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UC Berkeley Master of Urban Design (MUD)

@ucberkeleyurbandesign

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Berkeley's Master of Urban Design @ced_berkeley centers research and design, and engages diverse communities to reimagine cities.

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Introducing the MUD Cohort 2026-27!

This year’s cohort brings together 13 students from five countries, with backgrounds in architecture, engineering, planning, landscape architecture, and urban design.

Six weeks into the program, the class has begun exploring the Bay Area and is looking forward to a year of new perspectives!

#ucberkeley #cedberkeley #ucberkeleymud #urbandesign #masterofurbandesign by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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3 months ago

Kaihong Cui (she/her) is from Beijing, China, and studied Landscape Architecture at Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan. Her undergraduate work explored rural regeneration, climate resilience, public space, and cultural landscapes, gradually leading her to think about cities beyond individual sites and landscapes.

Her interest in urban design grew through both local and international projects, including a collaborative studio in Bristol, Tennessee and Virginia, focused on ecological restoration and community revitalization, as well as research on the cultural narratives of Yuanmingyuan. These experiences shaped her interest in the relationship between space, culture, identity, and everyday life.

Now pursuing her Master of Urban Design at UC Berkeley, Kaihong is interested in how culture, collective memory, mobility, and social inequality shape urban space. She hopes to explore how cities can transform while remaining meaningful to the communities who live in them.

A fun fact: Kaihong is a Chinese Checkers Association Candidate Master and a longtime pianist. by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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7 days ago

Summer’26 | Urban Design Studio | Richmond, CA

Project: Built Beyond Toxicity

Team: Miguel Cruz, Marie Hutchinson, Suzy Zhan

A recurring running event becomes the public face of Richmond’s industrial waterfront, drawing people into the area, supporting local vendors and businesses, and generating new economic activity around movement, gathering, and public space. The Track gives this event a permanent route through the industrial landscape, turning running into a way of experiencing Richmond’s working waterfront and building a stronger civic identity around it.

Three interventions support this larger vision: The Track reconnects fragmented areas and creates new access through industrial boundaries. The Grid repairs contaminated land while introducing ecological systems, worker spaces, and new opportunities for local employment. The Cage contains airborne pollution while allowing industrial operations to continue, creating safer spaces for exercise, learning, art, and community programs.
Rather than replacing Richmond’s industrial character with a pristine park, these interventions allow industry, ecology, and public life to coexist.

The goal is to make the waterfront a place people can move through, gather in, work in, and identify with as part of Richmond’s future. by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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9 days ago

Student Spotlight: Marie Hutchinson (she/her) calls both Wauseon, OH and Vineyard Haven, MA home. She obtained her Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (Syracuse, NY) with minors in Sustainable Construction and Urban Environmental Sciences.

During her undergraduate career, she collaborated with Syracuse Parks and Recreation on a park network redesign and for her thesis project she explored how the historic fortifications of Copenhagen have been adapted into contemporary public spaces. These experiences led to her interest in urban design as a way to bring landscape, infrastructure, and community needs together. She is particularly interested in climate resilience, coastal communities, and the balance between preserving identity and adapting to change.

Fun Fact: her hometown has fewer residents than UC Berkeley has grad students by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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15 days ago

Summer 26 Studio: Richmond, CA

Project: Rich Flows

Team: Daniel Lopez, Mengxin Gao, Junting Lin

"Rich Flows" reimagines Richmond Parkway as a renewable network that connects communities back to the infrastructure and landscape around them. Richmond has long played a major role in producing energy for the region, while many surrounding communities have carried the environmental impacts. The project asks how the next generation of infrastructure could begin giving something back.

Three interventions shape this network along the parkway. Energy Hill introduces renewable energy production at Hilltop, while the second strategy creates a place where people can learn from and engage with these systems. At the Civic Refinery, the existing flea market becomes the center of a new community space where energy, water, mobility, and restoration are made visible.

Rather than designing three separate destinations, "Rich Flows" connects them as one larger system. The goal is to make Richmond’s energy transition something the community can participate in, benefit from, and ultimately have greater ownership over. by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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18 days ago

Student Spotlight: Yun-Ying Chiu (she/her) is from Taiwan. She is an architect with a background in architecture and computer-aided architectural design, and has over a decade of professional experience working on public infrastructure and urban projects.

She pursued Urban Design to explore how cities can better integrate sustainability, resilience, and natural systems beyond the scale of individual buildings. Her professional and research experiences have strengthened her interest in creating environmentally responsive and locally attuned urban strategies.

