For students in Berkeley’s Master of Urban Design Program, the cities of the San Francisco Bay Area offer an extensive urban design laboratory. However, to balance our emphasis on local and regional urban design issues, faculty organizes design workshops abroad. Through intensive two-week work programs, urban design students and faculty travel abroad and have the opportunity to work jointly with faculty and students from host universities. In past years such workshops have taken place in Italy, France, Mexico, Japan, and India. Lately, workshops have focused on the rapid urbanization and environmental conditions in Asia, primarily Vietnam, Thailand, and China.

For information about the international urban design workshop program, please contact Professor Peter Bosselmann at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Past Workshops: 2008

2009 Workshop

The 2009 international workshop was again hosted by Dean Sun and Associate Dean Feng at the South China University of Technology (SCUT) in Guangzhou. The topic focused on the Whampoa harbor, Guangzhou's historic port. With the construction of a new container terminal, Guangzhou is increasingly changing the shipping focus from the river ports to the new harbor closer to the South China Sea. The historic Whampoa Harbor will be developed into an administrative center for maritime cargo and container traffic. Ten Berkeley students traveled with Professors Bosselmann and Kondolf to China in March of 2008, worked with students and SCUT faculty, and presented their work to the Guangzhou government officials. The site included 80ha of former industrial land located in the tidal marshes of the Pearl River. The proposal suggested that intensive new development of the site could be made compatible with the repair of the water system as well as the necessary integration of former villages and informal settlements.