Christopher Calott

Biography: PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY: Christopher Calott, AIA is an award-winning architect, urban designer, academic and real estate developer. He is the inaugural Lalanne Chair in Real Estate Development, Architecture & Urbanism at UC Berkeley, and the founding Faculty Director of a new Master of Real Estate Development + Design Program, which he launched in 2018. He is also currently the Vice Chair of the Master of Urban Design Program, where he instructs on urban design practice, theory, and large scale urban redevelopment. Previously, he was the Director of the Master of Sustainable Real Estate Development Program at Tulane University, where he developed a curriculum in “regenerative development”, working in post-Katrina New Orleans, and throughout the United States. His academic focus and applied research investigates the agency and role that design can play in the creation of more vibrant and socially equitable urban places, often through a critical understanding of development practices and their impact on social, economic and urban form. Calott has pursued significant research in the areas of urbanism, affordable housing, informal settlements and sustainability through competitions, community-based projects and published work tied to teaching appointments at numerous Universities throughout the United States, Mexico and Latin America. And, his longstanding research on informal urbanization patterns and social justice issues at the US - Mexico Borderlands culminated in FRONTERA / BORDER: 7th Concurso Internacional ARQUINE, an international design competition and Congress convened in Mexico City. He has continued his research and writing on informal settlement communities, also working in Mumbai, India, and while at Berkeley recently investigating fringe settlements in Cairo, Egypt through a National Science Foundation grant. Through his current professional work in the Bay Area as a development and design consultant for several development partnerships, Calott inve