How Bears Study the Environment

My alma mater, the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley (Go Bears!), is going to celebrate its 50th anniversary this year. While there are plenty of parties, lectures, and exhibitions, the enduring product of this place is the research that helps shape the way we understand the built environment. These following research centers utilize the interdisciplinary possibilities among the three departments (architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning.)

• The Center for Environmental Design Research (CEDR) fosters research in environmental planning and design, ranging from the local environments of people within buildings to region-wide ecosystems, from small details of building construction to large-scale urban planning, from the history of the built environment to the design process itself. CEDR manages and edits Places, the main journal in the U.S. principally focused on urban design.
  
• The Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) helps scholars and students understand the dynamics of communities, cities, and regions while informing public policy at local, state, and national levels.