The Departments of City and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning offer two physical planning programs—Urban Design and Environmental Planning—within a framework of theory and method that is common to both. The course of study in either program leads to two professional degrees—the Master of Landscape Architecture and the Master of City Planning. For students with appropriate backgrounds the course of study can be completed in three academic years. Increasingly, there is a demand for professionals who can apply both city planning and landscape architectural skills to urban design and environmental planning problems. The program responds to student preferences for the most relevant knowledge and skills of both programs. People prepared in both disciplines should be able to integrate planning and design activities, develop innovative solutions at both the policy and site scale, and carry out complex environmental projects that are both socially sensitive and ecologically informed.

Framework and Philosophy

Physical planning (of which both urban design and environmental planning are a part), is the continuing and deliberate effort to arrange, manage, and develop the built environment at the urban, metropolitan, and regional scales. Physical planning must meet the social, economic, and political needs of people within the constraints and opportunities set by the natural environment and historic settlement patterns. At Berkeley, planning is approached with a public perspective. Our goal is a better-informed and more comprehensive approach to physical planning than has been generally studied and practiced in the past. We insist that our planning be socially aware and ecologically informed. We embrace the thinking and planning approach of those who delight in highly urban as well as non-developed natural and resource areas. At the heart of the program is a joining of conservation and development. Our views and sources of understanding are international, but some coursework concentrates on California and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Concurrent MLA/MCP programs are different from those offered singly in the Landscape Architecture or City and Regional Planning professional programs. The humanistic and environmentally based approach of the concurrent programs combines all of the physical, social, and economic determinants to land use and development that are studied in each department into one program, while at the same time permitting specialization in urban design or environmental planning. Coursework in areas common to both environmental planning and urban design includes:

• History and theory of urban form and environmental planning
• Basic characteristics of land, water, and climate and how they relate to land development and conservation
• Urban and environmental planning methods
• Research methods in urban design and environmental planning including environmental measurement and the relationships between physical, social, and psychological factors
• Environmental and land use regulation
• Economic and fiscal values associated with land conservation and development
• Physical infrastructure that operates at the urban and metropolitan scales
   

Common Core and Area of Specialization

A common core of courses provides the basic planning and design education, including theory, methods, and studios, for students in both environmental planning and urban design. In addition, each student is required to develop an area of specialization that uses the unique resources of the College and the University to bring to urban design and environmental planning knowledge typically outside these fields. This is an important feature of the program developed to encourage new ways of addressing environmental planning and design problems.

Final Graduation Requirements

Students in the Concurrent Degree Programs must satisfy the final graduation requirement of a thesis (Plan I). A professional project (Plan II) may be allowed in some cases with approval of the Concurrent Degree Committee. The thesis or professional project should integrate the two fields—Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, and City and Regional Planning—that make up the Concurrent Program while focusing on the concentration selected by the student, i.e. Urban Design or Environmental Planning. The final document should demonstrate a grasp of theory, methods, and literature relevant to the topic. The thesis committee consists of three members—two from within the student's concentration (LAEP and/or DCRP faculty) and one from outside the student's concentration (LAEP, DCRP, or other members of the Academic Senate). The professional project committee consists of three members—two from within the student’s concentration and a third member who is a professional or client closely affiliated with the student’s project.