Tom Buresh. Photo: UC Berkeley.

After conducting a search outside the university to fill the position, UC Berkeley has appointed Tom J. Buresh, Emil Lorch Collegiate Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, as chair of the College of Environmental Design’s Department of Architecture. His four-year term began on July 1.

Buresh is an active architect with extensive teaching and academic administration experience. He is a principal in the firm Guthrie + Buresh Architects, and previously served as senior project designer for Frank O. Gehry and Associates.

The CED’s previous chair of architecture, Prof. Mary Comerio, went on sabbatical in spring 2009 and Prof. Gail Brager has been acting as interim chair until now. The CED is made up of four three departments — Architecture, City and Regional Planning, and Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning (Urban Design is a joint degree program with the three departments) — each of which has its respective chair.

“Tom is one of the country’s premier educators in the field of architecture and design. He arrives to lead the Department of Architecture at a time when rethinking how we design buildings, neighborhoods and cities has never been more critical for people and the environment,”  said Jennifer Wolch, dean and William W. Wurster Professor of City and Regional Planning to whom Prof. Buresh will report.

Buresh’s partner, Danelle Guthrie, a principal at Guthrie + Buresh Architects, will also join UCB’s Department of Architecture as a visiting associate professor.

The victim, a 23 year old summer school student, was walking on the service road between Minor Hall and the Women’s Faculty Club, listening to her iPod when two males approached her. They demanded her property and one of the suspects held a knife to the victim’s stomach. The victim complied and gave the suspects her iPod, iPhone and wallet. The two suspects then fled the scene northbound toward the Women’s Faculty Club.

UCPD searched the area but were unable to locate the suspects. The victim was not injured during the encounter.

The suspects were described as a white male, mid-20s, 6’01” in height, 175 lbs, with a thin build, light brown hair, wearing a white t-shirt and pierced earrings. And a white male, mid-20s, 5’09” in height, 160 lbs, with a thin/medium build, light brown hair and  wearing a white t-shirt.

If you have any information about this crime, please contact the University of California Police Department Criminal Investigation Bureau on (510) 642-0472 between 8AM–5PM, or (510) 642-6760 at all other times.

If you wish to remain anonymous you can contact UCPD via its CalTIP website.

Future site of BAM-PFA. White building is former printing plant. Photo: UC Berkeley.

The Berkeley Art Museum-Pacific Film Archive has chosen New York architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro to design its new building in downtown Berkeley. The announcement follows a nationwide search which saw ten architecture firms considered for the project.

DS+R is tasked with transforming the former University of California printing plant at Center and Oxford streets in downtown Berkeley for BAM/PFA, after the museum decided to abandon plans to create a building from scratch. In 2006, the museum selected architect Toyo Ito to design a new building for them, but the Japanese architect’s proposal proved expensive and funding did not materialize.

The museum’s current home on Bancroft Way, designed in 1970 by Mario Ciampi, has a multitude of seismic issues.

“DS+R’s experience integrating architecture with issues of contemporary culture and civic life perfectly aligned with BAM/PFA’s core mission to ignite critical dialog and to inspire the imagination through art and film,” said BAM/PFA’s director Lawrence Rinder

Charles Renfro, Ricardo Scofidio and Elizabeth Diller of DS+R. Photo: Abelardo Morrell .

At the downtown site, DS+R will renovate the existing 48,000-square-foot moderne-style printing plant and add a new building covering 50,000 square feet along Oxford Street, just outside the boundaries of the university campus. The museum hopes to open the new complex in 2014. It will be just one block away from the new home of the Magnes Museum, set to open in 2011.

DS+R, whose principals are Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio and Charles Renfro, has extensive experience in museum design. It is currently working on New York’s  Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, it designed Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, was responsible for the redesign of the Alice Tully Hall and, last year, collaborated with James Corner Field Operations to complete New York’s High Line, an urban park on a 1.5-mile stretch of elevated railway in Chelsea.

The budget for the new downtown museum is $95 million, nearly half of which has been raised. Funds will come from private sources and are being raised by BAM/PFA in partnership with the campus.