A fun fact about Yun-Ying is that her interest in design began with 3D modeling, which led to her first academic publication and eventually to advanced study in computer-aided architectural design at ETH Zurich. by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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19 days ago

Last Friday, students from MRED+D, MUD, and MCP came together for an intensive, hands-on UrbanPlan workshop led by ULI San Francisco.

Working in interdisciplinary teams, students took on roles across site planning, financial analysis, marketing, neighborhood engagement, and environment and equity to respond to an RFP for the fictional Elmwood District in Yorktown.

And, of course, there was some LEGO along the way; a little childhood nostalgia in the middle of a real-world development exercise.

The workshop offered a glimpse into the collaborative decision-making and the value of bringing different disciplines to the same table.

Congratulations to all five teams, and to Team 1 on their winning proposal: Jean-Marie Klumper, Prim Akkarawittayapoom, Jake Kerslake, Linda Solares Bolanos (MRED+D) and Avani Mandpe (MUD).

Thank you to Jane Lin, Cindy Ma, and the ULI San Francisco volunteers and industry professionals who made the workshop possible.

#cedberkeley #uliurbanplanworkshop #urbandesign #urbanplanning #realestatedevelopment by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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20 days ago

Student Spotlight: Declan King (he/him) grew up in Palo Alto and has lived in San Francisco for the past six years. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies and Planning and a minor in Recreation, Parks, and Tourism.

His background is rooted in public policy and local government, including interning in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office. Through planning and city government, he learned how policy, politics, and institutions shape cities, but felt there was a gap in his ability to engage with the physical design of urban space. This led him to urban design as a way to connect policy and planning with the form and experience of cities.

Now pursuing his Master of Urban Design at UC Berkeley, Declan is interested in how cities respond to growth and change while maintaining a strong sense of place and identity.

A fun fact: Declan also serves as IURD’s delegate to UC Berkeley’s Graduate Assembly! by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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21 days ago

CYPLAN 241: Research Methods in Environmental Design

This Fall, Professor Zachary Lamb took students on a field visit to Albany Bulb- a unique landfill turned coastal landscape.

Part of the experience was investigating how senses shape our understanding of landscapes. Students paused throughout the site visit to ask: What do we see? What do we hear? What do we feel? What do we smell? Where will you wander?

These sensory questions helped students move beyond a one-dimensional approach to site visits, encouraging students to notice the textures, sounds, and scents that define a place. This experience launches the second phase of the curriculum, where students will ground research methods in real-time urban projects, collaborating with government organizations, fellow MCP students, and NGOs.

Students are excited to continue experimenting with ways of knowing and representing urban environments.
Comment below: What’s your favorite place to wander in the Bay Area?

#AlbanyBulb #ResearchMethods #EnvironmentalDesign #UCberkeley #Fieldwork taken in Albany Bulb by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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22 days ago

Student Spotlight: Suzy Zhan (she/her) is from Hangzhou, China, and studied landscape architecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where she later worked as a landscape designer.

She pursued Urban Design because she is drawn to moving between scales, from habitat and public space to neighborhoods and the larger city. Her previous work explored how ecological processes can be brought into cities while also responding to the cultural ways people perceive and value urban nature. Having grown up and lived in different cities, she is especially interested in what makes a city not only somewhere people want to stay, but somewhere they are able to stay.

Outside of design, Suzy loves both Greek mythology and musical theatre, with Hadestown sitting happily at the intersection of the two. by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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a month ago

This Fall's studio with Dan Muntean and Dewi Bleher kicked off with a field visit to Merced, where students explored the city through its infrastructure, agriculture, history, and everyday urban fabric.

The visit took them to the proposed High-Speed Rail station sites, major transit corridors, Downtown Merced, and the Courthouse Museum, helping them understand the city beyond the map.

A highlight was the visit to the Agricultural Experimental Station (AES) at UC Merced, where Brandon Faria, Greenhouse Manager, introduced students to the work happening across the greenhouse and Smart Agriculture program. From emerging agricultural technologies and student research to growing organic vegetables, the visit offered a glimpse into how agriculture in the Central Valley is not static- but a landscape of experimentation, technology, education, and production.

These first observations set the stage for the studio across 6 research domains: Irrigation, Transit, Farm Economies, Housing, Ecology and Climate, and Tourism

Now students must ask themselves: How can new infrastructure and urban growth engage with the agricultural landscape rather than simply grow into it? taken in Merced, California by @ucberkeleyurbandesign

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a month ago

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2 months ago