Critical Debates in Sustainable Urbanism 3 Units

The aim of the course is to provide students with knowledge and insight into the major issues and debates relating to sustainabiltiy. By the end of the course, students should have a critical understanding of the complexity and scale of the sustainability challenge, how different actors characterize and understand sustainability, the approaches that have been developed to implement these varyig vissions, and the institutional, political, and individual barriers to these visions

ENV DES 105 Deep Green Design 4 Units

Design problems from an ecological perspective. Design studies of relationships among ecosystem, energy, and resource flows, human social and cultural values, and technological variables as they interact to produce the built environment.

ENV DES 106 Sustainable Environmental Design Workshop 5 Units

This course asks students to reflect back, reviewing the various disciplinary approaches introduced toward sustainability and to look forward by proposing interdisciplinary ways to affect the environment. Each year will be organized around a theme and project advanced by the faculty of the College. The workshop will require independent as well as collaborative research often in partnership with an external 'client' organization.

ENV DES C169A American Cultural Landscapes, 1600 to 1900 4 Units

Introduces ways of seeing and interpreting American histories and cultures, as revealed in everyday built surroundings-- houses, highways, farms, factories, stores, recreation areas, small towns, city districts, and regions. Encourages students to read landscapes as records of past and present social relations and to speculate for themselves about cultural meaning.

ENV DES C169B American Cultural Landscapes, 1900 to Present 4 Units

Introduces ways of seeing and interpreting American histories and cultures, as revealed in everyday built surroundings--homes, highways, farms, factories, stores, recreation areas, small towns, city districts, and regions. Encourages students to read landscapes as records of past and present social relations, and to speculate for themselves about cultural meaning.

ENV DES 170 The Social Art of Architecture 3 Units

What is the social art of architecture in America? What was it historically, where is it now, where is it going--and why should you care? In this course, we will explore contemporary and historic attempts to confront social needs through themes: Design by Professionals (Architects, City Planners, Urban Designers, Sociologists, Philosophers, Philanthropists), and Design by Laypeople (Squatters, Intentional Communities, Do It Yourself). The objective is to discharge the false dualism that has emerged in architecture between social concerns and creative design.

ENV DES 193 Curricular Practical Training for International Students 0.0 Units

This is a zero-unit internship course for F-1, non-immigrant, international students participating in internships under the Curricular Practical Training program. Requires a paper exploring how the theoretical contructs learned in Environmental Design courses were applied during the internship.

ENV DES 195 Senior Thesis 4 Units

Directed study leading to preparation of a senior thesis.

ENV DES 195A Introduction to Methods and Thesis Preparation 3 Units

The Senior Thesis in Environmental Design is an advanced research and writing project that presents an original and thorough analysis of a topic of individual interest in architecture, landscape architecture, or urban studies. This class provides an introducion to various methodologies relevant for a senior thesis including qualitative, quantitative, and descriptive research approaches.

ENV DES 195B Thesis Research and Writing 3 Units

Students taking this class will use it to complete the writing of their thesis under the supervision of a Senior Thesis Advisor. This class will operate as an independent study; faculty with more than one Senior Thesis student may choose to meet them in group sessions.

ENV DES 198 Directed Group Study 1 - 4 Units

This is a special topics course intended to fulfill the individual interests of students, and provide a vehicle for professors to instruct students based on new and innovative developments in the field of environmental design.

ENV DES 198BC Berkeley Connect 1 Unit

Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. Over the course of a semester, enrolled students participate in regular small-group discussions facilitated by a graduate student mentor (following a faculty-directed curriculum), meet with their graduate student mentor for one-on-one academic advising, attend lectures and panel discussions featuring department faculty and alumni, and go on field trips to campus resources. Students are not required to be declared majors in order to participate.

ENV DES 201 Urban Places Advanced Design Studio 5 Units

An intensive studio involving collaborative work on problems that are large in scope, yet require attention to spatial organization and design details.
The studio course is offered each fall semester and required for incoming graduate students in the Master of Urban Design Program (MUD). The course is also open to College of Environmental Design graduate students of advanced standing in the Master of City Planning Program/ Urban Design Concentration, the Master of Architecture and Master of
Landscape Architecture Programs.

ENV DES 251 Discourse and Methods in Contemporary Urban Design 1 or 3 Units

The course is the first of three courses (ED251, ED252, ED253) directed toward the development of research and design proposals that advance the field of urban design. As the first course in the sequence, ED251 introduces topics and research methods in contemporary urban design. There is a lecture component (Section 1) that is open to the College and campus. Graduate students preparing for theses and professional reports in urban design will enroll in Section 2, which includes attending the lectures as well as a seminar that expands on the lecture topics by exploring various research and design methodologies.

ENV DES 252 Urban Place Studies 3 Units

Seminar focuses on individual urban design interests, the design and research work that students are pursuing in other courses, and development of thesis or final design projects.

ENV DES 253 Urban Places Thesis Studio 4 Units

A studio for Masters of Urban Design students aimed to support students during the final months of their thesis work. Faculty will hold bi-weekly individual desk critiques of student work and organize preliminary reviews to outside reviewers in preparation of the final review scheduled during the late August orientation week.

ENV DES 298 Environmental Design Group Studies 1 - 4 Units

Topics to be announced at the beginning of each semester.

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