Pioneering UC Berkeley professor Sim Van der Ryn dies aged 89

2024-11-18T16:06:00-05:00

Dutch architect Sim Van der Ryn, a pioneer of green architecture and a longtime professor at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, has died at age 89 according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He will be remembered for his experimental teaching methods and approach to designing buildings as ecological systems, both of which later became widely accepted as either field looked to embrace sustainability as its new baseline standard.

Van der Ryn's memorial page on the CED's website also credits his work with Murray Silverstein as leading the way for post-occupancy user studies. Dean Renee Y. Chow added her own context to his legacy at the school, saying: "Sim was one of the people who laid the foundation for CED’s ongoing commitment to resilience and environmental equity. He was focused on how to build in environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, socially just ways long before 'sustainability' was even a term in the architectural lexicon. His influence, on Berkeley and beyo...

Hippie Modernism: How Bay Area design radicals tried to save the planet

2015-10-29T11:05:00-04:00

Hippie modernism focused not on rigorous form but rather on a kind of socially inspired bricolage. Hippie modernism has been not only misunderstood but also underestimated. Buckminster Fuller’s concept of a ‘design science revolution’ inspired the hippie bricoleurs to shoulder their generation’s emerging notion of environmental stewardship.

Greg Castillo pens a great article about one of the most overlooked and often dismissed role of hippies in what we have today greedily claimed by the millenials and known as "environmental movement."

“Hippie Modernism” is published in coordination with the Walker Art Center exhibition,Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia,

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Pioneering UC Berkeley professor Sim Van der Ryn dies aged 89

Hippie Modernism: How Bay Area design radicals tried to save the planet