In the fall of 2013, Brenten Lovato contacted me about teaching an urban design studio at SF State. He already had contacts among the campus planning and sustainability offices of the campus, and they were already considering a redesign of the south edge of the campus along Holloway Avenue. I like the idea of running a studio where the client and site are already identified; and I knew that students wanted to learn physical planning skills. However, I was already scheduled to teach four courses for the spring, and there was no budget for a new, radically different course that does not match anything in the Course Catalog.
The students went ahead and organized. I agreed to supervise them as an independent study group. They developed the syllabus, found a meeting place, taught each other ReVit CAD software, and then organized into design teams to tackle a complex urban design problem: the redesign of the entry area, the area of the new M-Line Muni station, and Holloway Avenue and its adjacent blocks west to Arellano, at the west end of the Library.
Hector Fernando Burga shared the load with me, reviewing the presentations of the students and giving detailed feedback as guidance. But the students themselves get full credit for running a very difficult course. They are, in alphabetical order:
| Kimberly Alas | Project Manager, Partial Closure Alternative |
| Justin Balenzuela | Landscape Designer, Partial Closure Alternative |
| Jaime Cardenas | Project Manager, Complete Closure Alternative |
| Zachary Fahrney | Urban Designer, Complete Closure Alternative |
| Cody Hicks | Senior Planner |
| Irene Yuk Hay Ho | Landscape Designer, Complete Closure Alternative |
| Dong Ki Lee | Urban Designer, Partial Closure Alternative |
| Natalie Lewis | Landscape Designer, Partial Closure Alternative |
| Brenten Lovato | Senior Urban Designer |
| Haley Meisenholder | Environmental Consultant, Partial Closure Alternative |
| Brandon Northart | Environmental Consultant, Complete Closure Alternative |
| Henry Pan | Senior Landscape Designer |
| Marcia Yuriar | Landscape Designer, Complete Closure Alternative |