Our Crowdfunding Groups
The Environmental Design Archives (EDA) of UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design is seeking your support to enable remote access to our collections, by providing increased online access to our digitized materials, instructional support, and remote reference services. By facilitating access to our incredible collections, we enable scholars to make new discoveries, practitioners to restore homes and gardens, designers' legacies to be preserved, and provide essential interactive instruction for students enrolled in courses at the College of Environmental Design.
Can you make a gift to help us advance access to our collections? This year five friends of the EDA will match contributions dollar-for-dollar. Every gift will be matched to a total of $35,000 to maximize your impact on preserving and providing access to collections for years to come. Help us unlock our $35,000 match and reach our goal of $70,000!
Funding will be allocated to three key EDA operations to facilitate access to our collections: online access to archival collections, remote reference services, and instructional support.
Caption (left to right): Palace of Fine Arts and rosette, detail sketches by Julia Morgan for Hearst Castle, Thomas Church with briefcase and boots.
There are many incredible gems held by the Environmental Design Archives. A rosette from the Palace of Fine Arts, original pencil on paper sketches by Julia Morgan for Hearst Castle, and the briefcase and boots of noted landscape architect Thomas Church are just some of the one-of a-kind materials found within our walls.
But what’s most remarkable about the Archives is its story: William W. Wurster founded the Environmental Design Archives in 1953 as a teaching collection in response to the recommendation of eminent architectural historian Henry Russell Hitchcock. Sixty-seven years later, the Archives holds true to its original mission by providing access to primary source material for scholarly research, teaching support, curatorial use, preservation, and public service, and actively encourages and promotes the use of its collections.
Caption (left to right): William Wurster, CED students during a class visit, Curator working with Morgan Collection.
Today, it is one of the largest architecture, landscape architecture, and design archival research repositories west of the Mississippi. The work of many of the San Francisco Bay region’s historically significant architects, landscape architects, planners, and designers are represented in collections of more than 200 individuals and firms. Last year alone the EDA worked with:
Cathy Simon: Architect and Archives Patron
"I'm proud that the papers of my firm SMWM are now part of the Environmental Design Archives at Berkeley. The archive could not exist without your support. I urge you to join me in supporting the Environmental Design Archives at Berkeley."
Andrew Manuel: Designer, CED Alumnus, & Former Archives Student Worker
"I worked at the Environmental Design Archives from 2013 until 2015. Being there in that working, research atmosphere with a plethora of information at my fingertips...allowed me to get a greater and deeper understanding of what it is that I wanted to do with my career."
Gabrielle Clement, Former Archives Student Worker
"I was a student worker at the Environmental Design Archives for three years. Since I studied architecture and landscape history, the EDA was really the best place for me to learn hands-on about design materials and have access to so many collections. Being a part of the EDA was really one of the best decisions I could have possibly made as a student and I would want someone else to have that too, so please consider supporting the Environmental Design Archives."
Karen Alschuler, Urban Designer and Archives Patron
"Archiving SMWM has been a potpourri of pleasures and discoveries. We honor the community of aspirational clients, visionary leaders, and lovers of tight, vital, unique communities who have joined us on this path. CED Archive is the perfect partner."
The EDA’s is 76% self-supporting and our operating budget is largely secured through grants, researcher fees, and donations. With our doors closed due to the current pandemic and our major revenue streams compromised, we are making every effort to provide remote reference services and access to digitized collection material for students, researchers, and the general public, but we need your help.
Please make a gift towards our goal of $35,000! Every dollar you give will be matched, up to $35,000. Your support is more important than ever. Thank you in advance for your help!
Four handmade stoneware cups and shelf by Ehren Tool
To learn more about Tool's work, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/magazine/ehren-tool-war-cups-smithsonian.html
Questions about the campaign?
Contact the Environmental Design Archives
designarchives@berkeley.edu
510.642.5124
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A heartfelt digital postcard from the EDA team acknowledging your support!
Give $50 and you'll get an exclusive Edith Heath sticker to embellish your laptop, water bottle, or desk and show the world you support the Environmental Design Archives!
In addition to a supporter sticker and a digital postcard also receive a limited edition enamel pin modeled after 1940s Heath letterhead. This pin will add a little extra flair anywhere you decide to place it!
Running out of books to read in quarantine? With a $100 donation, you can choose one publication from our Berkeley Design Books series. Take a look at the perks section below to view the choices.
With a donation of $250 not only will you get to choose whichever publication from the list below but you’ll also get an EDA tote!
Take a (virtual) behind the scenes tour with Curator, Chris Marino who will show you around the Archives and tailor the tour to show designers or projects that you are interested in.
A set of four ceramic mugs, with a complimentary custom shelf created by Ceramicist Ehren Tool (see detailed image below). Take moment to read about Ehren’s work in this wonderful article in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/magazine/ehren-tool-war-cups-smithsonian.html
Fun fact: William W. Wurster founded the Environmental Design Archives (then the Architectural Archives) in 1953 as a teaching collection, following the recommendation of eminent architectural historian Henry Russell Hitchcock. With your donation of $1953, you will forever be enshrined with an engraved nameplate on a flat file drawer in the Archives.