Botanical Gardens brace for blooming corpse plant [UC Berkeley]
Free meals for Berkeley youth, aged 18 and under [City of Berkeley]
City of Berkeley rolls out energy grants [Oakland Tribune]
UCB gets $1.9m to make its buildings more energy efficient [California Chronicle]

Photo: Workers at Berkeley Bowl moving produce by bobcrazybear/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.

Back in April, we reported on the fascinating research being conducted by UC Berkeley into the vocalization of hyenas. The publication of the scientists’ findings was a revelation to many of us who had not realized that a pack of hyenas is currently in residence in the Berkeley hills, albeit caged.

Now, thanks to a video released by UCB’s office of the President, we can see, and hear, those beasts up close and listen to the endearingly chirpy psychology professor Frederic Theunissen talk about why precisely it is that hyenas “giggle”.

[Hat-tip: The Daily Clog]

The US Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has given $3 million in pre-disaster mitigation funds to UC Berkeley so that it can retrofit the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union building (pictured above).

According to FEMA, the funds provide 35% of the project’s total costs which are estimated at $8.7 million. The University of California will cover the remaining balance. The funded project consists of strengthening existing structures in the Tilden Room and Pauley Ballroom, including installing a structural brace, adding and reinforcing concrete walls, and replacing plate glass windows with tempered or laminated glass.

A report by California Watch published in March highlighted the extensive work that still needs to be done by UCB, and the University of California generally, to make many of its building seismically sound. It concluded that UCB had the most seismically unsafe structures of any public university in California.

Parts of the campus sit on the Hayward Fault, and engineers say 71 occupied buildings would sustain significant structural damage and endanger people’s lives in a major quake. UCB estimates it will spend more than $1 billion on seismic replacements and repairs through 2019.

The Martin Luther King Jr. student union building was designed by Professor of Architecture Vernon DeMars and built in 1961. As well as the rooms being retrofitted, it contains a multicultural center, a computer lab, a bookstore, restaurants, an art studio, lounges and a pub.

Nobody from UCB’s capital projects department was available for comment today because they were spending a good portion of the day in meetings about seismic retrofitting.

UC Berkeley freshmen who entered in 2009 had average 4.10 GPA [New York Times]
“Education Matters” is theme of Cal’s summer reading list [UC Berkeley]
Group sues East Bay Regional Parks over Eucalyptus tree removal [Coco Times]
Scientists challenge UC Berkeley team’s claim of “Ardi” as new human [New York Times]
Berkeley entrepreneur sells conversation starting game [Oakland Tribune]

Photo: Steps by Claudie C-G/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.

UC Berkeley,  Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s close ties to BP [The New York Times]
Berkeley shakes up values guiding business school [The Economist]
Fork to farm tour starts and ends at Berkeley’s Gather restaurant [SFoodie]
Four Lawrence Berkeley Lab employees sickened by paint fumes [Berkeley Voice]
For Berkeley artist Brett Cook, public participation is art [SF Examiner]
Staying in Berkeley: Parenthood’s fine first year [TV.com]

Photo: Keoki Seu/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.

Kids donate to Berkeley animal shelter with lemonade stand [KGO-TV]
No rest for Bette and her Oceanview diner [SF Chronicle]
Venus: when a Berkeley liberal is scandalized by your attire, it’s serious [Sports Illustrated]
UC students snap up community college seats [Youth Radio]

Photo: brinberkeley/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.

Two UC grads detained in Iran engaged to be married [Oakland Tribune]
Return of the crocodile mummies at UC Berkeley [LA Times]
Finding rhythms in a playwright’s words: “God’s Ear” at Ashby Stage [NYT]
Outpouring of support for Berkeley’s animal shelter, more needed [Coco Times]
Record 13,800 students sign up for Cal summer school [UC Berkeley]
Vigil tonight in Berkeley for woman found in the Bay [Oakland Tribune]
UCB scientists catch comet diving into the sun [US Berkeley News]

Photo: Claremont Hotel by Tracey Taylor.