Achva Stein

Achva Benzinberg Stein is a professional landscape designer, professor emerita, and former department chair at City College of New York, North Carolina State University, the University of Southern California, and senior lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley.
 

She designs open spaces, parks, public facilities, schools, and university campuses.  She has also engaged in private sector designs for commercial developments, multi-family housing, business centers, and urban development.

In addition, she has focused on the restoration and revitalization of derelict lands resulting from such resource activities as mining, waste disposal, landfills, and abandoned urban developments. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a Distinguished Alumna of the University of California College of Environmental Design.  She has taught and worked as a practicing professional in the US, Israel, Europe, India, and China.  Her projects with neighborhood groups, non-profit organizations, public housing authorities, and government agencies have focused on meeting social needs while seeking to heal the damage resulting from poorly managed urban development. Professor Stein was honored with the Community Service Award of the American Society of Landscape Architects in recognition of her lifelong service to low-income communities. She has also received many awards for her outstanding community service and teaching.  She has also twice received Fulbright Fellowships, once to India and once to Germany.

Among her publications are the book Morocco: Courtyards and Gardens, published by Monacelli Press, the article On Sacred Trees and Historical Sites, published by the World Bank in Historic Cities and Sacred Sites/Cultural Roots; and “Winter Dream” in The Next Jerusalem, edited by Michael Sorkin published by Monacelli Press.

Professor Stein is the designer of the Moroccan Courtyard, a permanent installation at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and has also designed several structures, including  “Windows of Opportunities” that was part of the Nature Constructed/Nature Revealed exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, “Subjects and Objects” for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and “Uhuru Garden” for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and which later toured both the US and Canada.