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.

---

From Coast to Canyon: McCullough Is Now Licensed in Arizona

Every landscape tells a story. Arizona's is written in red rock, monsoon skies, and the quiet resilience of the Sonoran Desert. Now McCullough gets to help write the next chapter.

We're proud to share that McCullough is officially licensed to practice in Arizona, thanks to our founder and Principal Landscape Architect, David McCullough. Arizona joins California, Nevada, and Hawaii, bringing our practice to four states across the West.

For 27 years, we've been curious dreamers merging the human spirit and nature, one place at a time. The desert speaks our language. It asks for empathy for the people who gather in its shade, respect for every drop of water, and design rooted in context rather than imposed on it.

Since founding McCullough in 1999, David has shaped parks, campuses, arts districts, and housing communities that bring people together outdoors. Carrying that mindful practice into Arizona means new narratives to uncover, new communities to listen to, and new places to create with creative passion and care.

To our friends, partners, and future clients in Arizona: we can't wait to explore, collaborate, and design alongside you. Let's start the conversation.

Congratulations, David. Here's to the next horizon!

---

McCullough’s Laura Razo to Speak at LOS ANGELES CRE State of the Market Conference

We are excited to announce that Laura Razo, MLA, ASLA, Senior Associate in our Los Angeles office, will be attending and speaking at the Los Angeles CRE State of the Market Conference on October 14, 2026, in Sherman Oaks, CA.

The conference will bring together leaders across Los Angeles’ commercial real estate industry to analyze market trends, identify investment opportunities, and explore innovation and strategies for positioning LA for its next development cycle.

Laura will participate in the panel “Placemaking and Mixed-Use Communities: Urban Revitalization & Designing the Future of LA Neighborhoods,” alongside leaders from across LA’s commercial real estate development industry:

• Eric Johnson, President of Jerico Development & Senior Project Executive of West Harbor

• Bryan Crane, CIO & Managing Partner of Carmel Partners, Inc.

• Steve Plenge, Managing Principal of Pacific Retail Capital Partners

• Spencer Schlee, Managing Director and Head of Opportunistic Equity at Canyon Partners Real Estate

• Michael Kostecka, Partner at Allen Matkins (Moderator)

We are proud of Laura for this opportunity to share her perspective and expertise on the future of Los Angeles neighborhoods. We look forward to hearing the insights and ideas that emerge from this conversation. We hope to see you there!

---

Designing the First Five Feet

How San Diego’s Zone 0 Requirements Are Reshaping Landscape Architecture

Written By
Adam Crowell, ASLA
Associate

Five feet does not sound like much.

On a large site, it may barely register. But on a dense infill project, podium courtyard, or residential site, five feet can represent a significant portion of the outdoor space available for planting, circulation, seating, stormwater infrastructure, and amenities.

Now imagine drawing a five-foot-wide band around every applicable building wall, and then reconsidering what can occur inside it. That is one of the challenges created by the City of San Diego’s new Zone 0 requirements. Intended to reduce the vulnerability of structures to wind-driven embers during wildfires, Zone 0 establishes an ember-resistant area within the first five feet of a structure. San Diego Fire-Rescue identifies combustible vegetation and materials immediately adjacent to buildings as an ignition risk. For landscape architects, however, Zone 0 is more than a restriction on foundation planting. It creates a new spatial layer that overlaps with existing requirements for landscaping, common open space, trees, accessibility, stormwater, screening, irrigation, utilities, and outdoor amenities.

How do we create meaningful outdoor environments when the same limited space is expected to be planted, usable, accessible, water-conscious, and ember resistant?

What Is Zone 0?

Within the City of San Diego, Zone 0 generally extends five feet horizontally from the exterior wall of a structure. For purposes of San Diego Fire-Rescue Standard D-2, the measurement can also extend from attached decks, stairs, and pergolas, including self-supporting versions located within one foot of the occupied structure. Noncombustible patios are treated differently under the standard.

