Studio Chats: Rethinking the Future of Urbanism

---

What happens when the principles of good urbanism collide with economic realities, cultural values, and the way people actually live?

In this month’s Studio Chat, McCullough Studio Design Leader Benjamin Arcia sits down with urban designer Howard Blackson for a candid conversation about the future of San Diego and the evolving ideas shaping our cities. From the overlooked details that transform everyday urban experiences to the challenges of reimagining Balboa Park, their discussion questions conventional approaches to urban design and explores what it takes to create places that bring people together. As their conversation explores, sometimes the biggest questions in urbanism begin with the smallest details:

 “What is one small, seemingly insignificant thing that has an outsized impact on how you experience a city?”

Blackson shares his perspective on why designing for social and cultural value can lead to lasting economic benefits, how San Diego’s unique landscape could become an asset for urban connectivity, and why the future of our cities may look different than we imagine. Their conversation offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between the built environment, the natural world, and the communities that inhabit them.

What could San Diego become if we rethought the way we connect, build, and invest in our city?  

Listen to the full Studio Chat below to hear Benjamin and Howard explore this question and more.

Let It Grow Wild: David McCullough Talks Native Plants With ICSC

Shopping centers are not usually where you expect to find wildflowers, dormant grasses, and monarch butterflies. That is starting to change, and we are glad to be part of it.

David McCullough, ASLA, PLA, Principal Landscape Architect, was recently featured in ICSC's Commerce + Communities Today in "Retail Landlords Rewild Their Landscapes With Native Plants" by Joel Groover. The article looks at how retail owners across the country are trading clipped hedges and imported ornamentals for plants that actually belong to the place.

David shared our approach to The Trails at Westfield Galleria at Roseville, where we are working with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and RDC to turn an outdated outdoor district into a park-like destination. Think oaks, sages, sycamores, native grasses, and locally sourced boulders, all meant to feel like the Northern California landscape just beyond the parking lot. The Campus on Villa La Jolla, at the front door of UC San Diego, gets a mention too.

He also makes the case for a little wildness. Leave the grasses standing when they go dormant. Let the seasons show. Give people a reason to feel like they have stepped into a different world when they walk outside. As David says of planting milkweed at home and watching the monarchs arrive the same day, "It's crazy how well it actually works."

For us, this is what designing with grit, soul, and style looks like: landscapes rooted in their context that use less water, support local wildlife, and give people a real connection to nature.

Thank you to Joel Groover and ICSC for including us in the conversation. Read the full article here.

---

See You in Miami: McCullough Heads to the ULI Fall Meeting

Some of the best ideas in our work start in conversation. A developer describes a site that has everyone stumped. A planner shares what finally got a community on board. Someone across the table asks a question that changes how you see a project.

That is why David McCullough, ASLA, PLA, Principal Landscape Architect, and Catherine McCullough, President and CEO, are headed to Miami for the 2026 ULI Fall Meeting, October 26-28 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

ULI brings together every corner of the real estate and land use world: developers, investors, architects, planners, and public sector leaders. These are the people we collaborate with every day, and the people shaping the places where communities live, gather, and connect. For a practice rooted in empathy, community, and the human spirit engaged in nature, there is no better room to be in.

David and Catherine are going to listen as much as to share. They want to hear what is working in other cities, what challenges are keeping project teams up at night, and where landscape can do more to bring grit, soul, and style to the built environment.

If you will be in Miami, we would love to see you. Whether you are a longtime collaborator or someone we have not met yet, reach out to David or Catherine to grab a coffee, walk the neighborhood, or just say hello between sessions.

See you there!

---

Class Is in Session (Outside): Where Student Life Happens on Campus

A few weeks into the fall semester, campuses have found their rhythm. Schedules are set, the bookstore lines have thinned out, and students have claimed their favorite spots. Some of those spots are inside, but many of the moments that shape college life happen in the spaces between buildings. The walk to class. The courtyard where friends catch up. The shady bench where someone finally finishes that reading.

At McCullough, we see campus open space as the connective tissue of student life. These are the places where a new student starts to feel at home, where classes spill outdoors, and where a campus shows who it is. Over the years we've had the chance to shape these spaces at community colleges and universities across California, and each one reminds us that good campus design is about people first.

Here's a look at a few of them:

San Diego State University: A Campus Growing Its Canopy

San Diego State University (SDSU) has been on a mission to rethink its campus landscape since 2015, and McCullough has been proud to be part of that work. Centennial Mall captures the spirit of the effort: replace turf that nobody was using with shade, planting, and places to actually gather. Campus-wide, the result has been hundreds of new trees and thousands of square feet of lawn reimagined as social space, along with a more cohesive landscape identity that feels distinctly SDSU and distinctly Southern California.

It's the kind of change you feel on a hot September afternoon, when a shaded seat between classes makes all the difference. Our work at SDSU extends across campus, including Olmeca/Maya Hall and East Campus Drive, to the Don Powell Theatre and Second Stage. We've also completed two Arts District Master Plans for SDSU, one for the Main Campus and one for the new West Campus, each adding to a landscape that supports how students live and move day to day.

Mesa College: A Hub for Connection

Mesa College Commons Cafe & Bookstore

When San Diego Mesa College set out to encourage more social engagement among its diverse student body, the answer was a central campus hub. The Mesa College Commons, home to a café and bookstore, is framed by two courtyards: one for outdoor dining and one designed as a calm, safe place for students waiting on a ride or passing time before their next class.

