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Hester/McNally / Community Development by Design Collection
2010.-10
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
University of California, Berkeley. College of Environmental Design. Environmental Design Archives
Title: Hester/McNally / Community Development by Design Collection
Identifier/Call Number: 2010.-10
Physical Description:
70 Linear Feet:
69 tubes, 55 boxes, 2 flat file drawers
Date (inclusive): 1982-2016
Date (bulk): 1987-1997
Language of Material:
English
.
Collection is open for research
All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in the collection should be discussed with the
Curator.
[Identification of Item], Hester/McNally / Community Development by Design Collection, 2010-10, Environmental Design Archives,
University of California, Berkeley.
Randy Hester and Marcia McNally have been leaders in the field of community design for decades. They have worked extensively
in the eastern and western U.S. and in East Asia at a range of scales and communities. The work began in the late 60s with
design for a series of parks in Cambridge, MA; projects devised as a way to prevent freeway construction through the city's
working and poor neighborhoods. For 10 years after that the work was conducted through a partnership between North Carolina
State University and cities throughout the state of North Carolina and then for 30 years at the University of California,
Berkeley, where Hester and McNally taught until 2010.
In 1985 they formed the firm Community Development by Design (CDbyD) to provide similar planning services to other public
clients. The firm is distinguished for applying ecological thinking to community problems resulting in innovations in city
design, regional land use, and natural resource management. Their comprehensive and participatory approach has produced plans,
designs, and built projects that balanced economic development, environmental protection and enhancement, and the preservation
of places sacred to the community, with a need to grow wisely. By creating new landscape planning techniques that introduce
citizens to the scientific information needed to solve complex issues, the firm encourages citizens to become stewards of
the land.
Randolph (Randy) Hester, Jr. grew up in rural North Carolina (b. 1944). Hester earned a BA in Landscape Architecture and Sociology
from North Carolina State University, and an MA in Landscape Architecture from Harvard. Following graduation, he returned
to UNC where he helped to form the New Lands organization to help residents resist eviction, and published his first book,
Neighborhood Spaces in 1975. His research is centered on the role of citizens in community design and ecological planning,
and his publications include Neighborhood Space With People (1984), Community Design Primer (1990), and Design for Ecological
Democracy (2006).
Professor and former chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning at the University of California
at Berkeley, Randy Hester was also co-director of Community Development by Design, a planning organization specializing in
neighborhood design, community participation, and sacred landscapes from 1985-2010. The organization worked on small town
community development, large-scale open space planning and public participation in natural resource management decisions in
Washington, California, Hawaii, and elsewhere. In 2023, Hester was awarded the Landscape Architecture Foudation Medal for
his distinguished career.
Marcia McNally grew up in suburban Chicago and earned a BA in Economics from the University of Hawaii, and a Master of City
and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. McNally is an award-winning landscape and urban planner
who uses participatory design as a vehicle for change. Her work demonstrates how merging community issues, visions, and values
with science, planning, and politics can result in ground-breaking advances in city design, regional land use, and natural
resource management.
McNally's projects promote a progressive vision for society and the planet that is based on grassroots mobilization, evidence,
and expert input. She cultivated her approach at the University of California, Berkeley as a faculty member in the Department
of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning. With her husband Randy Hester she founded the firm Community Development
by Design in 1985. The firm was known for its ability to work effectively and creatively at the site, park, community, and
wilderness scales with everyone from Native Hawaiians, to Taiwanese fisherfolk and Los Angeles suburbanites.
Sources: marciamcnally.com and Project for Public Spaces (https://www.pps.org/article/rhester)
The Hester/McNally collection primarily consists of planning and project records, including a substantial amount of material
highlighting their evolutionary strategies for engaging communities during the course of designing a project. Archival materials
include site specific historical reference materials, correspondence with developers and government leaders, community engagement
materials (including correspondence, listening summaries and goal reports), and project records (including site evaluations,
sketches, master plans, and clippings). Important projects in the collection include the Bay Area Ridge Trail, Runyon Canyon,
Mulholland Gateway Park, and the Los Angeles River.
The Hester/McNally collection is divided into three Series: Professional Papers, Faculty Papers, and Project Records. Professional
Papers series contains materials related to their work as Community Development By Design with local Bay Area non-profit entities
on such projects as the Bay Area Ridge Trail and the book Blueprint for a Sustainable Bay Area. This series also contains
numerous research reports, located in boxes 4-6.
The Faculty papers series contains materials associated with their teaching activities, including syllabi, class agendas,
field work, and student work (some of which is restricted). The majority of the series consists of their work with SAVE International
for protecting the habitat of the black-faced Spoonbill in Taiwan.
The Project Records series consists of both project files and drawings for multiple large and small scale planning and landscape
projects. Some of the projects also contain materials pertaining to classroom projects-- there is a large amount of overlap
in some of the projects between classroom projects and Community Development by Design projects.