The current requirements apply to new structures and additions in the City’s Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones that have applied for a building permit on or after February 28, 2026. Additions that increase a building’s footprint by more than 50 percent must establish Zone 0 compliance for the entire structure; smaller additions follow the guidance applicable to existing portions of the structure. The City states that existing structures are expected to comply beginning February 28, 2027.

It is important to note that this article focuses on the City of San Diego’s implementation of Zone 0. Other jurisdictions and fire districts within San Diego County implement state requirements differently. The statewide regulatory picture is also continuing to develop. As of August 13, 2026, the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection continues to consider statewide Zone 0 regulations. Project teams should confirm the latest state and local requirements before relying on any specific implementation date or technical provision.

Zone 0 Does Not Necessarily Mean Zero Plants

One of the easiest misconceptions about Zone 0 is that the first five feet must be completely devoid of vegetation. San Diego’s standard is more nuanced.

Combustible mulch and wood chips are prohibited, vegetation must be fire-smart and permanently irrigated, and plants cannot be located within two feet of windows, vents, doors, or other building openings. But limited planting is still possible. Nonwoody groundcovers less than three inches tall are permitted, while small areas of nonwoody herbaceous planting up to 18 inches tall may be allowed when they meet prescribed area and separation requirements. Small plants may also be used in movable, noncombustible pots under specific size, height, and spacing limitations. Podium projects receive an additional consideration: large potted plants may be permitted on exterior podium levels when maintained at prescribed distances from adjacent exterior walls and building openings.

Trees introduce another layer of complexity. New trees must maintain horizontal separation from adjacent trees and must be located and maintained so their mature drip lines remain away from combustible structures. Exceptions exist for certain noncombustible Type I, II, and IV structures and, under defined conditions, for approved street trees. That exception is particularly important for design teams. Whether a tree works in a courtyard may depend not only on its species and mature canopy, but on the building’s construction classification and the location of nearby openings. A landscape decision can therefore depend on architectural information much earlier than it traditionally has.

Zone 0 also affects the material and furnishing palette. New fences and gates within the zone must use noncombustible materials such as steel, aluminum, concrete, or masonry, while fire-retardant-treated wood is limited to specific conditions. Suddenly, what began as a vegetation-management requirement is influencing privacy screens, trellises, gates, fences, shade structures, and the overall architectural character of an outdoor space.

When Five Feet Collides with the Rest of the Code

For landscape architects, the challenge with Zone 0 is not simply determining what is allowed within the first five feet of a building. The greater challenge is that those same five feet may already be expected to satisfy several other site and landscape requirements.

San Diego’s landscape regulations require many developments to provide minimum planting areas, achieve required plant points, incorporate trees, and create usable common open space. At the same time, projects must accommodate accessible circulation, stormwater infrastructure, utilities, building access, screening, irrigation, and other site-specific constraints. Zone 0 adds another layer to that already crowded framework.

For development with five or more dwelling units, Section 142.0405 provides several methods for satisfying remaining-yard and common-open-space landscaping requirements. One method requires planting within at least 30 percent of the area located within a ten-foot offset from the structural envelope. Another allows common open spaces such as plazas, paseos, and courtyards to provide planting within 20 percent of each common-open-space area, together with the applicable plant-point requirements.

Zone 0 creates a direct spatial relationship with these standards. Half of the ten-foot structural offset falls within the five-foot ember-resistant zone, where the type, height, spacing, and location of vegetation are substantially more restricted. The requirements are not necessarily incompatible, but satisfying both can become more difficult, particularly on compact sites where there is little flexibility to relocate required planting.

Tree requirements introduce a similar challenge. San Diego’s landscape regulations generally require at least half of the required planting points to be achieved with trees. Zone 0, meanwhile, establishes limitations on the proximity of new tree canopies to combustible structures and adjacent tree crowns. On dense infill projects, viable locations for required trees may therefore become limited precisely where canopy, shade, and visual relief are most valuable.

