A group of Berkeley faculty have identified a cross-cutting opportunity to form the “Urban Engineering Lab” that will serve as a hub for leading research into the latest technologies and platforms to inform the future of cities. We will go beyond the smart to how our cities should be built, re-built, or augmented to enhance their livability, sustainability and resilience in the face of climate change and extreme events, and to pivot to a more resource-efficient growth path.
We seek an engineering enterprise leveraging social, physical, and natural scientists. Our goal is to help cities adequately respond to today’s challenges—and perhaps more importantly, tomorrow’s challenges. This includes creating a carbon-free economy to tackle population growth and urbanization. We must not just keep what we have but go forward to just and equitable enjoyment.
The new Urban Engineering Lab (UEL) will engage with cities and urbanized regions near home and abroad. Our engagement will transform the cities of today, conceptualize the ones of tomorrow like the new ones to come on the Arctic Rim, and manage those that will decay in the hottest regions of our planet. Our research must connect with the governments and political processes able to put our innovations into practice. As engineers, we need to adapt our thinking, embrace advocacy and business planning, technology and computer sciences,