Jacobs Institute Student Newsletter: March 17th, 2026
Jacobs Institute Student Newsletter
UPCOMING@JACOBS
Jacobs Institute-organized events, news, and announcements—straight from the source.
Spring Break Makerspace Access Changes
The makerspace will have reduced access during Spring Break:
Closed: March 21–22
Limited Access (8:30 AM – 7:00 PM): March 23–26
No Access (Academic Holiday): March 27–29
Design Field Notes Lecture Series
TONIGHT! Tuesday, March 17 ⋅ 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM ⋅ 310 Jacobs Hall (3rd Floor)
If you’ve been in a museum, airport, or opened a design book—you’ve likely encountered Luicille Tenazas’ work, or work shaped by it.
AIGA Medal (lifetime achievement). Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. A day named after her in San Francisco.
Lucille will share reflections on design—what it is, what it becomes, and what lasts.
Come for the talk, stay for refreshments and conversation. Learn more & RSVP.
From Interface to Agency: a New Discourse for Design and AI
Friday, March 20, 9:00 AM - 5:45 PM
From Interface to Agency: a New Discourse for Design and AI examines the rise of Agentic Systems & the emerging design practice required to shape them.
Treating agents as consequential actors rather than neutral tools, this symposium asks what is automated, for whom, and at what cost. We bring together adjacent fields - cybernetics, ontological design, critical making, generative design, service design, critical data studies, and STS - to articulate methods, histories, and standards for an emerging practice we call Agent Design or Design for Agentic Systems .
This event is organized by the University of California, Berkeley’s Master of Design (MDes) faculty, and will feature speakers such as Andrew Pickering, Maggie Gram, Bruce Sterling, Terry Winograd, Liz Danzico and more.
NOTE the in person event is SOLD OUT, but you can still participate via Zoom.
DESIGN OPPORTUNITIES DIGEST
non-Jacobs Institute-affiliated events, opportunities, and programs—at your fingertips.
Autodesk Graduate Research Fellowship
The College of Environmental Design is pleased to announce a new research and design funding opportunity that will be available to continuing master’s and doctoral students for summer research and design!
Thanks to a generous philanthropic gift from Autodesk, a global leader in design, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and entertainment software, CED will award four $15,000 stipends to continuing master’s and doctoral students across Architecture, City & Regional Planning, and Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning. Students graduating in May 2026 are ineligible for this award.
The stipend will support summer design and/or research projects focused on one (or more) of the themes below:
Net-Zero Buildings
Human-Centric Building and Urban Design
Industrialization of Construction
AI Applied to Environmental Design
Please find the full RFP attached, including eligibility requirements, proposal guidelines, and submission instructions.
Applications are due Monday, April 6, 2026 by 11:59am (noon). For questions, please contact ced-re...@berkeley.edu.
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This newsletter was created with assistance from artificial intelligence to help summarize events and programs.
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