San Diego State University - Topaz Student Housing

The effects extend beyond planting. Areas immediately adjacent to a building often serve multiple purposes: pedestrian circulation, accessible routes, building entrances, drainage, utility access, outdoor seating, privacy screening, or transitions between indoor and outdoor spaces. Traditional landscape responses—such as planting against blank walls, vine-covered trellises, wood fencing, or dense screening—may no longer be appropriate within Zone 0. This is what makes the new requirement significant from a design standpoint. Zone 0 does not replace the landscape, open-space, accessibility, or stormwater standards already governing a project. It must be layered on top of them.

The result is less a single code conflict than a spatial coordination exercise. Every requirement may be reasonable on its own, but when several of them occupy the same limited portion of a site, the landscape architect must determine how that space can perform multiple functions without compromising fire safety, usability, or the overall quality of the outdoor environment.

Podium Courtyards: Where the Conflict Becomes Visible

Parco - National City

Podium courtyards may be one of the clearest examples of Zone 0’s design impact because their boundaries are fixed. A courtyard cannot simply expand outward to make room for another setback. Planters already compete with structural loading limitations, waterproofing, drainage, irrigation, accessible routes, building openings, and required amenity areas. Zone 0 adds another geometry to that puzzle.

Doors, windows, and vents create additional planting constraints. Attached stairs and pergolas may shift where the five-foot measurement begins. Large pots need appropriate setbacks. Tree placement may depend on the building’s construction type. Meanwhile, landscape planting percentages and plant-point requirements may still apply. For project teams, this means Zone 0 cannot wait until construction documents. By then, the courtyard dimensions, architectural openings, structure, waterproofing, and amenity program may already be fixed.

The five-foot line should instead appear during concept design alongside accessible routes, planting calculations, stormwater areas, utilities, tree locations, outdoor kitchens, lounges, fences, gates, and shade structures.

For example, McCullough is currently working with the architecture firm JWDA on a project located within the City’s “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone”, where a courtyard is intended, in part, to satisfy common open space planting requirements. Applying Zone 0 to that space has required the design team to look beyond whether the courtyard simply meets dimensional and planting standards. The more important question is how the space continues to function once fire-resistance requirements are layered into the design. In this case, the location of planting, shade, furnishings, and other landscape elements must be reconsidered together so the courtyard remains both code-compliant and successful as a usable outdoor space.

Designing the Five-Foot Band Rather Than Leaving It Empty

The Gardens Casino - Hawaiian Gardens

The most successful response to Zone 0 may be to stop thinking of it as leftover space.

A five-foot building apron can become an intentional element of the landscape through concrete, unit pavers, porcelain paving, stone, appropriate gravel in noncirculation areas, drainage bands, accessible circulation, or noncombustible seat walls and architectural edges. Changes in paving pattern, scale, texture, or jointing can visually integrate the zone into the broader landscape without disguising its fire-protection function.

At the same time, substantial planting can be consolidated beyond Zone 0 rather than distributed as narrow foundation planting along every building wall. Larger planting masses can create central courtyard gardens, planted islands, groves, and more generous soil volumes. This may result in less vegetation immediately against the architecture but a stronger landscape overall.

Where appropriate, permitted low planting can soften the transition between hardscape and the primary landscape. The goal does not need to be filling every technically available square foot with vegetation. A few carefully located planting pockets may be more effective than forcing planting into every available gap.

San Diego Municipal Code also contains existing flexibility that may become increasingly useful. Section 142.0405 allows excess plant points to reduce required planting area in certain circumstances, subject to limits. Its application should be confirmed with the project reviewer, but it illustrates an important point: solving new-code conflicts may require a deeper understanding of flexibility already embedded elsewhere in the code.

A More Integrated Design Process

Zone 0 ultimately changes more than planting plans. It changes coordination.

Landscape architects may need information about construction classification, building openings, vents, eaves, attached structures, and Wildland-Urban Interface compliance much earlier in design. Architects may need to understand how small shifts in a door, wall, or pergola affect planting and tree opportunities outside. But that conversation should extend beyond the arrangement of the building to how the building itself is constructed.

