Center for Environmental Design Research

The Center for Environmental Design Research's (CEDR) mission is to foster research in environmental planning and design. Its goal is to increase the factual content of these disciplines and to promote systematic approaches to decision-making within them. The scope of environmental planning and design is broad, ranging from the environments of people within buildings, to region-wide ecosystems.

Building science is the largest of CEDR's programs. Its mission is to increase the scientific knowledge used in building design and operation. At Berkeley, building science specializes in environmental aspects of design-how to provide comfortable, healthy and productive conditions for the occupants in economical and energy-efficient buildings.

CEDR supports several projects and centers, including:

Center for the Built Environment (CBE): CBE was founded under the National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center program. The Center is supported and guided by a consortium of building industry leaders, including manufacturers, building owners, contractors, architects, engineers, utilities, and government agencies.

Center for Resource Efficient Communities (CREC): CREC is dedicated to supporting the State of California's climate change and resource efficiency goals at urban and community scales, through interdisciplinary research, public communication, and professional outreach.

The Green Building Research Center (GBRC): The GBRC was created to advance and promote sustainable building design and operation on the UC Berkeley campus, and provide resources to aid other universities in similar efforts across California.

International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE): Promotes comparative and cross-cultural understanding of traditional habitat as an expression of informal cultural conventions. IASTE is an umbrella association for all scholars studying vernacular, indigenous, popular and traditional environments.

Places Journal: The main journal in the U.S. principally focused on urban design.

CEDR also supports the work of G. Mathias Kondolf, a fluvial geomorphologist whose research concerns environmental river management and influences of land-use on rivers.