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:  2010 | 2009 | 2008

2010 Workshop

The 2010 urban design workshop took place in Karatsu Japan. Nine Berkeley urban design students joined students and faculty from Japan, China, Europe, and India to work on a historic castle town , Karatsu, located on Japan's southernmost island of Kyushu. Like many small- to medium-sized cities in Japan, Karatsu has a shrinking and aging population. The work focused on improved living conditions in the historic core and on Karatsu's location at a large estuary that once served as a natural harbor for trade with China and Korea.