For architects and developers, fire resilience can also mean reconsidering material choices and construction systems, particularly in areas with elevated wildfire risk. Many projects continue to rely heavily on combustible wood-framed construction, while more fire-resistive or noncombustible assemblies may provide opportunities to reduce vulnerability at the building itself. Zone 0 addresses the conditions immediately surrounding a structure, but it is only one part of the solution. A more comprehensive approach considers the landscape, the building envelope, construction type, exterior materials, openings, and other architectural decisions together rather than relying on the first five feet of the site to carry the full burden of fire protection.

Civil engineers may need to coordinate stormwater facilities with ember-resistant areas. Property managers must understand that permanent irrigation, pruning, plant height, separation, and removal of dead material become part of maintaining compliance over time. Fire resilience therefore becomes a shared responsibility across disciplines and throughout the life of the project.

When two requirements appear to compete for the same space, the best solution may be to diagram the overlap early and discuss it with Development Services and Fire-Rescue rather than waiting for plan check to expose the problem.

Draw the five-foot line. Overlay the required planting. Add the building openings. Add the accessible route. Add the stormwater system, utilities, trees, amenities, and shade.

The conflicts become much easier to solve when they are visible.

The First Five Feet as a Design Opportunity

Zone 0 will undoubtedly make some San Diego projects more difficult to design. Traditional foundation planting may disappear in certain locations. Trees may need to move. Wood screens and trellises may give way to new material palettes. Small courtyards may require a more deliberate balance between planting, hardscape, shade, circulation, and usable space. But difficulty does not have to mean diminished design.

In many ways, Zone 0 asks designers to reconsider habits that have become automatic. Instead of placing planting against every building edge, we may create stronger and more intentional planting zones. Instead of relying on wood screens, fences, and trellises, we may explore new materials and architectural expressions.

Instead of treating the landscape as something that fills the space left over after the building is designed, we may be pushed toward earlier and more meaningful coordination between architecture, landscape architecture, fire protection, civil engineering, and development.

That shift can ultimately make projects better. Constraints often force designers to be more deliberate about what a space is doing and why. The first five feet can become circulation, a building apron, a drainage zone, a seating edge, an extension of the architecture, or simply intentional negative space that allows the planting beyond it to feel more substantial. Trees and larger planting areas may become more concentrated, but they can also receive better soil volumes, stronger spatial relationships, and greater visual importance. The result does not have to feel like a landscape with something taken away. It can feel like a landscape that has been edited with greater purpose.

Zone 0 should also remind us that wildfire resilience cannot be solved by landscape regulations alone. The landscape, building envelope, construction type, exterior materials, openings, maintenance practices, and long-term management of a property all contribute to how a project responds to fire. The five-foot zone is one tool within a much larger design problem. The most resilient projects will be those in which every discipline takes responsibility for that problem rather than expecting one portion of the site to solve it.

For landscape architects, this is an opportunity to expand our role. We are being asked to understand fire behavior, construction systems, code relationships, maintenance, and building design more deeply, while still creating places that people want to inhabit. That is not a limitation of the profession; it is an evolution of it.

The first five feet may look different than they did before, but they do not have to be empty, sterile, or forgotten. If we approach Zone 0 as a design parameter rather than an obstacle, it can push us toward landscapes that are more coordinated, more intentional, and ultimately more resilient.

“Good design has always been about responding creatively to constraints. Zone 0 is simply a new one – and how we choose to work with it will shape the next generation of San Diego’s designers.”

Sources & Reference Documents

The following sources informed the rough draft. Confirm that each remains current before publication:

• San Diego Fire-Rescue Department — Standard D-2: Zone 0 Requirements for New Structures

• City of San Diego Municipal Code — Chapter 14, Article 2, Division 4: Landscape Regulations

• City of San Diego Municipal Code — Chapter 13, Article 1, Division 4: Residential Base Zones

• California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection — Defensible Space Zones 0, 1, and 2

Editorial note: This article reflects City of San Diego requirements and available state rulemaking information as of August 2026. Requirements, fire-hazard maps, agency interpretations, and statewide regulations may change. Project teams should confirm current requirements and obtain project-specific direction from the applicable reviewing agencies.

---