Sustainability runs through the whole project. Native, drought-tolerant plantings fill the gardens, a rooftop kitchen garden with a cistern supports the college's culinary program, and the remaining landscape is irrigated with condensate water from the building's cooling systems, a first for a San Diego community college campus. The project was recognized with a ULI San Diego-Tijuana Healthy Places award.

Across campus, the Center for Business & Technology takes its cues from nearby Tecolote Canyon. The building's two wings open onto a courtyard that doubles as an open-air classroom, with large stone slabs arranged for group seating. A garden walkway even serves as a runway for student fashion shows, proof that the best campus spaces make room for the unexpected.

Looking ahead, McCullough is currently at work on Mesa College's new Performing Arts and Administration Center. Set into the hillside on the north side of campus, the five-story building will create a new, more welcoming gateway to the heart of campus. With a main stage for theater, music, and dance, and upper levels that open onto an active plaza, it will be a new front door for the college and a new stage for campus life, inside and out.

San Diego Community College District: Designing for Every Student

Educational Cultural Complex

Mesa College is one piece of a much larger relationship. McCullough has worked with the San Diego Community College District on projects across its campuses, including the Educational Cultural Complex, SDCCD Student Housing, and the San Diego City College Career Technology Center. Community college students juggle work, family, and school, and outdoor spaces that feel welcoming and easy to use matter even more when time on campus is limited.

Our current work at San Diego Miramar College shows just how broad campus life can be. The new Early Education Center will replace the college's existing Child Development Center, serving infants, toddlers, and preschoolers from both Miramar College families and the surrounding community. Interactive play areas and outdoor exploration zones are central to the design, along with a secure drop-off area and stronger connections between the north and south ends of campus. For student parents, a great early learning center steps from class can make all the difference.

Cerritos College: Falcon Square Takes Shape

Currently in progress, Falcon Square at Cerritos College is transforming an underused space at the center of campus into a true heart of student life. The plan brings together flexible event areas, clear walking routes, stormwater strategies built into the landscape, and much-needed shaded seating, supporting everything from large campus gatherings to everyday hangouts.

The design grew out of real conversations. Through five rounds of stakeholder presentations, four early concepts were refined into a single vision shaped by students, faculty, and staff. With limited room for large canopy trees and a modest budget, the team got creative, using integrated shade structures and layered planting to keep the square comfortable and inviting. We can't wait to see it filled with students.

Mt. San Antonio College: A New Front Porch for Learning

At Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, a new Library Learning Resource Center is on the way, replacing a library that has served students since the 1960s. Working alongside HPI Architecture, McCullough is shaping the landscape around it to be as much a destination as the building itself.

The site comes with dramatic changes in grade, so a big part of the design is about connection: turning the climb from the lower parking area to the library into a grand, accessible arrival that feels welcoming rather than daunting. Along the way, active corners like an "artist corner" give students places to pause, gather, and see each other, while outdoor reading areas bring study time into the fresh air. It's a reminder that a library isn't just about what's on the shelves. It's about giving students a place to belong.

Room to Grow

Whether it's a quad, a courtyard, or a quiet corner by the café, campus open space does a lot of work. It helps students find their people, gives them room to breathe, and connects them to the place they'll call home for the next few years.

That's what drives our work: design rooted in empathy, community, and the human spirit engaged in nature.

Here's to a great semester!

---

Rethinking Downtown San Diego Beyond the 9 to 5

David McCullough, ASLA, PLA
Principal Landscape Architect

If it’s been a while since you’ve spent time in Downtown San Diego, you may picture empty storefronts, vacant office spaces, and the concerns about safety that have shaped the conversation around the area in recent years. But in a recent article for Commercial Observer, McCullough principal landscape architect David McCullough looks beyond these challenges to consider what’s already underway, and what Downtown could become next.

David points to a growing momentum fueled by a diverse group of stakeholders, including businesses, residents, visitors, universities, cultural institutions, philanthropic organizations, and new investment. Individually, these efforts may not transform Downtown, but together, they can begin to change how people experience and interact with the city.

“Downtown increasingly feels like it has reached a turning point. The question isn’t whether it will recover, but how it will recover, and what progress is already underway.”

Investments in cleanliness, safety, and public amenities are helping create the conditions for a more active and welcoming Downtown. New and improved public spaces, including East Village Green and Horton Plaza Park, have the potential to give people more reasons to gather, linger, and return.

For David, the details of these spaces matter. Thoughtfully designed public environments can help shape how people experience a neighborhood and create opportunities for people from different backgrounds and communities to intersect.

Downtown’s office vacancy also presents an opportunity to reconsider how existing buildings and properties can serve an evolving population. With a dense residential community and public transit connections within walking distance of restaurants, workplaces, entertainment, and cultural amenities, Downtown has many of the ingredients needed to support a more diverse and active urban environment.

Rather than being defined by the traditional rhythm of the work week, Downtown San Diego has an opportunity to become a place that serves people with different schedules, interests, and reasons for being there.

Downtown San Diego is not finished. It is continuing to evolve. With thoughtful investment and design, it has the opportunity to become something that works for more people, more of the time.

---