About Buzz Studio

Pollinators are small but mighty creatures. More than 85% of the world's flowering plants rely on bees, birds, butterflies, bats, and many kinds of insects to reproduce. In turn, people rely on them to pollinate one-third of the food crops that feed the world. Because of rapid urbanization, habitat loss and degradation, and widespread pesticide use in industrial agriculture, pollinators in many parts of the world are threatened. At the same time, pollinators can thrive in cities - transforming them into pollinator 'hotspots' if we take steps to accommodate and support them.

In Spring of 2022, the University of California's College of Environmental Design and its Department of City & Regional Planning partnered with the nonprofit organization Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, which manages this City of Oakland public park and mounts its many community programs. The 6-acre park, opened in 1996, is a major historical site in the city, occupied over time by the Ohlone people, a Spanish land grant holders, and after the Mexican Revolution, Californios. Through a graduate course - nicknamed 'Buzz Studio' - we sought to explore the ways in which Peralta Hacienda Historical Park and its mostly hardscaped neighborhood in the Fruitvale District might create more green space for both people and pollinators. The Buzz Studio asked the question: working with the park and its neighbors, how could a focus on pollinators and their habitat support a larger and more diverse population of pollinators while simultaneously making the park and its adjacent streets greener, cooler, and more walkable?

Buzz Studio students conducted research about the park, its neighborhood, and the larger Fruitvale District, to understand the context for planning to protect pollinators and increase neighborhood greenspace, and to offer possibilities for the future. This website presents the results of this research.

• Part I narrates key aspects of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park and Fruitvale District's social history and contemporary context; the multiple and cross-cutting equity and environmental justice issues that characterize the Fruitvale and park neighborhood; and the transformation of the area's ecology given the growth of Oakland. Part I also explores possibilities to enhance greenspace for people and pollinators, from expanding the park's existing pollinator-friendly plantings to identifying opportunities - large and small - for providing greenspace for both pollinators and people in the park's neighborhood.

• Part II offers ideas for the future, including the creation of 'Pollinator Districts' in the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park neighborhood and local schools; educational programs for middle school students on pollinator ecology and human impacts on pollinator biodiversity; community science programs for high school students, enabling them to monitor the park's pollinator populations; and prototype designs for a "Fruitvale Bart to Peralta Hacienda Historical Park Trail." This trail could introduce residents and visitors alike to the social histories and diverse cultures of the Fruitvale District; the social and environmental justice challenges faced by residents and the community organizations that work to address them; the District's historical ecology and in particular its pollinator ecology; and how - even in a dense city - communities can nurture native pollinators upon which we all depend.