Sustainable Housing
At California

We are UC Berkeley students and alumni designing and building sustainable homes.

Introducing: The SEED Center

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Our Projects

The Sustainability, Education, and Arts Development (SEAD) Village is composed of up to 30 residential units organized into clusters of about 10 units in addition to the SEAD Center. This artist-maker community village will be an open system, evolving and adapting with its community, fostering a culture of creativity and diversity.
The Richmond Backyard Homes program is THIMBY’s third iteration, and aims to maximize land use efficiency of sprawling, residential neighborhoods by providing shelter for unhoused individuals and families in the backyards of single-family residences. The team plans to pilot the City of Richmond’s “Tiny House on Wheels” ordinance on a selected site in Richmond, California.
As climate change and housing inequality compound each other’s effects, there lies a pressing need for us to design a built environment that combats both of these issues to ensure a sustainable future. HEARTH exists precisely at this intersection as a Hybrid Equitable and Resilient Transitional Home.
Richmond is moving onward and upward, with more people and less space—thus our “stackable” structure was born. Able to be implemented in 1, 2, or 3 storied versions, it may also be utilized in the space above commercial concrete buildings. With modular, pre-fabricated units, the home is easy to duplicate and easy to transport, making the iterative stacking process easy and efficient.
Constance owns a bus from her days as a bus driver, and was adamant about transforming it into her dream home. Constance found THIMBY by working tirelessly with the homeless transition Program GRIP, and we were able to help led construction on Constance’s tiny house, employ experienced professionals within the unhoused community, and trained others in developing skills in construction and renewable energy fields.
The Tiny House in My Backyard (THIMBY) project—a net-zero energy, off-grid tiny house that won second place at the first-ever California Tiny House student competition—represents a frontier for energy and water efficient residential construction.

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SHAC is an interdisciplinary group of undergraduate and graduate students at UC Berkeley with a shared passion for sustainability in the built environment.

We are a student group acting independently of the University of California. We take full responsibility for our organization and this website.    

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