Architecture & Urban Planning

Fellow Story

Bowen and colleagues pitch visions for Boston neighborhood

Earlier this month [December 2014], a team of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) gave their take on the revitalization of the Brickbottom neighborhood at a gathering of residents and community members at the Brickbottom Artists Building. The team of graduate students from MIT’s Department of Urban Planning worked with City Hall to come up with new ideas and more options for future development of the area. The students wanted to balance the needs of the people living in the area with possible future economic development.
March 23, 2015
Fellow Story

Zavaleta's home featured in article about luxury homes for animal lovers

For Erika Zavaleta and Bernie Tershy, biologists and conservation scientists at the University of California in Santa Cruz, building a bird-friendly house meant using nontoxic building materials like reclaimed wood and straw-bale insulation. (Birds, which have fast metabolisms, are highly sensitive to toxins.) The family and their friends spent a day packing 200 bales into the walls of the 2,650-square-foot house—to the birds’ delight.
March 4, 2015
Fellow Story

Cohen quoted on adopted cap-and-trade guidelines for affordable housing program

Yesterday the Strategic Growth Council adopted guidelines for the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program and scheduled workshops for early February to provide technical assistance to potential applicants.
February 2, 2015
Fellow Story

Reed's research featured in comprehensive look at conservation development in Colorado

“It’s a way to achieve conservation in the context of development that is going to happen anyway,” says Sarah Reed, a conservation biologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society and affiliate faculty member at Colorado State University studying conservation developments. Conservation developments already account for a quarter of the private land set aside in the U.S. As their popularity grows, ecologists and conservation biologists like Reed are working to identify how to design, regulate and manage them to make them most helpful for biodiversity.
January 20, 2015
Fellow Story

Kung finds commuting times stay constant even as distances change

How much commuting can you tolerate? A new study by MIT researchers shows that across countries, people assess their commutes by the time it takes them to complete the trip, generally independent of the distance they have to travel—as long as they have a variety of commuting options to chose from. The study, which compares commuting practices in five locations on four continents, also demonstrates the methodological validity of using mobile phone data to create an accurate empirical picture of commuting.
January 19, 2015
Fellow Story

Antos quoted on how Los Angeles County uses storm runoff

While rainfall can be a welcome sight in the dry Southland, when water hits the region’s concrete and blacktop landscape, it turns into a giant headache for beachgoers and environmentalists: untreated storm water or urban runoff.
December 22, 2014
Fellow Story

Making Alleys a Place for Play (Not Old Couches)

After six years of research and community organizing, 2005 Fellow Tori Kjer and her colleagues have won strong support from the community for their Avalon Green Alley Network Plan in South Los Angeles, and the renovation of two alleys is scheduled to begin early next year.
December 21, 2014
Foundation News

Webinar: Water Quality and Environmental Justice in the Central Valley

The Switzer Foundation seeks to protect, improve, and sustain our natural environment for the well-being of people and the planet. We have provided funding to 2009 Fellow Carolina Balazs for her ongoing work on historical inequalities in distribution of clean water to disadvantaged communities in California's agricultural Central Valley. Watch our recent webinar with Carolina, and read more about how her work has expanded recently to strengthen engagement between California’s Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) and communities facing environmental injustices.
November 19, 2014
Foundation News

Network Call: Sustainability on Campuses

This spring we held a networking call to connect academic Fellows who are interested in expanding their schools' sustainability efforts. Nine Fellows attended the lively call, and topics ranged from how to get involved in a school's...
October 26, 2014
Fellow Story

Steele featured in film on swales and rain gardens

Nancy Steele was recently featured in a California film on how swales and rain gardens can protect watersheds from runoff. See the episode (#7) and others
September 25, 2014