Architecture & Urban Planning

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
Fellow Story

Bowen on winning MIT team for DOE Better Buildings Challenge

A team of eight MIT undergraduate and graduate students won two awards in this year’s U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Better Buildings Case Competition, out of more than 150 students from across the country. The win means MIT students have taken home not just one, but two, prizes from the competition each of the three years it has taken place.
September 1, 2014
Fellow Story

Scheuer nominated to Hawaii's Land Use Commission

Posted July 16, 2014 - HONOLULU - Gov. Neil Abercrombie today announced the nominations of Jonathan Scheuer to the Land Use Commission (LUC), as well as Rona Fukumoto and Edwin Taira to the Board of Directors of the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation (HHFDC), effective immediately. All are interim appointments subject to state Senate approval. Scheuer was appointed to an at-large seat and is the first LUC appointee to fill vacancies left by five recent resignations on the nine-member commission.
August 12, 2014
Fellow

Aaron Ordower

2014 Fellow
Aaron Ordower serves as Senior Policy Deputy for Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Krekorian. Aaron staffs the councilmember on the Energy, Climate Change, and Environmental Justice and the Housing committees of City Council. Aaron’s portfolio...
Fellow

Shrayas Jatkar

2014 Fellow
Shrayas joined the Equity, Climate, and Jobs team at the California Workforce Development Board in November 2017. His work includes overseeing a major study to the state legislature about economic and workforce development issues linked to...
Fellow Story

Reed finds key conservation components missing in local land-use ordinances for conservation development

Editor's Note: The Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation helped fund Sarah's early work on Conservation Development with the Wildlife Conservation Society through a Leadership Grant.
March 31, 2014
Fellow Story

Cohen advocates pushing Caltrans to relinquish oversight of bike facilities on urban streets

TransForm Executive Director Stuart Cohen urged the Assembly to push Caltrans to move forward on one of SSTI’s most immediately-achievable steps: relinquishing oversight of bike facilities on urban streets and endorsing the National Association of City Transportation Officials Urban Street Design Guide. ”When Caltrans first put in place this requirement that cities and states follow its Highway Design Manual’s guidance on bicycle design, it made sense,” he said. “There wasn’t good practice on rearranging intersections and how to design bike lanes.
March 27, 2014
Fellow Story

Wheeler leads development of new sustainable environmental design major

“There was a concern for people with an interest in sustainable environmental design who would go to landscape architecture but would not get in,” said Sharla Cheney, undergraduate adviser for landscape architecture and environmental design. LDA is an intensive and selective program that only allows up to 36 applicants to declare it as a major each year. SED allows students without an aptitude for art, drafting and design interested in sustainable planning to pursue a degree.
March 14, 2014